BRW

All the McClintocks are hilarious. My faves are the various Hetfield / Metallica mashups. As far as how these are done - I"m guessing it"s a combination of a bunch of things. Ableton is really good at manipulating audio (pitch) without too many artifacts. He"s probably using accapellas sometimes, but for the most part they"re probably tracks where there is an attempt to remove the background. There is software that can sort of do that.. but it"s not perfect.

Nice to see that silvery suitcase Rhodes in episode two. 'The prototype I had wasn"t any good'.

It was a different time, for sure (smoking on planes etc.). Everything stank. Rehearsal spaces, clubs and venues, bars. All the keyboards had yellow keys and cigarette stains. You bought someone's used instrument and it stank. Even today you see people write "used in a non-smoking environment" on eBay auctions.

There is another thread about this song on one other forum too, where people were speculating various 80's synths. This song is from the eponymous Prince album from 1979, probably recorded in 1978, and in my opinion the main "synth" is definitely a Clav run through some Phaser. The only synth he could have possibly used would be from the 70's, so maybe an Oberheim 4-voice for the stabs. It's an incredible song, and way ahead of its time. It definitely doesn't sound like anything produced during that time - and it's easy to mistake it as an "early 80's" song. His next album only a year later - Dirty Mind (1980) - is in the same vein.

That"s actually not a bad idea. I"ve also sometimes thought about cutting some of those ads from unwanted mags, framing them, making them into posters for the home studio. Some bastards seem to be selling some on eBay even. I"m guessing they"re scans too.

Regarding the subject. What's the best MIDI controller (kb) to interact with plug-ins - controlling soft synths? Meaning lots of pots, sliders and buttons that work "out of the box" somewhat seamlessly? Is there such a thing? NI's Kontrol keyboards are great for their stuff...but I don't think they work any differently with anything else? Arturia's Keystep Pro MKII seems interesting, but it seems to be also catered towards Arturia's stuff, and quite expensive. Arturia's V Collection is a great set, so it's not necessarily a problem. I like to do a "hybrid" setup. Combine hardware and software via Ableton and Push 2.

Console games are a HUGE industry (bigger than movies, I think) and they do sometimes use real orchestras as well. I have been left lukewarm by most game compositions, but there are exceptions. Like Nioh (1 & 2), a Japanese samurai RPG. They used a real orchestra. Absolutely beautiful music too. [video:youtube]

I'd say he has been a quite established one for a long while now. I think he started out as Zimmer's sidekick sort of but now he's on his own. Used to also do them under his previous artist moniker, now he uses his real name. As most of you know, he also had a MASSIVE hardware collection in a huge room, pretty much everything you could every imagine - sold most of it. He seems to use a lot of Kontakt, a lot of "ITB". As most of you said, that seems to be the norm. I have a lot of interest in this field (Media Composer). It seems that it's where it's at, if you want to keep working in music. Do you have any insight into this, what's a good way to get started?

^ D'Angelo's "Voodoo" came out in 2000, not 1996. Erykah's "Mama's Gun" is from the same era, 1999/2000, also heavily featuring that "laid back" mellow Rhodes sound. In my mind it started to get real popular again around then. And it was THE sound in hip hop and R&B - or at least the neo soul variety. Modern hip hop leaned on the Korg Triton and MPC, but that's another story.

I would also argue that the Rhodes sound isn't 'in vogue' anymore. The current sound is all about synths. Jazz guys and jazz fusion guys will also need a bit of Rhodes here and there, but is that enough to warrant a $10-12k instrument. And here I'm mainly talking about "big names" who might be potential buyers or endorsees (again, getting this expensive instrument for free ). Funnily enough, it wasn't that popular in the 90's either - it started to get fashionable again in the late 1990's and especially the early 2000's with the neo-soul R&B revolution and artists like D'Angelo, Jamiroquai, Erykah Badu, The Roots. The prices for second-hand units also started the rise accordingly.

I love these types of things. And I agree, it really depends on the interviewee what you get out of them. It's fascinating how the most creative individuals navigated around the limitations of technology, like those early sequencers. And it's funny he mentions that combination of a short sampled attack and a sustained synth note - that's sort of the idea behind the Roland D-50, isn't it? I wonder if he gave Persing some ideas... And even the manufacturers are often clueless, especially Roland, it seems - the TR-808 was supposed to "replace" a real drummer and was considered a "failure" when it didn't; the Jupiter-8 was supposed to be the ultimate "realistic" synth with these flute and brass attempts as presets (and dedicated buttons...).

No I've only had the Ultimate subscription tier, but I considered the option of only getting Zenology. Exactly, the -hardware- 5080 is indeed a completely different beast (in fact, I have one in my rack, with several expansions boards) but the 1080 plugin that was released a while back actually already was a "5080". It had all the waveforms (1083) of the HW unit, versus only 448 on the 1080. So yes, the software version is basically only a reskin job. Well, I have a 16" MBP with plenty of juice from 2020 and I can tell you it still struggles with Roland's plugs.

I thought I could only get by with Zenology Pro and the extensions, but the truth is that the technology differs somewhat. The "standalone" plug-ins do sound different (better) in my opinion. Also, the XV-5080 plug-in is basically the JV-1080 with a different skin. They share the exact same waveforms although I think the XV-5080 had a few of its own presets. The biggest problem is that all the Roland plugs are really CPU-heavy, still, though. Even Zenology.

Funny Young Miles-era Herbie, the afroed Head Hunters Herbie, the slick and mustachioed Rockit era, and the modern "elder statesman" Herbie? The glasses - which are essential - might be the trickiest bit

Off-topic, but I actually don't think these folks endorse Keyscape per se...they were just the "featured artists" in those YouTube product videos. I think Phillinganes and Glasper are Korg artists.

Nah, that's "I Want You (She's So Heavy)".

I used to be obsessed with Ten Summoner's Tales, had the Lake House VHS tape, the concert bootlegs and the sheet music books etc. Now I kind of don't like its sound that much anymore. It has the hits (and obviously superb playing all-around) but it's not my go-to Sting solo album anymore. I much prefer: The Soul Cages (1991) is IMO the best solo album Sting ever made. It's just incredible from beginning to end - and it's the result of a serious writer's block! Also kind of jazzy at times, like the intro to "The Wild, Wild Sea". But Mercury Falling (1996) is great as well. The title track is just incredible - listen to those chord changes! And obviously, Kirkland's miraculous simplistic solo on "La Belle Dame Sans Regrets". Yep, it's a classic. Also the rest of the band: Omar Hakim especially, Darryl Jones and Branford Marsalis. Includes their rehearsals - with some fascinating gear-of-the-day on display - and the gig in Paris.

(Ableton product video parody)

Watched a couple of episodes. It's surprisingly good, wasn't expecting much. To me Ronson is a pretty insufferable character. With his rotating selection of vintage band T's, Gucci sweaters and Rolls-Royces and that nonchalant "hipster" way he communicates all the time. When he was talking to McCartney and Premier (his heroes, I presume) I felt like he was much more normal and relaxed, oddly. He's earned his stripes by being a part of some incredible productions, though.

Off-topic, but Gibson's "Neuromancer" from 1984 is at least a big deal, a heavy influence on the so-called cyberpunk genre. Actually, I just an interview of Gibson's in The Wire magazine - which is a UK publication.

I haven't tried getting done what you're trying to do (controlling its controls externally), so I can't say. For me this has worked. I've controlled the Montage via USB MIDI in a "studio situation" (both separate single-channel parts or the whole Performance on one channel) for recording purposes, and via standard MIDI in a "live" situation from another board - where I've e.g. played a Rhodes patch on Part 1 and parts 2-XX internally or sequenced. I've also set up a foot controller to only control the Super Knob. Controls are a bit of an annoyance, though. Like, for each new Performance, you need to set up what each Part receives again and again - as default all new parts always receive everything. For instance, I only want the synth sound to receive modulation from the Modulation Wheel, but not the added bass part - you need to always go to Edit and change this. My mode is probably "Hybrid" although I'm not sure.

Relating to Docbop's story above ^ part of me thinks something's off about these figures. Because the royalties used to be pennies. J. Lo is making almost $800K annually from streaming? Then again, it requires 19 million monthly listeners... Then again, who in their right mind actually listens to J. Lo? Apparently almost 19 million people per month...

Oh no! Truly sad news! It's a shame those great Palmetto albums are not available on 180g vinyl which is my preferred format these days. I dug how he kept on recording and did some very fly covers like "Trouble Man", "Freedom Jazz Dance", "Juju". [video:youtube] [video:youtube]

This was actually a neat project, it was originally a coffee table book + a DVD - I bought it back then. The DVD had most of the famed keyboard players who played Rhodes during their careers tell their stories. I'm not sure, but most of them might actually be on YouTube by now...and I think even the full doc might be.

I've seen this group (or the iteration of) several times over the last few years, mostly because of my everlasting Herbie fandom. Agree with Dave Ferris, slightly afraid also because of the Chick thing. I don't understand the praise for Terrace. Yes, I'm aware of his producer prowess, and that he also contributed to the still-unreleased new HH album. But dude's playing is beyond basic. You ever hear him take a solo? A guy like that shouldn't be sharing a stage with Herbie Hancock. The good thing is he persuaded Herbie to start playing "Come Running To Me" again (vocoders and all), that's a beautiful song. Genus is a great bass player. I loved his playing with Dave Douglas, for instance. But IMO he's the wrong guy for this group, despite now having been there for years. His sound always comes off as mushy, muffled and "too phat" if there's such a thing. As far as electric bassists go, IMO Herbie needs someone with a crisp clean sound like the one Paul Jackson (R.I.P.!) had. He sounded great with Jaco too back in the day. The drummer is new. It used to be a guy called Trevor Lawrence Jr. - I don't think he ever managed to get "Actual Proof" right. By the way - what the hell happened to that new album? Wasn't it supposed to come out at least 5 years ago? I still see Herbie is rocking the "greatest hits" thing, the same keytar schtick, the "funk hits" etc. I personally believe he's still capable of producing a masterpiece-caliber acoustic jazz album. Even though the last two were cover albums, and the good one (River) came out in 2007 already. Maybe if he hooked up with Shorter instead of folks like Flying Lotus? Wayne is still going places creatively...Chick was too.