CHarrell
-
Posts
669 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Events
Articles
Downloads
Gallery
Store
Posts posted by CHarrell
-
-
1 hour ago, Dave Bryce said:
When the original GForce Oddity was released all the way back in 2002, it was heavily praised by fans and critics alike for its incredibly accurate representation of the revered ARP® Odyssey, with some notable users even calling it their desert island synth. Now, twenty-one years later, we’ve updated this classic to make it the most authentic, powerful and modern odyssey available.
Oddity3 takes the character and sound of Oddity and adds a wave of enhancements, bringing the spirit of the original to a new generation of music makers. With a powerful new Preset Browserand 1250+ presetsincluding 250+ new ones, new Distortion and Reverb effects, a Vintage control for dialing in authentic imperfections, and four programmable Macros, plus new and improved performance controls, this classic desert island synth just got even better.
Why do I have a feeling this is better than Korg's plugin? 😭
-
On 10/15/2023 at 12:59 PM, Jim Alfredson said:
I'm surprised there isn't a thread about this little powerhouse yet. Maybe there is and I missed it, though I did do a search.
I played one at Sweetwater a few months ago. They had the PolyBrute and the MiniFreak set up together and as I was playing both, I fell in love with the PolyBrute (which I now own) and really enjoyed the dichotomy of the MiniFreak in comparison. The sales person on the floor came up to me while I was improvising something on both and said, "Wow... that sounds really cool! Is that a song?" I said, "No, I'm just messing around." He stood there for another few minutes listening as I tried some different things. It was kind of funny.
Anyway, I really dig the MiniFreak but I'm hesitant to pick one up because I'm wondering if Arturia might go all out and make a MacroFreak. 61 note full sized keybed, more polyphony, bigger screen, etc. That would be amazing, imo.
I played a MiniFreak recently too, and the sounds you can get out of it with ease are so inspiring and fun to play. I didn't find the polyphony to limit my imagination at all, and extensions, altered chords, etc. are my potato chips. I also would love a bigger version, with a similar form factor to their Minibrute...the BruteFreak?
-
2 hours ago, Reezekeys said:
I prefer to play all my pieces in F# pentatonic, not C major:
Bbsus7 chords for days! Impress your friends, impress your neighbors!
-
That actually leads me to realize I don't know the historical reason for black keys on keyboard instruments. Was it always for the sake of ease as a performer, or were/are there mechanical reasons for it as well?
-
No love for Camelot?
-
15 minutes ago, David Emm said:
So... what finally satisfied the suits?
Honestly I drowned an Arp Odyssey patch with effects and detuning, I have no idea if it sounds modern at all. 😅 But they still use it almost two years later!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SCK_vWmLdyI9TSIrGuTBMgIxH-rkKmnS/view?usp=drive_link
-
2
-
-
2 minutes ago, GovernorSilver said:
Being AI, it would of course let you select between various personalities: Obnoxious New York Guy (above example), Nagging Nanny, Pretentious Butler, Court Fool, etc.
With premium add-ons for Snoop Dogg and George Takei!
-
1
-
-
1 minute ago, David Emm said:
So much of the world of keyboards feels like serious sci-fi to begin with, that's hard to say.
We keep seeing similar designs because THAT'S HOW SYNTHS ARE BUILT. Even the wildest innovations still come back to basically one approach: oscillators (sound source), filtering (even if built, additively, for ex.) and envelopes, i.e. Pitch, Tone & Time. Our ears work that way, so synths do as well. I don't need 12 variations on a Prophet-5, but I need every synth to do part of what it does. That's how you get dem purdy sounds to come out.
Every few years, we get a nice variation like the Hydrasynth, but the basics will never waver much. If you want strings, you use samples or you tweak the heck out of some sawtooth waves. You can labor your arse off creating some additively, but it'll always need an ADSR-type component, re: your ears.
I don't think there's a "Next Big Thing" ahead; it will be more about refinement, as with the Osmose. Bob Moog once (loosely) said that the Next Big Thing would be about controllers. Wise man, eh? Even back then, he Got It. In a world of near-perfect pianos, strings and 8-layer synth sounds, the winning entry will be the one that allows you to most readily express your ideas. Can you say "MPE?" Its still quite new as a mainstreamed feature, but its the first one in a while to truly bend the paradigm. I think that will make it the next *bigger* thing. We'll just have to see if virtuosos appear to guide the rest.
Agreed. Last year, I was hired to write a "sonic logo" and the note I got from the producers after sending in my draft was that they wanted a "contemporary" sound. That wasn't a euphemism for a currently popular genre or anything, they wanted the main melodic voice of the logo itself to be "contemporary" (originally it was French horn, trumpet, and trombone, which they thought sounded too traditional).
So I agonized and agonized over what a "contemporary" sound is. Was it FM? Was it some waveshaping thing? What was the cutting edge in synthesis? After sending draft after draft after draft, I settled on the idea that it's not so much the sound that makes something contemporary, it's the context. Just like how the traditional orchestral instruments have been in place for centuries now but we're still able to imagine, hear, and recognize contemporary classical music versus Schubert, the levels of expression that are being made available to us generation after generation will break open many cavern walls to what could even be considered very traditional or simple sounds, and allow us to go even deeper and recontextualize these sonorities in ways that either weren't physically possible or were very difficult to achieve in real-time without it consuming all of your effort.
-
1 hour ago, GovernorSilver said:
Assistive software to encourage songwriters, producers, etc to write songs with bridges again could be a good thing. 😎
It wouldn't give them any chords or anything, it'd just be like this guy and he'd pop up in your DAW:
-
3
-
-
Six years ago, George Clinton was playing a show ten minutes walking distance from where I lived in Seattle...but I was new to the city, unemployed, and didn't even have money for a haircut then. I think it was a year after that, he announced he was retiring from live shows.
-
2 hours ago, DmitryKo said:
Yes, you should definitely stop watching them, though make sure you didn't miss some of the videos linked below - and then you could skip watching them too, after all it's a "typical Yamaha" which is "thin, plastic, sterile and soulless" and "a synth for keyboard players"
Also make sure to stop reading the online Operation Manual, the Quick Guide, and the Essential Knowledge Guide above.
Official YamahaSynth videos and SoundCloud AN-X demos (forum post)
Montage M: AN-X Engine and Polyphonic Aftertouch playthrough & Guide! #montagem | Dom Sigalas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g37krx2ZhOQ
Let's see Michael Patrick with some English blokes for a change:
Yamaha Montage M8x Demo | With Michael Patrick | GUITARGUITAR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsxlVK-GSUM
Mike Patrick is Blown Away by the NEW Yamaha Montage M8X! | Andertons Synths, Keys and Tech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrISTHXtlfk
Yamaha Montage M8x - The New Flagship Synth, More Powerful Than Ever! | PMTVUK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-4M8DegHRQ
Yamaha Montage M8X First Look At The New Synthesizer Keyboard | Music Matterhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcEuVOBCVHc
Yamaha Montage M Overview - Tony White & Mike Patrick | Bonners Music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP427ZJLiUo
Yamaha Montage M - Quick Play Through Some Factory Presets | Bonners Pianos & Keyboards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WGAefKb7V0
FYI all 3 pre-recorded demos with Blake Angelos:
Deep Dive into the NEW Yamaha Montage M8X | American Musical Supplyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-JqeHCJHEA
Yamaha Montage M Synthesizer - What's NEW with Blake Angelos!! | Chuck Levin's Washington Music Center - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnf5-4tBFzQ
Yamaha Montage M8x: 3 Sonic Engines & Endless Worlds of Sound | Sweetwater
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdX5Ec7i7XY
Why are you doing this to him? 😭
Regarding the Steinberg activation stuff, thankfully I've never used it for a live performance post USB dongle, but there have been multiple times where plugins like Halion just wouldn't load because they "weren't registered", regardless of host. I'd have to go into AM and sort that out.
-
1
-
-
The patent controversies and dumb strawman defenses are the tip of the asshole iceberg for Behringer, so I hate to "defend" them, and I hate to criticize Benn Jordan 'cause he's usually got really nice insights and perspective (including his past video(s?) on Behringer), but do people really believe it's a few knockoff products and some biased retailers that killed a legendary synth company? If that's all it took, just how fragile would that company have to be?
-
3
-
-
7 minutes ago, timwat said:
I think the market (speaking generally across ALL products / services) is willing to pay a price premium of some amount for the "officially licensed" sticker.
We see this in athletic endorsements, product collaborations, and simple branding agreements. There is not only a simple emotional motive, but when we start talking about technology (and specifically, music technology) I think many buyers would presume several layers of "good vibes" to a company willing to follow a business model that ostensibly honors the original creators of said tech.
Anecdotally, this is something I feel good about with my Sequential / Oberheim OB-6 - knowing that Dave Smith honored and respected Tom Oberheim in that arrangement.
And as I've suggested elsewhere, it seems clear to me that doesn't mean anything substantive to many other potential buyers out there.
To be honest, even after demoing Pianoteq extensively for months and discovering I still don't think its sound is there yet, I still feel tempted by all those official licenses they have: "Well if Steinway, Bechstein, etc. etc. endorsed this, maybe there's a quality here I'm not getting yet? Maybe I just need to find out what made them give this their official stamp?"
-
1 minute ago, Paul Woodward said:
I find their IOS apps to be excellent too
I haven't used stuff like Wavestation, but in the case of apps like ARP Odyssey, I really wish they made them more distinct from their desktop counterparts. The interface gets really awkward to use on an iPad screen, and precise adjustments become immensely challenging if not physically impossible (the desktop version has this problem too). The MS20 app is almost perfect (just wish they added polyphony like the desktop version), it would've been great if they continued that approach of having a company especially design their emulations for the iOS.
-
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think the Korg software offerings are nigh indispensable. The amount of sonic range you get is so amazing; if there's anything beyond the most basic sounds I need for a track such as a good acoustic piano, detailed strings, etc., the Korg plugins are my first and many times last stop.
-
2
-
-
6 minutes ago, Radagast said:
I’m not going to say “well done Korg”. I will say WTF is wrong with you Korg? The Nautilus needed two upgrades. It got one. Im not going to give them my money as a result of a (really) half-assed upgrade.What's the second?
(To be honest, I think Nautilus was a flawed product from concept).
-
11 hours ago, AROIOS said:
A bit too close to home 🤣
I mean technically this is accurate but you have to consider the context of the chords around it.
-
2
-
-
On 10/2/2023 at 1:09 PM, Keyboardplayer said:
Most notably, Roland and Clavia (Nord). OTOH, Korg and Kurzweil will be there. Btw, perhaps one reason Roland and Nord aren't showing up is the possibility that Yamaha will launch the Montage M at Synth Fest. The Montage M will directly compete with the Fantom and the Nord Stage 4 going forward. Maybe they don't want to be upstaged by Yamaha? So they're playing it safe?
I have a feeling these decisions were made before Yamaha announced Mon2age; most likely, with their big releases already having come out or are right on the precipice (Gaia 2), they probably didn't think it'd be worth the time, effort, and money.
But Korg's been pretty quiet over the last few years... 👀
-
6 hours ago, Docbop said:
The real world is going to be a old Boomer thing and everyone else will be working and living their lives with AR glasses and headsets. Makes me think of that old Sandra Bullock, Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone movie Demolition Man. The scene where Sandra and Sly are going to have "sex" and she tells him to put on the headset and she does the same and virtually get it on. Then she gets grossed out when Sly gets tricked and takes off the headset and wants the physically get busy. Sandra Bullock screams.... actual fluid exchange, NO.
In civilized society, we call that the hunka chunka.
-
1
-
-
It's been all but confirmed that OG Gaia used sampled waveforms, it's not surprising but still very welcome they changed that for the sequel.
-
I saw this on the YF3:
What does this mean by "realistic feel"?
-
2 hours ago, David Emm said:
The merely-sloppy one where I was semi-sober or the one I can't recreate at all because I was two staggers away from being God's Own Drunk?
It's a Spitfire LABS library, let me crossfade between the two with the big button knob!
-
1 hour ago, cedar said:
I experimented with StaffPad when it was first released. Thought it was a very cool program, but my handwriting is so atrocious i
Same, I even bought a Microsoft Surface just for it! It was amazing when it worked, and an endless barrage of frustration when it didn't...the ratio of instances between the two were more even than I liked, so I stopped.
I'd be curious sometime to update it and see how it fares now, but honestly over the years I found the quickest and easiest electronic method of plopping notes down for me was actually plain-old piano roll!
-
Yeah, I hope it becomes an industry standard as time moves forward. FYI, the CP and YC series (which Steinberg also released for Cubase) used a robot to sample their Felt Piano, and the results are excellent.
1 minute ago, David Emm said:Its hard to imagine a more effective method, with Pianoteq naturally respected. I doubt there'd be much clamor for a piano whose dynamics were established by me pecking at the keys and trusting my rusty ears. It'd be a LABS freebie named Drunken Uncle.
Can you send me the download link?
Software Deals
in The Keyboard Corner
Posted
1 was one of the first VSTs I ever bought in 2014, wild how much they've grown over ten years!