CyberGene

I said I was exaggerating 😀

I think the discrepancies stem from this guy producing mainly EDM music and this forum being about old guys playing Hammond organ 😉 OK, OK, I am exaggerating but you get my point.

[offtopic] I don't know how silly that is, but what is silly is I'm not an Italian, yet I try to use/have/purchase as many Italian things as possible 😀🇮🇹 I guess I'm an Italian wannabe in some way, I love Italy so much! BTW, in a DNA test I'm reported as having 18% Italian (Cyber)Genes, so can't be fully accused of cultural appropriation. [/offtopic]

Found some interesting article on how Herbie and his Buddhist practices led to the Head Hunters: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/herbie-hancock-head-hunters-chameleon-live-981695/

Many years ago on Wikipedia I read that Herbie had just adopted Buddhism which contributed to him wanting to make music that has more humanistic values and would positively appeal to more people, in contrast to the elitist jazz he used to play prior to that. I'm not sure who wrote that and whether it was based on an opinion Herbie himself has expressed (regarding Buddhism), or maybe it was some guy's wishful thinking (anybody can edit on Wikipedia, as is well known). However that's not in the Wiki article anymore. Nevertheless, it has left an impression on me and I've always wanted to research Buddhism more, and check whether there can be any truth to that statement.

Are there any sounds in the Montage that are better than the existing audio/FX plugins? It's probably convenient to have everything from pianos, to strings and synths in a single plugin but I doubt a serious producer would sing hallelujah to that and abandon all these great and popular plugins that are each better than their counterpart in the Montage.

I started with Cakewalk for Windows 3.11 on an Intel 386 PC.

I’m a sucker for good harpsichord sounds. Most keyboards come with some laughable attempts at harpsichord, and even the ones that are well sampled, such as on the Yamaha pianos, exhibit way too short a release and create a machine gun effect on trills. We recently found a free harpsichord soundfont on my forum and converted it into SFZ format, so that it can be played in the free Sforzando player and I tweaked it further to solve the machine gun effect that was present in the SF and it’s my go to harpsichord now:

Switched from Cubase to Logic a few years ago. Never looked back.

Middle section aside, I have always hated it when Chamelon is called on jam sessions with the common section (Bbm7 - Eb7 chords) because I just can't improvise over one or two chords. I guess it shows right away that I am not good at improvisation 😕 I feel much more at home with more complex changes because I'm kind of good with theory, applying scales and outlines, reharmonization, hip voicing, bebop patterns, etc which makes it sound like I know what I'm doing (or maybe it's just me being delusional...) and so it manages to hide how much I suck at actual improvisation. It's just amazing that whenever I'm with other amateurs, they always call for Chameleon, simple blues or So What (I suck even more with modal... 😕) even though it's apparent how hopeless we all are. I've tried to analyze the above situation and I think there are basically two aspects of jazz improvisation: 1. Intuition, imagination, musicality 2. Theory, thinking, analysis There are people who are good with the first, they are intuitive improvisers (or generally they are musically gifted), they hear things well in their head, some of them are very successful in rock, pop, etc., however they are not very good with theory and you can see/hear that when they try playing (more complex) jazz. Then there are people who are very good with theory, they know their scales and stuff, some of them practice a lot and can combine mind boggling licks on top of complex changes but it all sounds way too artificial. And then there are the jazz giants we all know who are brilliant at both. (and of course there are people in between, some of them world-class jazz players but not trend setters) ---- Back to the two-chord stuff. I can see why one might not like the Rhodes solo in Chameleon, maybe they have a preference for more linearly built solos over more complex changes and that's OK. Given the particular challenge though (a funk piece with two chords, because the middle section is still two-chord driven), try to produce a convincing 5-minute solo that would create a cult. That's something only Herbie can do. And I'm biased again 😀

This is maybe irrelevant to your case but in the past I’ve had this problem of being a half-baked jazz keyboard player and as a result I couldn’t play with pro jazz players since I wasn’t up to their level at all. But the only guys I could find were some complete amateur jazz wannabes and I was almost always frustrated because it was a waste of time and after each rehearsal I would go home with a desire to never repeat. But it repeated. Also, similar to you, I have a good job as a software engineer and can afford expensive toys which I purchase with the justification I will use those for gigging 🤣 So, it (was) a vicious cycle. I sold out everything and dedicated completely to classical piano and found huge inspiration in trying to master a piece. Among non-classical musicians there’s this prejudice about how a classical musician is just a score player and how that’s boring. Not sure, but I discovered that even how you connect two notes is a universe in itself. And then making a cohesive whole of it to produce a convincing interpretation is extremely difficult. I challenged myself with learning pieces that are difficult and I realized I had a lot of deficiencies in my technique which I couldn’t just ignore. When playing improvisational music I could just limit myself to what I can do comfortably in terms of technique. With classical music you can’t run away but perfect what is weak. It was a very refreshing experience that have kept me busy for the last 10 years or so. It’s only recently that I started playing again with other people and immediately went back to the realization I’m either too overqualified or under-qualified for jazz music and the pool of players that I can play with 😀 🤦🏻‍♂️ And again I’ve been buying and selling gear on regular basis which is already becoming a disease for me… To work around all that, I currently play with my two best friends from the university completely for our own fun, while having a beer and good chat. What’s also interesting is I try to play music which I have never played or knew how to play such as electronica, dark-wave, etc and it feels like we’re all equally under-skilled and amateurish, so at least we’re all on the same page and there’s no frustration in anybody about being too ahead or behind the others. Not sure if it helps…

@Matthiola that's great, thanks, just started watching it. That's my favorite lineup (the one from their first album) with Scott Henderson and without Eric Marienthal. Don't get me wrong, I love Gambale and Marienthal too but there's just something pure about that first album and lineup, it's fusion at its peak to me.

I have imported my own rips of the Chick Corea Elektric Band in Apple Music, so I've been using that for a long time. In case you don't know: you can import some music in your Apple Music Library on, say, a desktop computer and then those files will also be available for streaming on all your devices. You can even delete the original files from the source library (through the app by choosing an option to remove the local downloads) and the cloud upload would still be available on all your devices without even counting towards your iCloud usage. It's a super useful function IMO. This discussion is about iTunes which I believe is the store where you purchase music and not stream it but I think the cloud stuff works in both places.

As someone else above mentioned, I also used to skip on the funk part (not just Chameleon, all other funk/pop output from Herbie). In particular, I would fast forward Chameleon to the Rhodes solo 😀 Nowadays I listen much less to jazz, mostly to my core favorite artists such as Herbie, Chick, Miles, and less frequently, so I occasionally run entire records, including the funk/crossover/disco stuff by Herbie and it’s OK, I’m not annoyed. Not too enamored either.

And here’s (IMO the second greatest Rhodes solo after Chameleon) the Butterfly solo: Starts at 4:30. Unfortunately no transcription online. It’s also my favorite Rhodes sound. I think there’s a “Butterfly Rhodes” preset in Scarbee that approaches it very well. I think there are many great Rhodes players that were influenced by Herbie’s Rhodes style of soloing. And he came up with it all by himself since I’m not aware of any Rhodes player around that time that sounded even remotely similar, many approached it like an acoustic piano. Absolute genius! But I’m biased 😉

The question is who is?! 🤮

That’s a nice demo, especially taking in mind the age of this instrument. I’m also impressed with the fact Dave was part of the Kurzweil team, as well as Mike Martin. I registered here long ago but started participating only in the last years, so I’ve missed who is who, apologies. Now, I know. Huge respect to you both 👏🏻 All that being said, I think it’s a bit generic sounding for my taste. I have created a thread here called “Virtual Vintage Analog” or something along these lines and my personal philosophy is more towards VA that try to emulate actual vintage analog synths with all their specifics, quirks, defects, idiosyncrasies, etc. Like, being able to hear a Moog, a Prophet, an OB, a Jupiter, etc. And not just something that has oscillators, filters, envelopes, LFO-s, etc. But maybe that Kurzweil has some emulations of existing vintage synth features? As a simple example I’ll just mention how changing the shape of the envelopes on my Hydrasynth to an exact logarithmic value (suggested by Glen Darcey himself) made it sound like a Minimoog (on top of the other things like a 24 dB ladder filter, etc). Of course the Hydrasynth isn’t a vintage VA but that simple example just made me realize how each vintage synth has a bunch of very specific parameters that make it what is. Was that Kurzweil designed to allow such a fine-grained configuration of the various features?

I don't think so. The main theme is Bbm7 - Eb7, however the Rhodes solo replaces the Eb7 with Db7sus (with a few exceptions here and there).

The Chameleon Rhodes solo is the best Rhodes solo ever ❤️ In case you care, the transcription author has messed up the chords: Note: Every D7sus should say Db7sus

I love my Hydrasynth for its excellent polyphonic aftertouch but when I first started using it as a MIDI controller I was hugely disappointed, since black keys were producing much higher velocities than the white ones. Luckily ASM fixed it with a later firmware update. But I still think it may not be the best feeling action for general MIDI controller duties, especially for velocity sensitive sounds such as piano/Rhodes. Sure, synth keys are not the first choice for controlling piano sounds but since there are people that will buy these new keyboards as lightweight iPad/laptop-driven rigs, they may want to test the feel and response of the keys with various patches. It could be that some sacrifices were made in order to provide the undoubtedly great aftertouch control.

So, the review of loopop confirms my previous speculation that those knobs are not endless encoders but pots. This is a huge letdown for me personally because it means when switching between parameter pages you will not have those pots physically reflecting the actual value. And while there’s a small OLED under each pot to show the actual value, turning it will “jump” to the pot value which is very unnatural. And according to the review there’s not even a configuration of this behavior, it’s always “jump”. Catch would’ve been better. But even with catch it’s a missed opportunity, endless encoders are the best way to implement universal knobs that can be assigned to different parameters and pages of parameters that you can switch all the time.

Correct me if I’m wrong, since I know zero about organs, but unlike real Hammond organs, every Mojo will sound like every other Mojo with the same drawbars and settings, no? Then why would it be so bad to ask for ready drawbar recipes for common songs? I would’ve done the same.

Maybe Gil Evans was born Bill but wanted to avoid all the confusion? 🧐

That’s why one should read the forum on hourly basis instead of relying on search 😀

I just added a P.S. to my post above to comment on the “issue” with the acoustic piano patches playability and touch (which I believe after a few firmware updates is still there, but is not an issue with the touch response and rather with their piano engine).