Dan South

Lamborghini cruising NYC to a U2 soundtrack:

Wow! This thread's almost five years old! And some of the rascals who contributed are STILL HERE! KEWL!!

Thinking back on it, there were some women who said some pretty amazing things to me, but they did it in the language of glances and dance moves. The most outrageous things that I ever heard on stage came out of the mouths of my bandmates. Those are stories for another thread.

Whoa! Your left hand looks like a spider up there! You play bass like John Entwistle! --- Me: Who's that brunette that you came in with? Blonde girl: Oh, she has a boyfriend. Sorry! Me: Okay. (Two minutes later) Blonde girl (runs up to the stage): She wants to go out with you! Me: Okay. --- There was this senile old guy who would always hang out at this one bar on Friday nights - somebody seemed to know that his name was George. He couldn't really speak (it was just mumbled gibberish) but he was really enthusiastic and always had a big smile on his face. He'd come up to me, stand right beside me and say in a loud, beer-breath voice: Muwuwururuwuwurumuruwururuwuruh! And then he'd say: G chord! G chord! Sometimes he'd reach out and grab the neck of my bass between songs and make this loud, hideous noise. After a while, I figured out that George was asking us to play a song that he liked, but we could never understand what he was saying well enough to guess the title. No matter what we'd play next, he'd get all excited, beam ear to ear, and play air guitar along with the band. Those were the good old days!

December 7th, a thread that will live in infamy!

I don't think I'd go as far to call it TAB. Just a chord sheet with the rhythms marked.

I was never real keen on his original idea. It sounds like a bad Kevin Costner movie.

My recital is saved! Thank you, oh great taloned one!

Help! I have a recital in two days! I need keyboard tab for the Well-tempered Clavier, Rachmaninoff's piano concertos, Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, and the complete works of Frederic Chopin. Must be 100% accurate and easy to read (and play). Thanks!

There's no such thing as "keyboard tab." It's called sheet music (i.e. notes on a staff written in standard musical notation) and you can't learn to read it in two days. For future reference, contact The Colony music store in Manhattan (49th and Broadway) for sheet music. If they don't have it, they can probably order it. If I were you, I'd shut off the computer, turn on your keyboard, and play along with the CD until you work out the parts. It may take you all night, so don't delay.

Vlad, I'm flattered that you would want my opinion. Intersections is an amazing composition. I liked the way that it moves from section to section smoothly and the counterpoint between the bass and violins in some sections. The rhythmic pizzicatto section has an Asian feel to it; very interesting. Compositionally this is WAY more involved and complex than anything that I've written, so I can't offer any more than a big thumbs up, there. I have a couple of small suggestions. You said that you plan to have this played with real string players. If so, these comments really have no merit. But if you'd like to make your synth version sound just a little more realistic, these ideas may help. Comment 1: The only sound that I found distracting was the solo viola. A nicer sample would help. All of the other instruments and sections sounded fine in terms of timbre. Comment 2: In the very beginning, the chords could be made to lead more smoothly from one to the other. This may be a result of the attack characteristics of the string program that you used. You may have to vary that in real time. A simpler solution might be to edit the velocity values of each note and perhaps stretch the lengths of the individual notes out so that they don't all end together. It sounds a bit too much like someone played those chords on a keyboard. Use dynamics, too. Make one chord softer or louder than the previous one to add a bit of "human factor." Interestingly, the chords at the end of the piece don't exhibit this problem. They sound very natural and smoothly played. Excellent piece! When you have it played by the live players, please share a copy with us. I'll be looking forward to it!!!

Thanks, Vlad. Just me and my trusty Ti G4. I have to do SOMETHING to pass the time on my morning commute.

Anybody have a chance to listen to this yet? I'd like comments on the mix if you can spare five minutes. Thanks in advance!!!

Why don't you just put some MP3's on artistlaunch, broadjam, javamusic, or one of the other free sites? My email is limited to file sizes of a meg or smaller. A typical MP3 song is three to five megs.

I just posted a new piece that may be of interest to synth fans. Fugue in D (Moog Fugue) As always, your comments and suggestions would be sincerely appreciated. Thanks, Dan www.mp3.com/DanSouth

Are you related to Floyd? Sorry, couldn't think of a good question.

Casey - thanks much for the excellent Yamaha synth primer. Bob - good luck! Casey's instructions should have you sequencing like a maniac in no time. I have an idea. Let's all buy a beer and pretend that it's from each other! Effectively, it works out the same, right?

Bob, I think you're knocking yourself out with extra work if you go the splits/zones route. That's only for live playing when you need to control multiple sounds simultaneously from the keyboard. I'm sure that the CS6x has a "multi" or "performance" mode where multiple MIDI channels are active at the same time. THIS is the mode you want for sequencing. - I'll bet you a Heineken that the CS works this way. Can any Yamaha guys out there confirm this? - This is definitely the way to go for sequencing. Your CS6x manual should have a diagram of an example multitimbral setup.

Bob, I'm not sure I understand what's giving you difficulty. First, set up your sequencer with different "instruments" that correspond to midi channels on your CS6x, for example Piano, USB1, Ch 1 Bass, USB1, Ch 2 Guitar, USB1, Ch 3 Drums, USB1, Ch 10 Next, on the CS6x, assign a piano patch to channel 1, a bass to channel 2, etc. Now, in Logic's Arrange window, select the track that say Piano ( or create a track and assign it to the Piano object ). Now when you play the keyboard, you'll hear the piano sound. You can record piano parts, too. Similarly, when you select each successive instrument in the Arrange window, you'll hear it play back and you can record it's parts. The beauty is that all of the parts will play back together. One of the example files that I sent you is set up this way. It should give you some ideas as to what is possible with this kind of setup.

The actual quote is "People who get stoned on grass shouldn't throw houses." Make a note of it.

Hey Kim! I finally had a chance to check out your MP3's. Very nice, relaxed stuff. I envision you as a very stress-free person. My favorite was Sista Breeze. I was wondering if you'd ever considered doing a mix of this song with a real drummer or with some nice acoustic drum loops. The electronic drums are nice, but I think that real drums would make this piece totally kick ass. I could imagine hearing it on one of those cool jazz stations. What program are you using for your sequencing?

That's nice, Dave, but I think some of us would be more comfortable emailing you at dave@sonicULTIMATEreality.com ...inside joke...

Scott, you're most welcome, and welcome aboard!!! Thanks for the compliments on the music and the photos; I'm amazed that anyone can actually SEE those little tiny things. Wow! You did that piece in only eight hours! That would have taken me weeks! The "lead" guitar on Night Drive was a stock Triton patch. No mods whatsoever. Unfortunately, as I EQ'd the mix to cut out come midrange, I ended up making the guitar sound thinner than it did originally. I was working under a deadline, so I didn't have time to go back and fix it. I had originally prototyped this piece (years ago) using the "ZZ Lead" patch on a Wavestation. I dusted off the Wavestation recently but decided that the Triton sounded a lot better. The guitar mutes are from the Triton and a JV-1080 (one track each). Thanks for your comments on the drums on Rain Dance. It's not a loop, it's all programmed in MIDI. Drums were (again) from the Triton except for the toms and crash cymbals at the very end, which were played on a K2500R loaded with sounds from Sweetwater's Total Stereo Session Drums. I think I used the Funk Kit, but I'm not completely sure. That's one of the best sample CD's that I've ever owned, and one of the few that's not collecting dust up here. Thanks again for your feedback. I look forward to checking out more of your tunes. I'm not set up for streaming, so I'll have to rely on your MP3's. Good luck!

Ah, the download finally finished! Very intricate tune, Scott. I love the drum programming. That must have taken some TIME! What did you use for programming and the samples? Was it a drum machine or a sampler and a sequencer? I also like the bass sound - nice growl! The marimba adds a nice propulsion to the arrangement and it syncs up perfectly with the drums. The horns sound very synthy, which is fine if that's the soudn that you were shooting for. Occasionally, they didn't seem to sustain long enough, but that's a taste issue. Functionally, they work great. The whole thing is nicely recorded. I'm curious to know what reverb you used. It sounds very clean throughout. Nice work!

Hi Scott, I tried to download the MP3, but the connection seems to time out. I'll try again later. Thanks for posting!!