Keyboard Gear--Learn how to Use It

[Tom Williams]

I find much joy in tweaking or scratch-designing synth voices to be as expressive as possible -- to enhance my playing.  Finding a way to dynamically add that last fortississimo layer for the final chorus of Touch and Go -- or simply switching pickups on my guitar patch to go from sweet to twangy.  It is not reasonable to expect these things out of the box.  Even on a stage piano (PX-5S) it was fun to find a way to toggle a brass layer with a pedal, or to set the mod wheel to bring in the strings -- and then bring the strings up an octave during the last third of the wheel's travel.  Tons of expressivity, and not to be expected out-of-the-box.

 

To be fair, I do this at the expense of plain old practicing, but for me, it's a major part of the joy of synthesizers.