HELP -- Pink Floyd keyboard sounds and samples

[AtomFunk]

On 10/23/2022 at 9:10 PM, CowboyNQ said:

 

I absolutely agree. 

 

In the post DSOTM period of the 70's PF physically could not replicate their rather intricate studio work live with the available technology and only four (later five) musicians plus a couple of backup singers on stage.  To be fair, nor did they attempt to.  By the time The Wall tour rolled around the band's (Roger's?) ambitions had changed and they applied significant manpower (and backing tracks) to create a far more impressive visual and sonic spectacle. 

 

These days spectacular concert experiences are the norm for international touring acts and are heavily enabled by modern technology.  But it was certainly a groundbreaking undertaking at the time; it's now passed into folklore how the tour was a failure from a financial point of view, with only the contracted musicians (one of whom was the recently-defloyded Richard Wright) making money.

Its funny you mention that. We have 6 players. We are shooting for their live 70's early 80s (Dark Side tour though Wall tour) sound. Just so we have a different angle than all the super amazing Floyd acts out there. That means we are not going for the note for note thing. Even Floyd didnt do that. However, we are trying to find a happy medium between spot on album reproduction and to much "artistic license" haha.

[AnotherScott]

Another thought is that some of the original synths (i.e. VCS3, Minimoog) can be emulated on an iPad, if you have one. Besides the possibility of a closer sound than you could get out of the Gaia, it also may be easier to dial in the sound on something designed with the same architecture than in trying to see what "the closest equivalent" thing to some particular parameter or routing would be on some other synth.

[brenner13]

Beware the SynthCloud stuff. The PF download for MODX has bugs where my 7 would slowly go out of tune by nearly a half step when that library was loaded. It was so slow and gradual that I didn’t notice until it was too late a couple of times at live gigs. No tuning issues again after deleting the SoundCloud library.

 

I easily programmed my own PF sounds that we needed in the MODX and think they are as good if not better than the ones purchased on SoundClod. However, I have not yet got all of the samples needed. A great bunch of advice around here as usual. 

Love this place.

[AtomFunk]

1 hour ago, brenner13 said:

Beware the SynthCloud stuff. The PF download for MODX has bugs where my 7 would slowly go out of tune by nearly a half step when that library was loaded. It was so slow and gradual that I didn’t notice until it was too late a couple of times at live gigs. No tuning issues again after deleting the SoundCloud library.

 

I easily programmed my own PF sounds that we needed in the MODX and think they are as good if not better than the ones purchased on SoundClod. However, I have not yet got all of the samples needed. A great bunch of advice around here as usual. 

Love this place.

Thank you for the heads up. Super good to know. Been thinking about a MOFX8 and a Nord Elerctro 6. Think that would be more than enough

[MathOfInsects]

2 hours ago, AtomFunk said:

Its funny you mention that. We have 6 players. We are shooting for their live 70's early 80s (Dark Side tour though Wall tour) sound. Just so we have a different angle than all the super amazing Floyd acts out there. That means we are not going for the note for note thing. Even Floyd didnt do that. However, we are trying to find a happy medium between spot on album reproduction and to much "artistic license" haha.

To be fair, that’s usually the sweetspot for PF tribute bands.

[Dave Bryce]

On 10/23/2022 at 12:54 AM, Jim Alfredson said:

I also found Malc at Enjoy The Sirens and bought his stellar Shine On You patch for the Kurzweil. That saved a lot of time. 

https://enjoythesirens.com/

Same place I got my Shine On setup.  Malc rules.  He did a custom setup for me for Dire Strait’s “Money For Nothing” that’s pretty great as well.

 

dB

[ProfD]

On 10/23/2022 at 3:54 AM, Jim Alfredson said:

These modern Kurzweils are designed for Broadway. In other words, they are designed to allow a keyboardist to cover a ton of parts quickly and easily. And that's why they are so good for Pink Floyd tribute bands, because there's so much you have to cover and you only have so many fingers.

 

It was late at night and my brain was running a million miles per hour, so I apologize for the lengthy Kurzweil fanboy post.

Well brotha Jim, while that may not have been your intent, I think you may have sold a Kurzweil or two.🤣😎

[erik_nie]

Nice details Jim and others!

Yesterday I was at a Brit Floyd show in Eindhoven/The Netherlands. Great impact! Lights and sound was spot-on. 99% of the real deal. I know all songs with every details as it is important music for me during difficult times... the live feeling added so much extra! 
Like classical music, the writers are not performing anymore, just cover-bands (Orchestras). Floyd will always be played I expect.
I watched the keyboard player, he was not as busy as I expected, so many things are covered using backing tracks.  As the full show is based on video-syncing I expect that everything has a backing track.  I could not see any additional laptops, but perhaps they are back-stage. Relatively simple setup (Nord Stage, Nord organ and a poly synth, could not see the brand).  Apparently the percussion player also played keyboards. 

Technical details/stuff aside, I had a great evening. My daughter saw Floyd for the first time live and could not stop talking afterwards!
 

[mcgoo]

3 hours ago, erik_nie said:

 Relatively simple setup (Nord Stage, Nord organ and a poly synth, could not see the brand).  Apparently the percussion player also played keyboards.

 

The Poly is an Arturia Keylab controlling a bunch of VSTi's. The guy's named is Matt Riddle and he's a seriously bad a$$ player. Look him up on YouTube. He also does a smaller scale Yes tribute band and handles Wakeman's parts like it's child's play. 

[Delaware Dave]

On 10/23/2022 at 3:11 PM, Jim Alfredson said:

A fair point. You can do all this in Mainstage as well, which is $30, assuming you have a Mac.

It was late at night and my brain was running a million miles per hour, so I apologize for the lengthy Kurzweil fanboy post. But the main takeaway from that long post should be that figuring out the sounds is only part of the battle. The other part is figuring out how to play them all with just two hands and possibly your feet if you're sitting down. I stand for this gig, but we have an auxiliary guy that covers extra guitar parts, percussion, and even triggers some custom samples of synth parts I made for him, so that helps a lot.

 

Jim, have you tried sending the Kurzweil's organ (with no leslie effect) out the aux jacks and into a Vent? The Forte's KB3 uses zero polyphony of the 128 voices available so there is no additional note stealing that would occur that you wouldn't get presently. Also, try the Mellow setting of the organ type which reduces the brightness a little.

[Jim Alfredson]

On 10/26/2022 at 4:01 AM, erik_nie said:

I watched the keyboard player, he was not as busy as I expected, so many things are covered using backing tracks.  As the full show is based on video-syncing I expect that everything has a backing track.  I could not see any additional laptops, but perhaps they are back-stage. Relatively simple setup (Nord Stage, Nord organ and a poly synth, could not see the brand).  Apparently the percussion player also played keyboards.
 

 

That's Matt Riddle, who I mentioned above. Last year I agreed to be his understudy, as they were concerned about COVID and what might happen if one of the members got sick. So they sent me the stems from their show and I went down to Akron to sit in on their soundcheck and got to play a couple of tunes with them. Everything is done to a click. Even stuff that sounds like it is free-flowing or improvised is to a click. It is very rigid but that's because of the tight synchronization with the video, as you suggested.

However, Matt and the percussionist are playing almost all the parts. There are a few pre-recorded parts but those are mostly orchestral things on Comfortably Numb for example. Matt's rig is very simple; Nord C2 for organ, Nord Stage (not sure which one) for most everything else, and a MIDI controller for some auxiliary parts. The actual sounds are a combination of the two Nords' internal sounds and Mainstage, which is running on a laptop next to him.

 

 

[erik_nie]

20 hours ago, Jim Alfredson said:

 

That's Matt Riddle, who I mentioned above. Last year I agreed to be his understudy, as they were concerned about COVID and what might happen if one of the members got sick. So they sent me the stems from their show and I went down to Akron to sit in on their soundcheck and got to play a couple of tunes with them. Everything is done to a click. Even stuff that sounds like it is free-flowing or improvised is to a click. It is very rigid but that's because of the tight synchronization with the video, as you suggested.

However, Matt and the percussionist are playing almost all the parts. There are a few pre-recorded parts but those are mostly orchestral things on Comfortably Numb for example. Matt's rig is very simple; Nord C2 for organ, Nord Stage (not sure which one) for most everything else, and a MIDI controller for some auxiliary parts. The actual sounds are a combination of the two Nords' internal sounds and Mainstage, which is running on a laptop next to him.

 

 

If it seems simple, it still could be very complex and difficult to play. Was a nice concert!
Thanks for the insights!