Jump to content
Please subscribe to MPN’s YouTube Channel!

J.F.N.

Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    434

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by J.F.N.

    Your Latest Purchase (music related)

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    42 minutes ago, RABid said:

    Thanks for the reminder. Saw a video a few days ago and forgot to pick it up.

     

    I have an Oxi One MIDI/CV sequencer arriving today. Looking forward to connecting it to everything from my modular to the MC 101.

     

    It's updated, including a Velocity control for the filter, works great, just fiddling with it here now, this app is a bargain!

    • Like 1

    Arturia Astrolab

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    16 minutes ago, CrossRhodes said:

    First review from the field that I've seen.

     

     

     

    And kind of concludes what has been discussed already, if you're an Arturia buff already, it's potentially a great addition, if not, you're up for a huge investment...

    Auditioning effects presets, like wine tasting?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    21 hours ago, GovernorSilver said:

    Once I settled on plate reverb as my favorite type, the endless scrolling through reverb presets pretty much came to an end.

     

    I also like the Black Hole reverb algorithm on Eventide H9, but I'm susceptible to getting lost in endless tweaking on that one so I don't use it that often these days.

     

    I got the Black Hole plugin, it's endless and easy to get lost in, and then bored in the end... also got a bunch of other reverb plugins, way too many, that I swooped up on promotions, but this one is by far my most used one:

     

    https://www.eventideaudio.com/plug-ins/sp2016-reverb/

     

    Amazing little gem imho!

     

    (On promo fairly frequently...)

    • Like 2

    Synths—Is it Time to Let the 1980s Go Again?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    58 minutes ago, Jose EB5AGV said:

     

    I have had another hobby since I was a boy, electronics. It specialised in amateur radio and test equipment gear and I collected and fixed tons of related things for decades. That was the starting point of my 22 years of R&D work and also of my current electronics home lab (already for 12 years), where I develop my current job. So I can't really be angry about all those things which helped me to build my career. But, as happens with old synths, younger people just don't care about those nicely built HP / Tektronix/ Marconi ... generators, oscilloscopes and analysers, built to last using the very best materials, as gold plated PCB contacts, Teflon covered coaxial wires, heavy aluminium cast chassis and such. So now I have a warehouse full of yesteryear electronics which nobody but I seems to care about 🤔

     

    It is not just for the large amount of money I have spent on that gear, which in perspective is as money burnt, but the lack of appreciation by my children / wife and by people in general, makes me sad, as the only way out is to trash most of it.

     

    I hope my growing collection of music gear does not end in a similar way. I am mostly interested on 80s plus synths (lots of them bought faulty and fixed by me) and accessories (well, and also some guitars, electronic drums, EWIs, amplifiers, ... 😬). My idea is to clean up the currently area full of radio and test gear and convert it into a music studio plus storage area for music gear. At least I will be able to use it and, in the future, my heirs can do what they wish with all of that (I hope it keeps some value so they can cash it, but don't lose my sleep for it 😅)

     

    Anyway, what would be of us without our toys? 😉

     

    Even if I had ridiculous amounts of cash, I would not stoop to the idea of buying old classic synths en masse, as already mentioned several times in the conversation there is a lot of service and maintenance required, and it won't get less with time. I could imagine grabbing a Matrix 12, a Jupiter 6, and a Prophet VS, as those are my all time favorite synths, and there is nothing like them on the market so far, and get them fully renovated and all components up to scratch, then use them a lot to make them stick alive. Though more realistically, my hope is that Uli will do something about this during the next years, please take my credit card!! I don't care about the nostalgia or economical value of them, I just want the machines to play with in their full body of features and sound character, yummmmmy!!!

     

     

    The Rhodes MK8 Earth Edition

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    7 hours ago, Adan said:

    It's very cool looking, if I was going to plunk down several grand for an MK8, I might go for this one just for the aesthetics.  

     

    If you want to fund the planting of trees, you can just send money to an organization that plants trees, and cut out the middle man. 

     

    Or, you could decide you're going to play a vintage rhodes instead of buying a new one that had to be sourced from minerals and fossil fuel-derived products and that features wooden keys and wood trimming that came from . . . wait for it . . . a tree!

     

    We're talking about miniscule amounts of stuff in the grand scheme of things, but if you want to really make a point about saving the environment, there's better ways to do it.

     

    Yes, grabbing a good old Rhodes would definitely be a more sustainable option, and even if you need to put in some cash for a wizard to get it up to shape, it'd still be leaving you with a nice pile of cash left over to donate to save the world...

    Synths—Is it Time to Let the 1980s Go Again?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Tusker said:

    Can I replicate their sound? Never to a 100% to be honest. But what I love is the music, and modern instruments have a ton of character also, if you are willing to put it in. The key ingredients for character are imperfection and eccentricity in my experience. Today, if I am imitating a drum loop as it might have been performed with an Akai S900, I might want to downsample it to 12 bits. To add some crustiness. To get some character. If I am imitating vintage analog oscillators on a modern analog synth, I've been known to send tiny amounts of white noise into the pitch modulation CV of the synth. To create some jitter. To get some character.

     

    Exactly that, same kind of things I do when replicating analog synth sounds on digital machines, adding pitch modulation of some sort in some way, if possible slightly modulating envelope times at certain events, etc. all to try to get the imperfection, the feeling of things not being too static, alive, and as we say indeed, character...

     

    For sure the reason round robin was invented, adding a way for samplers to represent real world sounds in a less static way...

     

    • Like 1

    Arturia Astrolab

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Paul Woodward said:

    I think it's still a lot for what is in essence a preset player with a fairly standard keybed and minimal controls. My eyes are getting old so I would struggle with the screen and even then, you need to be invested in their engines for this to be a solid investment. It's not for me, but I hope those who buy are happy with it.

     

    It's a stand-alone version of the Analog Lab virtual instrument more or less, for anyone happy enough with that... Whatever ticks your boxes, I'd never go there, way too much money and estate for what you can achieve with it.

     

    I can definitely see it in a fairly strict setting, where things are basically running under show control, "manual" or actual,  but for everything in a more dynamic setting, it does feel very limited in terms of user interactions and manual control.

    • Like 1

    Synths—Is it Time to Let the 1980s Go Again?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, CyberGene said:

    I’m all for people having fun and feeling good, as I said previously, and there’s a lot to love in a nice vintage analog synth, however expensive it is. But I have no delusions regarding its sound. Software models are as good sounding as an analog nowadays. 

     

     

     

    It's definitely impressive, we live in an era that is unparalleled to any time before when it comes to accessibility of great sounding very useful music gear, lovely time to be a creative soul!

    • Like 2

    Synths—Is it Time to Let the 1980s Go Again?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    On 4/22/2024 at 10:30 AM, Thethirdapple said:

    Less is more…

     

    There is a direct connection being made in my “self” when playing and creating sounds directly with electricity thru analog circuitry which simply isn't there for me when using a digital computer.

     

    An abacus and or digital computer both provide a means to solve arithmetic, one is way faster and less prone to errors, the other tickles my intelligence and allows me the time to contemplate the journey rather than fixate on the destination.


    Being “wrong” is a powerful tool at getting closer to a particular sound or thought. Being slightly “out of tune” by having that slider or knob set ever so slightly, differently from last time brings a richness to the experiences. In contrast,  pushing equal increments of single bits yield the same result no matter how slightly i nudge the knob on a digital synth the increment is never in-between 0 and 1… but hey, do I want a VCO to go horrible out of whack while playing, nope, hello DCO. And even that got poo poo’d on at the time…
     

    And Im all for people hating on vintage gear, makes them wonderfully affordable! 🤫

     

    As the late great Dennett would say its the “qualia”…

     

     

     

     

    PEACE

    _
    _
    _

     

     

    We have come very far in terms of maths for creating things that gives us the idea of an analog world, while on the other hand the strive for perfection in music production today is ridiculous. If I listen to something that was produced pre-millenium, not seldom there's an organic feeling to it, even if the music is very produced. Back in the days music was not quantized, drums, and a lot more, are as a general rule always quantized today in pop/rock music, singers did their best, multiple takes and pre-computer chomping (cut in/out on tape etc.) made vocals feel "real", today everything is beyond perfect, math is there to "save the day", always.

     

    With this, I belive there is no reason to think that a perfect model of an instrument would make any difference compared to the instrument modeled, within above mentioned context. However, when sitting and fiddling with an analog synth, oftentimes we do experience the imperfections, I know for one that my Prologue, which is a hybrid, has a tendency to tune out depending on the weather, and so does my AS-1 and DM12 as well, sometimes just a little, and sometimes way out so the tuning process is a must. Everything inbetween perfect and way out is definitely an inspiration at some point, and I am not only referring to the tuning, but as a whole, I guess this is why the "vintage" knobs are a fact EVEN THOUGH they are found on analog (yet modern day made) synths.

    • Like 1

    Dig My Rig--Let's see your setup!

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    50 minutes ago, SamuelBLupowitz said:

    It's rare that I see a second tier that can adjust that low and that far back, and that's an issue for me for exactly the reasons you describe. Good to know!

     

    I have the 18953, same but wider, and the stackers for these stands are really flexible in all directions, up/down, back/forward, and the angle, I was really pleased with this when I installed my stackers. As you can see I have the second tier fairly far back (but there's more to give still), quite low but not at the lowest, and instead with a bit of an angle which for me all in all makes it very comfy to play (I have long arms...).

     

    The tripod laptop stand on the side in the first photo was then replaced with a k&m laptop-holder mounted on the stand instead as seen in the second photo. The music stand is still a tripod one, and in the rehearsal room (where the stand setup is now) I have it on the side instead so I can see the rest of the people in the band...

     

     

     

     

    knm.jpg

    knmlth.jpg

    • Like 3

    Auditioning effects presets, like wine tasting?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    Plug-ins have a tendency to become like Pokemons, "Gotta catch them all", and yes, I'm very sure Logic already provides pretty decent quality plug-ins for more or less anything needed to be done.

     

    I'm using Studio One, and the plug-in toolbox provided with their subscription service is outstanding, yet still, even though I'm not a recording or mixing engineer, I have loads and loads of other third party plug-ins, which I am convinced that, in reality, I don't need...

     

     

    • Like 4

    Synths—Is it Time to Let the 1980s Go Again?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    All you need is a Yamaha CP70/80, a Rhodes and a Wurlitzer, and proper amplification for those, a Hammond with Leslie, a string machine, a DX7, a polyphonic analogue synth or two, a Minimoog, and probably it'd be good to have a Hohner Clavinet as well, and then you should be fairly well prepared for most gigs, unless you play symphonic rock and also need a Mellotron that is of course!

     

    We're very spoiled these days, luckily!

    • Haha 6

    Rick Beato goes ballistic thinking the public can't detect relative pitch errors.

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    20 minutes ago, ProfD said:

    Shortly after the artist was born along came the critic.🤣

     

    Some humans are funny when it comes to fame and notoriety. 

     

    They don't give a sh8t about someone flying somewhere between obscurity and fame. 

     

    Become successful or famous or both and just as there will be fans, the haters will show up too.😎

     

    It's not a coincidence that some people become super stars and some aren't, the biggest egos have a much straighter line to the top than anyone else, no matter what price they need to pay, they will do anything to get there...

     

    In my work I often meet people working with very famous artists, behind them, tech staff etc. and they are without exception always very down to earth and humble people, it would never work else, there's only space for one ego at the top.

×
×
  • Create New...