Tusker

Agree completely with the comments about interface and amplification problems. (upstream and downstream) The discussion of these upstream and downstream problems illustrates how completely the central problem is solved. On the interface question, digital lags analog in some ways. It leads analog in other ways. That leaves the colossal problem of amplification. Where are the visionary Donald Leslies of today? Please come forward. 🙏🙏

Thank you Governor. A great discussion. So passionate and thoughtful. 🙏 I agree with Mark. The digital sound design experience is often far more productive and creative. And software modulars are the pinnacle of this. For now. That's different from being able to perform a piece in an engaging way. An Expressive E Touche sits on a desktop. Despite being more expressive, it's never going to look as heroic (or phallic 😄) as the Moog IIIC's ribbon controller.

To me, Rick is the complete package. There is a "rock musician' slant to his channel admittedly. I'll learn more from Mattia Chiappa on orchestration or Ryan Leach on composition. But still Rick's channel is a nice place to land ... Passion? He's got it. Scars of experience? He's got those. Theory? Yup he's got that too. Besides, he's one of the nicest guys.

Yes, it's fun to see him play the front panel isn't it? You can almost imagine the conversations. "I want to stand over here and play this box, and then I want to stand over there and sing." Cherry's software (unlike the hardware) also allows you to additionally adjust pitch and decay for each sound, so there's more expression to be loaded on a slider if we want it. But that takes us to your main point. Too many riches ... 😅

👍 👍 I had to load individual CR78 samples for In the Air Tonight and Duchess. Great to have it all now in one convenient package thanks to Cherry Audio. Here's Phil Collins, tweaking the CR78 on stage for Duchess.

Ha Ha! I love it too! I was in that post pandemic funk too and it was light in a dark room.

Agree and I think it's worth pointing out that Rick's probably trying to keep up with the YouTube clickbait culture, which is getting more and more insane. I also follow a YouTube legal commentator who provides a very dry, modestly reasoned view of several legal topics. But his headlines are over-the-top just to keep up with everybody else. 🤦‍♂️

His niceness and idealism comes through even to people like me who've never had the privilege to have met him. Caught my son and daughter giddily singing "Man oh Man" at each other the other day. I didn't want to mention I was a fan. Would have ruined the moment. 😃

Thanks #4! I totally appreciate them and it's not like they are going to replace the Beatles or Paul Anka or Frank Sinatra for me. I see what they do as decoration of the basic song form we have come to love. For those who want to "locate" this music, here is my unhelpful over-generalization: Every western musician will typically pause to breathe every four measures or so. If you are Louis Cole, you'll have a drum fill or a break or some rhythm ornamentation to catch the breath. His approach reminds me of classic funk with additional borrowed vocabulary from Drum&Bass and Trap. But other genres do the same essential thing. If you are Liberace you decorate your pause with pianistic arpeggios. If you are Joe Satriani, a whammy bar dive bomb might be what you reach for. If you are John Williams cue those 32nd note woodwind runs. It's not that different. JW's father was a drummer, lol. Yes, I too love to hear them live. Louis Cole seems like a very nice guy but musically he reminds me of Buddy Rich. He's big enough to anchor a very large ensemble. Love it! Thanks dB. 🎶

I've known and admired Rai Thistlethwaite but this outfit is new to me. What's their story?

Two oscillator poly synth? Would be very cool. Please not a paraphonic.

Since time immemorial music was composed by the powerless and controlled by the powerful. The troubadour plays at the pleasure of the king. Occasionally the structures invert and we experience a twelfth night when a musician might be called king. Occasionally.

Welcome back poserp. Enjoy our discussions of FM and VAST and sound design very much. Here's to more. 🍻

I don't usually watch the whole Grammy show and I didn't this time. But thanks to the discussion of Joni's performance, both pro and con I found it on Youtube. Thank you! I found it to be transcendent and celebratory. It revealed a new facet of the song, where the plunk plunk of Jacob Collier's steady rhythm allows a large group to sway into it and the declarative poetry of Mitchell's words would hypnotize the heart. If I was to sing the song, I might do it like this rather than as the wistful personal confessional it used to be. It's a strong song and worthy of many interpretations. Enjoy the song as you would like to remember it of course. This version spoke to me of strength, frailty and the contrasting beauty of both sides.

It looks like laws vary by state. In some states you don’t get to decide. A licensed doctor or psychotherapist does. Others seem more open ended … https://usserviceanimals.org/blog/emotional-support-animal-laws/

Totally digging this physical modeling synth. Sounds organic when played polyphonically ...

So good these days, yes! 😃 I like both methods personally. Unique and sound design reverbs with spacial cues are on individual tracks and a finishing reverb sits in a separate bus to pull the mix together into a cohesive "space." That's my tendency. The positioning ideas are partly influenced by Rohan De Livera's use of Virtual Sound Stage (start the video around 12.45) with instruments which have no sampled reverb in them, and therefore also applicable to synthesizers.

Thanks for the encouragement. After decades of live performance, I am only just beginning to learn how to use reverb precisely. Late to the party. 🤦‍♂️ 😅 If you are like me, the first rule you were told was to not put too much reverb on your sounds, because it would destroy your imaging. This is true advice but not all that helpful. It's like saying don't play too loud. It doesn't tell you how to play or what to play. I am learning that the human ear desires reverb, just as it desires stereo placement. Our frequent inability to provide good stereo (left-right) live doesn't change the fact that the human ear desires it. The ear uses (short) early reverberations to locate a sound in a front to back manner and our frequent inability to provide those early reflections doesn't change the fact that the human ear desires them. The location of sound is deeply fulfilling and makes one of the biggest differences between what people call "real" instruments and "fake" instruments. With reverb and placement tools we can provide that realness as precisely as an acoustic guitar in a corner of a stage. The reverbs we are discussing like Shimmer and Blackhole and Supermassive, won't help place sound precisely. But they will work better if you can use early reflections to place sound within the vast spaces these reverbs can create. I use Liquid Sonics 7th Heaven or Cinematic Rooms for those vital early reflections and I add these bigger "effect reverbs" for the special sauce. I also use tools like Expanse 3d or Precedence to shrink and position the instrument within a soundfield. Along with massifying tools, you need shrinking and positioning tools also. Otherwise we are back to that true and unhelpful first rule: don't turn your sound to mud with too much reverb. Even within the group of "spacey" reverbs, there are differences. Massive delay networks like Valhalla's Supermassive bring something different from the pitch shifters like Valhalla's Shimmer or Eventide's Shimmer Verb. They can all work together inside your toolkit. Just like FM and samples and physical modeling and analog.

Yes, and he is showing extreme examples of it, but it’s handy in smaller doses too. A serviceable tool. The pitch-shifting aspect of it is orchestrally the same as gently bringing in a sine oscillator a couple of octaves above the main tone in a pad. Or high flutes rising slowly over the warm bed of strings. You don't need it all the time. But it's brilliant icing on a cake.

Love the guy. Here he is demoing Shimmer ....

I have Supermassive and Shimmer. I use both, often together, and with other reverb and delay effects. (junkie alert) Supermassive is the more powerful of the two. It's great for taking you into vast nebulae of outer space. But it doesn't do pitch shifting. Shimmer adds this ethereal polish that only a pitch shifted reverb can do. I'd start with Supermassive, but they are both useful in their own way.

Would any soft synth fans be willing to head towards booth 10206 and provide your impressions? U-He is demoing their Zebralette 3 which seems like a fresh way to interact with sound. But is it really? Or is it more of the same? Thanks.

There can be some round trip latency with this but, you can let MainStage run the CP4. Turn local off on the CP4. Create a MainStage preset to control the CP4. This runs the MIDI that is coming into the computer, back to the keyboard. Generally, it's easier do the fancy stuff on the computer, using a controller keyboard for midi input only. If the latency is unacceptable when running the MIDI through the computer, I use a mute button on a mixer or a switch pedal, or just the volume slider to turn the CP4 down when needed.

Yes, back in the 70s it was fresh. Maybe further back still? Apart from the European prog rock keyboardists, you mention giants steeped in American idioms. (To me, Gaskin is a giant like Tatum heh.) Someone described Jazz as the only new classical music developed in the very American 20th century. It's a rich, diverse language which informs everything from pop to hip hop to bluegrass. JR may live on the East Coast of America but as he says his musical roots are classical. Further east. In an earlier time. Perhaps this is an argument between the 19th century and the 20th century and between two sides of a pond?

I think of it the way Mercedes makes a pricy race car to test out concepts and build brand. We shouldn't look at the profitability of a product in isolation. It will be fun to see music made with an uber-polyphonic like this one. I suspect there are new sweet spots to be discovered though I can't imagine what they are, which is the point. The MS20's filters were not supposed to become a go to method for turning drum loops into gold-dust and yet that is what they became. Congratulations, Korg!