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David Emm

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About David Emm

  • Birthday 11/30/1999

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  • occupation
    Space curmudgeon
  • Location
    Solder Huffer's Gulch

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  1. I remember a tale of Tommy making the cut. He was at the piano, struggling through some of Zappa's intense sheet music and not quite hitting even his own usual standards. He said "Frank, I'd need a lot more time to play that the right way, so let me do some improv and see what you think." He did this strangely bouncy vamp and accompanied it by singing like a Munchkin. Frank lost it and doubled over laughing. He called Gail in for a listen as well. Tommy said "That's when I knew I had the gig!"
  2. During an extended vamp at a Zappa concert, Tommy Mars ran out front in purple briefs and neck sash to do a vaguely disturbing and FUNNY free-form improvisational dance. After a bit, Frank gave him a Look, so he did a big stage-cringe, crept back to his keys on hands & knees, popped up and took up seamlessly with the music. I always enjoyed the big Yes and Floyd stage shows, but Frank's band WAS the show. I love those incredible memories.
  3. I'd enjoy modular if not for all of those cords. After an hour or so, I'd begin flogging myself with a fistful of them and screaming. I prefer my "modular" action inside a slab synth or software. There, I can pretend that I know 30% more than I do.
  4. I'm sure quite a few of us would do a can-can in our undies on the evening news for a solution to the power & weight issues of speakers. The Harmon-Kardons in my old iMac were a wonderland of clarity. Thumping bass, no, of course, but I wish more small speakers would go there. You can't cheat the physics too much and get a proper bass tone. Speakers like that for an RD would wreck the cartage factor anyway. Until "They" devise drones that will form speaker gangs in the air that you can configure to taste, at least there are some nice rechargeable party speakers that will give you a couple of decent hours' pizzazz. The Mackie Thump runs for 12 hours and only reaches down to 50 Hz, but up to 20k Hz, @ 200w peak. Its not "budget"-priced at about $450, but its still a semi-magical option. Just charge it carefully so it doesn't 'splode and cause your band to re-write "Smoke On The Water."
  5. If you play Peer Gynt's "Hall of the Mountain King" as the guy tip-toes, it makes a lot more sense.
  6. Fair question, but the real issue is... overpopulation. There are so many OF us that our individual unit value has dropped, in conjunction with companies having to keep track of the often top-heavy user base. Business needs and operating practicalities are inevitable. You need a whole 'nother machine and staff to handle various customer issues, apart from producing your synths/software. If I was facing 2000+ e-mails a day, I'd be keen on a utility for keeping some of them at bay, too! I'm not wild for browser & cloud-based situations, but I can live with it. That's part of why I have a D-50 and a CS-80+. Oh, the anguish, however will I cope??
  7. Its a first-among-equals thing, but for me, its a toss-up between "Beauty In The Beast," her alternate tuning treatise and the full-length version of "Timesteps" from her own full "Clockwork Orange" soundtrack. The latter is a surreal modular masterwork I've never heard rivaled. The nearest contender is "Wuivend Riet" by Johannes Schmoelling, which has some serious breadth. Wendy made me think about synths critically while I was being amazed. My hero.
  8. That chaps my @$$ so badly, you'd have to see in the ultraviolet range to view my blisters. Then again, half of everything reeks of AI flummery lately. It can be hard to see where the line is drawn. Ethics have been something of a vestigial organ for a long while now. 🤨 This reminds me of an antique "Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" strip. Phineas has a nightmare where he's approached to be President. He proceeds to list his dubious habits and then light up a spleef. The agents pull out a super-dusty, cobwebbed stovepipe hat and thrust it at him, saying "You'll be the first honest one we've had in quite a while!" Of course, he wakes up screaming. I can relate to that a lot these days. Historical note: Patrick Moraz and Bill Bruford did a duo tour for their album "Flags," with Patrick on a lone K250. Its the best overall showcase the instrument ever had, even though a few notables like Paul Shaffer took them up. (Eons ago, when Letterman was still on NBC, they had a "Paul's Top Ten Synthesizer Sounds." One was a big downward swoop that ended with a thump, entitled "Plane landing and running over a monkey on the runway.") As to paranormal phenomena, I have a picture of some dark woods with two blurry yet very eye-like lights in the middle. The legend says: "This is what your dog is barking at that you can't see." 😬
  9. HAH! There's the other shoe dropping! Poly AT still has the aroma of "parlor trick" wafting around it. MPE has arisen just as brick-&-mortar outlets are in sharp decline. If you ever needed to lay hands to a thing to truly get it, this would be the one. Its hard to imagine anyone but Sweetwater having such things in a demo rack. Its not something you can fully explain verbally, yet its self-evident when played in real-time. The next big challenge with MPE is not what it can do, but getting the perceptual experience outside the confines of just YouTube. 🤨
  10. Isn't that the Geoff Downes rig from the ASIA years? 🤔
  11. I'm naturally concerned about the lop-sided performance between models, but after sleeping on it for a while, I realized that I haven't had to freeze a Logic track since I landed the M1 Mini. I'm not mixing a Pink Floyd or Zimmer album and juggling 112 of them, so I haven't had any issues. We'll see where things are at upgrade time, but I get the feeling that even with the clunkiest M model, I'll never notice a change. I'll cross my fingers and hope I never have to eat those words. 🙄
  12. ... and every backyard patio a nuclear protectorate! Sorry, what was the question? TBH, Zenology fascinates me because of its depth. You can buy emulations of most of Roland's synths from multiple software shops like Cherry Audio. I wonder how many people have committed to that synth universe as their main toolbox? Vintage emulations aside, the full Zenology engine isn't exactly lacking. Its not as detailed as a Papen synth or something in that vein, but its respectable. Surely there are more than a few people for whom its a go-to. Personally, I'm too crusty to depend on the cloud that much. I sample the bleep out of my rig, because these days, if someone says the sky is blue, I still look up and check. I always loosely expect for my instruments to go POOF. My last line of defense is Autosampler, which has generated a healthy library. Of course, if my Mac goes, I'm screwed with my pants on. 😬
  13. Well said. I try to keep in mind that as an Old Synth Fart™, I'm naturally going to feel resistant to sea changes in the field for a while. You and sam6599643 have encapsulated the issue neatly. There are so many sketchy ratbags in business that its easy to forget how vital the nuts & bolts are. I'm not wild for the cloud, but having owned Roland hardware that performed at a high level, I was a lock for the Cloud D-50. (Its defining sound is part of the IP, so no emulations are forthcoming.) I never quite landed the real thing, through several swing-&-a-miss moments, so its a serious WIN to have it with endless patch sets and a built-in PG-1000. The RD-08 doesn't wow me personally, but just imagine the starting player who gets one with a D-50 installed. That makes it hella bigger!
  14. Boy, are you singing my song! With only 500 GB internally, I'm having to dance around like a wombat on a hot sidewalk. I'm hating it, because my general work flow would be pretty happy with 1 TB. Making outboard safeties, sure; having my internal doings depend on external drives, GNARGH! Its working just fine, but it still keeps me a bit nervous. As I growl and stash money for a bigger Mac, I'm even considering taking the hit for 2 TB. Its a bitter pill in one sense, but growing pains are called pains for a reason. I wish I knew how to synthesize a little more peace of mind! 😜🤨
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