all things SYNTH & KEYBOARD thread

[RAGER]

Late last night jam be fore bed time.

[eyeprod]

sounds good. Getting better. How many synths are you generally using these days? 3-4?

That last vid jib posted had some good playing in it. Nice and simple setup. Inspiring.

I've slowly been getting better at keys. Learned a couple of new scales, that helps me a lot. Digging pentatonic, of course. I learned that A pent is really easy and just uses white keys. The other trick I've been using lately but have overlooked at times is uptuning the synth (a 1/2 step I guess it is) so that the black keys are E pentatonic (D# becomes E). Makes it easy to play with a standard tuned guitar.

I've been jamming with this guitar player lately and we trade off on every instrument, but I've been playing mainly synth and samples, so it's been very hands on learning for me. We play along with drum loops or take turns on the kit. I highly recommend it. A third capable and like minded guy came over the other night and it got pretty cosmic. I posted some recordings in the other thread. shits been turning out sounding like space jazz fusion. pretty fun being able to jam synth in a band setting. You really get to try things out, see what works and how to change up the tones to a desired effect. The analog synths make it fun because there's no presets, just go for it. Still would be nice to have a couple of presets tho.

[RAGER]

On average yeah somewhere between 3-5 at any time.  Sometimes more.  A lot of good stuff goes into the void cuz I'm not always recording.  I'm always thinking shit I should have recorded that but........

My Prophet has presets.  So do the Sub37 and SE-1.  It is nice, especially the Sub37 cuz you can get a pretty good preset and then just tweak it to suit.  i thought I was gonna have this dude over last week but it didn't work out.  Maybe this weekend.  I'll try and record some synth arpeggios and some live drums this weekend.  it'll just be a phone recording but what evs.

[jibberish]

I've lost precious guitar work because I was too lazy to hit record or hook it up even.   idioto!!!!
once I really get going with the synth jams I hope I keep after it a little better.
the chances of creating something that you will never remember how to duplicate is huge with synths vs just a guitar.

I need to practice way more on keybpards. I used to be halfway decent.  but so many years of just focusing on guitar really set me back

eyeprod, you found some key stuff already(nyuk nyuk). the a natural minor that is all the white keys. that is truly a beautiful thing for jams where you just need to stay on the scale.
I always have better visual of what a scale or chord is when I can see all the notes at once on a keyboard. I think you will find that exploring theory on a keyboard is slick. probably because it was developed on a keyboard.  also by doing chord forms and staying in the key, you can easily see all th eallowable in-scale chords. like it's cheating heh.

and you found  the 5 black keys. that is a special scale.  African tunes AND amazing grace use that little scale also it sounds real Japanese just playing those 5.
find those 5 notes in your a minor white key scale and you have 5 go-to notes that almost always sound good.  

C major is all the white notes too. so those monkeys that are doing an a minor song can slide a c major bridge in there, change the whole feel of the song and yet, still obey the a minor scale boundaries. SWEEET!      relative minor scale is always 3 steps below the relative major scale and use all the same notes.

I still suggest bach's  prelude #1 from well tempered clavier as a 1st song.  it has a riff that repeats over the entire song, so you don't have to focus on rhythms and that shit. he just moves notes and keeps playing the same pattern.  you get to see the god of chord progressions lay one out in front of you as you play through it.  then you steal the fuck out of pieces parts of it. there are a million tutorials/sheet music and everything else examples of that song online.

playing it through a synth rules. learn it one chunk at a time and string the chunks together. he also show you how to use the 5 occidentals(the notes outside the scale) as he flows through th eprogression and ultimately uses every chord you ever heard of, all the creepy chords and several inversions of root chords to boot.  imo, this packs so much value for its simplicity.

[RAGER]

Have an opportunity to buy a Roland SH3. Like I really need it but its an interesting beast. Look it up on vintage synth explorer.

[RAGER]

Think I'm gonna pass on the SH3.  Too similar to the Brutes which I already have.  Looking into Juno6 or 106.

[RAGER]

Been listening to this guys demos for the past year or so.  I donl;t think I've posted his website though.  Lots of good stuff here.

http://www.syntezatory.net.pl/gallery.htm

[jibberish]

have to check that out.

I've been losing my taste for vintage stuff because the new stuff is awesome and cheap. the whole digital keep the analog sound in tune and control is great.
those brutes are a couple of the best sounding synths I have heard.

[RAGER]

Great site dude.  Lots of digi and hybrid stuff on there too.  Been checking out demos of Roland JP 8000 analog modeling synth.  I've looking for a poly synth with 49-61 keys.  They're fairly cheap and there's one available locally.

Think I'm gonna have somebody else do the Teensy/GliGli os  upgrade on my Phrophet 600.  Read what Olo has to say about that shit!  Soon.

[jibberish]

maybe that guy is right down the street from omlet. stranger co-inkydinks have happened.

omlet, where is this synth dude located relative to your location?  rager linked the dude's synth web page^^^

haha, he has a behringer virtualizer pro..mine died heh. fucking POS. there is the end of a DX-7 a few photos down.
he has some vintage for sure.

[RAGER]

Tonight I will be dropping off my Prophet 600 for the new processor install and new os.  I will get back basically a Prophet 5 crossed with an Oberheim.  So stoked.

I should have talked to him about doing the firmware update on my Moog.

[RAGER]

My new Drone Commander.  This thing is fun.

[jibberish]

that was pretty wild.  reverb is massive holy shit.

can I name your song?   "acid whales" is what I would call it

[eyeprod]

that is some massive reverb.

here's some synth stuff that I've been doing with the two dudes I'm playing music with. Pretty proggy and droned out fun. Starting to think of a name for it.

[cloudset]https://soundcloud.com/rtrippz/sets/9-29-14-improvisations-with[/cloudset]

fixed it. thanks

[jibberish]

cant see the track

edit: ok , works now. that was kind of an evolution. the last song became a song. tons of potential to develop this into songs. could be awesome. good shit maynerd!

you guys are like the "Quantum Riffters" now. or maybe you ARE.

[eyeprod]

thanks for listening.

yeah we've been listening back to recordings and figuring out which stuff can be loosely re-created. It's the evolutionary aspects that I like the best about it. That shit is too easily lost when you try to make "songs" out of improv jams, but we've been thinking about how to do it.

[RAGER]

https://voyag3r.bandcamp.com/album/doom-fortress

[tombhex]

That In the Land of the Giants track is out of control! Absolutely love this stuff, thank you so much for sharing!

[RAGER]

.

[eyeprod]

Thank you kindly, sir!

[RAGER]

Getting to know the new functions and panel controls of the Prophet 600.  Panel functions are completely different now. Gotta relearn this synth but holy balls does it sound bad ass now.


Yesterday we're having lunch at this new little bar downtown and I over hear a guy at the bar talking to the owner about the vintage Sansui receiver behind the bar so I chime in and the guy notices I'm wearing a Moog shirt and we're off to the races.  Pro full time working pianist/producer/studio hire/jingle guy, etc.........  Played synth rock in the early 80's and still has.............2 S.E.M.'s count them 2 and an OBXa...




















under a tarp in his basement that haven't been fired up in years...

I see one or all in my future.

[jibberish]

take a change of pants. is that all oberheim stuff? those s.e.m.'s? oberheim was hi end.  i'm not familiar with those.

googlesized it:
is that the original version of the oberheim sem that is in sweetwater's synth modules for $1200?

[RAGER]

That would be the ones.  Except no midi.  All CV.

Switched stuff around yet again.  The Synth Circle.

[jibberish]

yeah, the collection looks nice. 

out of all that stuff, is there any units that you feel you should not have gotten now that you have a pretty wide perspective of gear?

[RAGER]

To answer your question, I've only gotten rid of one thing and that was the Microkorg.  I found that I just didn't use it.  I'm not really all that impressed with the Electrix Mofx either.  But sometimes it just takes a while to figure out where and in what combination things work together.  I don;t always use the Micron but when I do I'm glad it's there.  It's got those big digital pads that are sometimes needed to fill in between the mono synths.  that and it does a bunch of other stuff too.  Speaking of super synths, I think my SuperNova is about to shit the bed for good this time.  It's getting very temperamental and unreliable.  Eh oh well it's pretty thick so I can use it as a cool looking riser

I'm still getting to re-know the Prophet 600.