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A C(h)ameleon Hybrid Thread


Geoff Grace

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I decided to try an experiment and create a hybrid thread about C(h)ameleon.

 

This thread is about Camel Audio's Cameleon 5000 additive software synthesizer. It's also about Herbie Hancock's jazz fusion Chameleon (released in 1975 on his album, Flood ).

 

Feel free to discuss either or both! (Or contemplate any possible relationship between the two...)

 

Best,

 

Geoff

My Blue Someday appears on Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon

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I love Chameleon -the tune- but the original recording started pretty slow, and ended up pretty fast, almost twice the initial tempo. Mike (Clarke) and Paul (Jackson) were wild men in those days; I used to have a house in berkeley with a blind guitarist named Bobby Addison, a classical oboe player who played in the Monterey Symphony and an insane (musically) saxman, Bert Wilson. We had a music room in the rear of the house, and the Rhodes, 2600 and drum kit were set up ready to play at any time. Mike and Paul would come over and bash for a couple hours before rehearsals with Herbie, just to warm up. (I also hired them for a gig that turned out to be as a backup band for three young Supremes wannabes. M&P played so hard and superfunk-ish the poor girls were in tears, couldn't sing...)

 

As far as the software, I haven't tried it, but a) it doesn't look especially inpressive (to me, YMMV) and b) I don't trust any product that is misspelled. If they can't spell, what makes you think they can engineer? And yes, I realize that is totally illogical, but then I use DP, not Logic... :P

 

Dasher

It's all about the music. Really. I just keep telling myself that...

The Soundsmith

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I've used the Cameleon demo for a bit. I find it really interesting. It really "gets inside" the content of your samples. I'd consider buying it but one impediment is that I don't have a large collection of samples in .Wav format, and I think that would be a prerequisite for getting the most out of this synth.

 

I bet Rabid has some thoughts about Camelon...[waiting...waiting...]

Check out the Sweet Clementines CD at bandcamp
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In short:

 

-The tune is great.

 

-The software, if it works as promised and sounds good, is what I've been waiting for for 15 years. I'm almost afraid to start building sounds with it, because I probably would stop working and sleeping for a few months. :D

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ok heres another angle..

 

How do people play the bassline with their left hand, what fingering system?

 

I saw Herbie on a 1974 broadcast (it was just a short snippet on UK TV a few months back) and he was playing the bassline with the left hand using four fingers... can't remembber exactly which but he wasn't doing the standard chromatic fingering using thumb 2nd and 3rd fingers on left hand.

 

it was something like

 

5 4  3 2             2  1
G G# A Bb            Ab Bb

(no's indicate fingering in LH. )

 

I thought it was interesting to see that. He was playing the clav with the right hand thru a wah wah.. sounded a lot like the Flood version.

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