Now I want to know what those synths in the back are.
Top one looks Roland, bottom one Korg, to me. Guy on GS that worked with him says he loves the Korg 01/W, and the D50 is mentioned a lot. Hard to see in the vid, but I'll say it could be those, but also any number of others [/nerd].
Damn, you have good eyes! To me there both just a black blur in the video. You might well be right though, certainly the physical appearance of those two synths matches what you see there: the 01/W is relatively bulky, has its display left of the middle, and has a rather wide bit left of the keyboard; and the D50 is much smaller, and has a slightly wider bit to the left of the keyboard than to the right.
I'm a massive trainspotter when it comes to gearDamn, you have good eyes! To me there both just a black blur in the video. You might well be right though, certainly the physical appearance of those two synths matches what you see there: the 01/W is relatively bulky, has its display left of the middle, and has a rather wide bit left of the keyboard; and the D50 is much smaller, and has a slightly wider bit to the left of the keyboard than to the right.
Me and a friend can spend a lot of time on this when it comes to gear from the 70s and first half of the 80s - but I get lost when you get to the era of almost exclusively black colourless boxes. Hence the full respect.I'm a massive trainspotter when it comes to gear
As you've noticed too, the size and shape of the pitch/mod sticks, and the shape and location of the screens make whittling down manufacturers relatively easy. Helps when the synths turn up a lot in searches for stuff you like as well. Those two and the Wavestation are space ambient monsters with a bit of posh reverb. They're on a lot of classic recordings.
Those limited synths are so awesome! I mean, just think of all the sounds that have been made by a Minimoog. Or, if you're into 70s Genesis, check out all the sounds and things Tony Banks got out of an Arp Pro-Soloist - which even has super limited editing options!I retracked some softsynth tracks with my Pro 1 for the first time yesterday. Fun
It's only got two voices (kind of), but it seems pretty versatile to me. I did a bassline with one setup and some two-note chords with another setup. Probably took around ten mins to set up something decent from one to the other.
I don't know how much you care, but either way, I figured my response rather belongs in this thread - also because they're using some nice equipment that synth nerds can drool over.
), but love this sort of sound. 
So what does a tracker do? Is it like the Fast Tracker software, which I was playing with a lot in the 90s? It looks like that on the left: trigger events (samples in FT2) with various options (velocity, fx) on a number of parallel tracks. Like this:I sold my Bass Station II a while ago, and finally used the cash to pick up a Polyend Tracker.
Bit of an impulse buy, I never really got into software trackers, though I love the idea of them. Surprised how instant the Tracker is considering I just couldn't make much sense of the software versions. It does quite a lot of things I wish the Digitakt could do. Oh, and it plays NES roms, which is pretty important.
My set-up looks pretty minimal now the BS2 is gone. Just 3 boxes and a controller. I'm all digital now.
That's right. It's basically software like that, built into a groovebox. It also has a very good sampler built in, and can do granular and wavetable synthesis very well too. It's great fun.So what does a tracker do? Is it like the Fast Tracker software, which I was playing with a lot in the 90s? It looks like that on the left: trigger events (samples in FT2) with various options (velocity, fx) on a number of parallel tracks. Like this:
I had so much even with that.
Awesome! (I also meant to say 'so much fun' previously...)
And I suppose the synthesis is for processing samples, or does it have its own oscillators as well?It has a scroll wheel which is really fast for navigation, you can scroll through a waveform and trim and slice really quickly. I've messed around with Renoise quite a bit and never gelled with it, but this feels very fast. Personally I never feel like I'm missing a mouse. And there's no keyboard shortcuts to memorise, like in software trackers.Awesome! (I also meant to say 'so much fun' previously...)
How is it to edit everything through the device? It kinda looks like it screams for a mouse.
Sounds pretty all-in-one.
Cool! ), but the sound is amazing - a lot of early 80s Vangelis (think Bladerunner especially), with touches of Jarre, Tangerine Dreams etc. In the video, they discuss how they got to that sound, and especially what role the Moog One played in it. (Naturally, since it's a Moog interview. Damn that beat is expensive btw!!! But it sounds amazing... )
That's like an SY-99, right, but just less whistles and bells? Should be be very interesting to combine FM and sample synthesis.I finally managed to get hold of a Yamaha SY35 - the original model I bought in my band days.
It's wicked probably not the best even at it's time at anything but a very solid all rounder and the vector synthesis is what I wanted to use again - you can make some seriously good voices with it.
Never selling this one again.
Yep was 1992 I believe this one was bought from Denmark Street in London. The voice creation is so good. It has 128 voices which seems tiny now but when you combine everything you can get something awesome out of it.
A friend of mine had the SY-99. I always thought it was an amazing beast - it sounded great in his tracks.
Ah man, it's just an avalanche of great music people dieing. (Alan White just last week, Vangelis before that, etc.)
I think Dave got a grammy too. He died at an event he was invited in Detroit. Heart attack
Ha, indeed he did! I didn't know, but apparently they give him a special-merit technical Grammy:
it was the DX7 that really shook things up with it's FM synthesis and to a lesser extent the Roland D50 a bit later. I have the Yamaha Montage 7 which is an absolute beast. It'll take me years to fully get my head around it.
Different generation though. The Prophet 5 appeared in 1978, the DX7 in 1983, after the Prophet had had its influence on music. FM synthesis was new and the DX7 quite new, but it didn't have the same sort of impact I don't think.
The DX7 swept aside all before it. It was much bigger than the Prophet 5. Everybody who was anybody had one n the 80s/90s. It did revolutonise the sound of music back then.
Yeah, I've still got my SY-85, which I absolutely loved but my daughter has called dibs on it now that I have the Montage.
I know, but I would maintain that it was still a different dynamic. If you read/listen to interviews with keyboard players who were active in the 70s and 80s, they talk about how the Prophet 5 really changed things, just simply what you can do with keyboards. The polyphony in particular was a huge step forward, it opened doors that had remained firmly closed before that.
Yeah, I know the model. Or rather, I know the Motifs that preceded it, and I know the idea. I have an S90 myself, which is the non-workstation version of the original Motif-8. I'm personally not a fan of all-in-one synths (I like simpler, more specialized stuff with fewer menus), but I agree, a synth like that is basically all you'll ever need and more.The Yamaha Montage has both AWM2 and FM-X sound engines that you can use separately or together in loads of ways along with filters, DSPs etc. and over 10000 arpeggios. It would take me the rest of the evening to fully explain what it can do, I'm not familiar with it all...yet.
Here is my setup. I use Mixcraft 9 Pro and PreSonus Studio One DAWs.
Nice, yeah I always wanted an SY-99 but I'd already bought the SY-85 at the time. I'd had a DX11, V50, Casio CZ5000 and other stuff before that. The Montage is the top of the range and yeah does pretty much everything I need. It's pretty open-ended and I like how they just upgrade the software to add new features rather than releasing new models all the time.
Dude, that's awesome. I'm actually most curious about the PPG Wave. I know some bands that had it (like early Marillion), but no idea which of their sounds it produced.
Let's continue this conversation here.
(also @The Cat)
