Pete Townsend talks about polyphonic aftertouch

[daBowsa]

I'm usually morally opposed to people cross-posting the same thing here and in that other forum, but I know there are people here who are MIDIboard fans, so I thought they'd appreciate this as well.

 

Enjoy!

-Ben.

 

Excerpt from EQ Magazine's interview with Pete Townsend.

(Source -- http://www.eqmag.com/article/tracking-townshend/Aug-07/30620)

 

EQ: Also, ever since Whos Next, synth pads and sequences have been part of The Who sound, as well as on your solo records. These generally originated on your demos, and then wound up on the final record from your existing demos. I dont recall hearing this on any demos of songs that wound up on your solo albums, but I can clearly hear this on Whos Next, Quadrophenia, and even Eminence Front. Sequencing and creating synth pads has become infinitely easier to do now, but do you miss any of the ingenuity or artistry that it took to create those parts back then? Do you feel that the soft synths sound as good as your ARP or EMS?

PT: On my solo records there are sequences on Let My Love Open The Door, A Little Is Enough, Uniforms, and several others. Often on my solo records the demos became the finished tracks. Creating sequenced arpeggiations should not require ingenuity. This is found music, like the individual elements in collages in art. One presses some keys, or fiddles around with some software or some setting on a Casio toy, and if what you hear is inspiring, fun, or interesting, you can move ahead with it. Its what you do with it that counts.

 

The problem with soft synths is never their sound they often offer superior sound to the originals and terrific extras. But the human interface becomes one you have to construct yourself. For example, the [Arturia] CS80 emulation I use is amazing. But what made the CS80 so incredible was its polyphonic aftertouch pressure keyboard that could be set to change timbre, vibrato, and even pitch both on attack and after-pressure. Each note in a chord could be made to rise or fall in level, or swell with a change in timbre. Just holding a pad could be made interesting and evolving simply by adding pressure to individual keys after you keyed and held the chord.

 

It is almost impossible to set up a good MIDI keyboard now with polyphonic aftertouch. The CS80 also had a great ribbon controller that could be set up to do all kinds of things. That is what gives Stevie Wonder his sound: the aftertouch on his big Yamaha GS1 organ or me on my Yamaha E70 home organ again, with polyphonic aftertouch on some sounds. The CS80 and the E70 were based on the GS1 experiment. The only keyboards I have that offer this now are my two Synclavier keyboards and one Kurzweil MIDIboard. Both are really tricky to set up. They are also huge and heavy, especially the Synclavier. Mind you, a used CS80 weighs about as much as a man.

 

Imagine being as inspired as Stevie Wonder and being placed in front of a three keyboard and bass pedal synthesizer pretending to be a home organ, with swell pedals, knee pedals, poly-pressure, great FM string sounds and all. I dream of my own Cyber-Organ that once I start to play joins in with me, it has dozens of keyboards like a proper Bach organ, foot pedals, integrated syncopated arpeggiation and echo, a huge myriad speaker array with each sound with its own output channel and patch in audio space. I spoke to Roger Linn the other day, and although he has different ideas, we both agree that the stripped-down MIDI keyboard is a limiting interface for music. He speaks of all kinds of new and exciting interfaces.

[tarkus]

GS1 - Should Be GX-1.

 

Pete should get a Dave Smith PEK.

[keynote]

Pete should get a Dave Smith PEK.

 

Although the PEK from Dave Smith Instruments is a polyphonic synthesizer i.e. 4 notes of polyphony, the specifications do not mention "polyphonic aftertouch" as one of its features. It does have velocity and 'aftertouch' but there is no mention of "polyphonic aftertouch", unless the specs are implying that from the list. But I would think the specifications would list it as such i.e. - "polyphonic aftertouch" instead of just aftertouch.

 

The authority on the subject may need to clarify if the PEK does indeed have polyphonic aftertouch. But my guess is that it doesn't because the specs are not listing that it does, at least specifically anyway.

[Stephen Fortner]

I'm a little jealous of that Pete interview - I wish it were in Keyboard.

 

What's curious is that the Infinite Response VAX controller appears to have poly aftertouch, at least from reading their specs page here:

 

http://www.infiniteresponse.com/complete%20specs.html

 

If this is the case, it's a lot more compelling than the fact that the unit folds in half, at least IMHO.

[kanker.]

If this is the case, it's a lot more compelling than the fact that the unit folds in half, at least IMHO.

Agreed. In my experience, the only thing that has ever folded on one of my keyboards has been me. I don't think I could handle it if my keyboard folded too...

[synthetic]

Interesting controller, I've been watching for news on it. Hopefully they'll do another model with 88 keys, without the folding in half thing, and with pitch and mod wheels. There's a lack of good controllers these days. From the description of their action (hall effect/magnetic), poly aftertouch is probably not difficult for them to do.

 

 

[Marzzz]

For the record, the PEK keyboard has mono "channel" aftertouch, but the synth engine (as well as the PER and the Prophet '08) RESPONDS to polyaftertouch via MIDI.

 

I have not heard about the VAX keyboard- they now have my full, undivided attention!

[kanker.]

The sad part about the VAX is that apparently they are only going to sell them from Austin, TX, so you have to go to them to try one out.

[Marzzz]

The sad part about the VAX is that apparently they are only going to sell them from Austin, TX, so you have to go to them to try one out.

 

Well, they did mention on their website that they will do a "tour" with them once they complete development, and I am sure they will appear at NAMM this winter. I am VERY interested, I can't believe I missed this!

 

[keynote]

Infinite Response says that they're open to suggestions on how to improve on the VAX 77 features, layout, etc.

 

Two come to mind. Give it USB 2.0 instead of the archaic USB 1.1 it now has and give it a larger LCD screen so that you don't need reading glasses to decipher what's on the screen. The Organic LED is a nice touch though and should prove to be a godsend for playing outdoors and under bright stage lights.

 

And if I could give them some advice it would be don't price yourself out of the market like Korg did with the OASYS. You want to make the VAX 77 more than just a niche product for a niche market and open it up to the possibility of mass market proportions. The only way you can do that in my opinion is to keep the price affordable to the masses. What a novel approach that is, huh?

 

Overall I think the VAX 77 should be an outstanding product and if it lives up to the hype it should be a real winner for Infinite Response.

[Prague]

As a controller it would be nice if it could:

 

Handle more than 1 split/layer (4 or more zones seems essential)

Had more than one MIDI output (switchable ON/OFF)

128 Memory locations

 

None of this is mentioned on their website. The folding thing might be cool, but hardly essential.

[Stephen Fortner]

Just spoke to the company, and it's true - they're gonna do real poly aftertouch. Not only that, but they're using the recently-adopted CS88 standard, a new high-res means of sensing velocity that was just adopted by the MIDI Manufacturers' Association. This will give the VAX around 16,000 levels of velocity.

[Marzzz]

Just spoke to the company, and it's true - they're gonna do real poly aftertouch. Not only that, but they're using the recently-adopted CS88 standard, a new high-res means of sensing velocity that was just adopted by the MIDI Manufacturers' Association. This will give the VAX around 16,000 levels of velocity.

 

OK, that's it. Sign me up! I don't even care if it doesn't have pitch-bend.....but if they could put that little Nord lever thingy on it somehow.....!

[Tusker]

Just spoke to the company, and it's true - they're gonna do real poly aftertouch. Not only that, but they're using the recently-adopted CS88 standard, a new high-res means of sensing velocity that was just adopted by the MIDI Manufacturers' Association. This will give the VAX around 16,000 levels of velocity.

 

Cool.

 

Hope they give you one to review soon.

 

Jerry