Conference mr1pst::music

    Regarding the Good Vibrations tune, I believe the Theremin is part of
    the intro as well as the refrain. For years I thought it was someone
    playing a saw - until I saw the absolutely fascinating Theremin movie
    that is out.
    
    - Bob

    
    (er, not that well known?..)
    
    Tangerine Dream
    
    Mike Oldfield (tubular bells fame)
    
    
    /zombie-wolf

    
    er,...
    
    Sorry, Keith Emerson didn't use a Minimoog a Modular
    Moog System was used in Lucky Man
    
    Mike Oldfield?
    
    	Several years awarded as best synth-guitarist
    	in the Reader's Poll of Guitar Player Magazine
    
    Tangerine Dream?
    
    	Try to mention all the synths they have used is
    	almost to make an inventory of everything that
    	has been used since the invention of the first synth
     

    Oh man... let's  not forget the wonderful... ta da da..
    
    King Crimson -  (Frip & co.)
    
    First lp still my favorite of 'em all. 20th century s-zoid man...
    

    
    Most of the work of King Crimson is based in 
    the use of the Mellotron, Fripp is one of the
    few players who still uses it today (check VROOOM and
    the live double set in Argentina)
    
    Other two classical synths linked to well known artist
    
    	The German "PPG Wave"
    	
    		- Used in most Rush records at the beggining
    		 of the 80's after the (producer) Terry Brown era
    		 (after Moving Picures)
    
    	The Fairlight
    
    		- Being Thomas Dobly one of the most well-known
    		  phanatic users of this Australian synth
    
    		 Did you know why Dolby played synths?
    		 
    		 After seeing how Brian Eno (in the Roxy Music days)
    		 just tweaking the knobs of a VCS3 made girls
    		 crazy with his sounds, he said "wow"
    
    	

    
    BTW...
    
    	You can hear a VCS3 as the main synth in
    	the "Dark side of the moon" album from
    	Pink Floyd.
    
          

    yet another....
    
                    Van Halen.  JUMP!
    
    z-wolf

    Hey!  Cool p_n.  
    
    Music is my aeroplane...

   re -1 :  Absolutely a rabid ride too!
    
    Let's not forget The Master.  Frank Zappa in his various incarnations
    has used synth in many ways- as far as applying it to some of his
    classical works too I believe!  I am still mourning this loss..
    
    -zombie wolf

    
    
    Most of the works from Frank Zappa were made with his fingers
    at a Synclavier, a good example is "Jazz from hell" where all
    except one song is just Zappa and his Synclavier
    
    

    How about THE CARS. Rick O. used some moog or other stuff quite alot.
    Correct-a-mundo on clavier.  "It's the dangerous kitchennn..if it ain't
    one thing it's anotherrrrr" -F.Z.
    
    Z-WOLF

    Noone's mentioned Todd Rundgren yet. He and his keyboardist, "Moogie"
    Klingman have always been big on synths.
    
    cheers,
    
    	fred deady

    
    	Greg Hawkes was the keyboardist for The Cars.
    
    	I don't think Ric played keyboards ... just guitar.
    

    Keith Emerson - "Lucky Man"
    
    Billy Preston - "Space Race" (this song is almost singly responsible
    	for me becoming an "electronic keyboardist" instead of just a
        "pianist")
    
    I still listen to "Space Race" frequently.   I may even try and talk
    "Metropolis" (my band) to covering that one.

<<< Note 755.12 by WBC::DEADY "I like this resonance, it elevates me. Bjork" >>>
                               -< Todd Rundgren >-

>    Noone's mentioned Todd Rundgren yet. He and his keyboardist, "Moogie"
>    Klingman have always been big on synths.

yea!

Todd used his voice and a Fairlight for the album Acapella.
Don't forget (another) Utopia keyboardist Roger Powell who, before becoming
a keyboardist in Utopia, was a Moog demo man touring shopping malls and music
stores.

bob

    
    The Fairlight was designed by Kim Kyrie. It's an Australian-made
    product, and is actually called the "CMI" (Computer Musical
    Instrument.) Fairlight is the name of the company; today Fairlight
    focuses on digital audio workstations, but they still support
    the old synths through Sterling Audio in the UK (Sterling bought
    out the exclusive world-wide support on the CMI when they purchased
    Syco Systems Limited from Steven Paine and Michael Kelly.) There
    were three Fairlights: the Series I, II and III. All were based
    on the same Motorola family of Microprocessors that the early
    Apple computers (including the Mac) used... The software on the
    Fairlight was divided into "pages", the most notable of which
    was their sequencer software known as "Page R". It is still one
    of the best sequencers I've ever used. I was also fond of the
    way the Fairlight used a light pen (years ahead of the mouse.)
    I used to stuff the mondo 8" floppies into a Series II back in
    the Larry Fast days with Peter Gabriel. I also wrote custom
    software for the Fairlight. I'm still part owner of a Series II.
    Famous Fairlight users include: Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Keith
    Emerson, Steve Levine (the producer who was really the creative
    force behind Culture Club) and a ton of other folks...
    
    The Synclavier was, among other things, the first FM synthesizer.
    After John Chowning (at Stanford) published the seminal work
    on FM (in which he described how modulation of side-bands could
    be used to generate temporal harmonic and enharmonic data) a
    group of folks at Dartmouth College in Vermont got interested,
    and eventually spun off a company. Later Synclaviers integrated
    sampling and direct-to-disk recording; in fact, they were the
    first disk-based recording system and a lot of albums were
    actually tracked on Synclavier hard disks! The Synclavier is
    a very neat looking keyboard, but what a lot of people don't
    realize is that the guts of the Synclavier (including the custom
    bit slice processor known as "ADAM") sat off to the side in
    one or more large rack cases... Michael Jackson's tour Synclavier
    system took something like SIX RACKS! Famous Synclavier users
    include Pat Methany, Sting and Frank Zappa. I recently acquired
    a stripped down Synclavier (without sampling, although I can
    add that...) from Zappa's Utility Muffin Research Kitchen. One
    of several that he owned... The remnants of New England Digital
    (the company that made Synclavier) were bought out by Fostex;
    they now are the engineering team that designs Fostex's hard disk
    recording systems. The company was located in White River Junction,
    Vermont.
    
    There, just about everything you ever didn't want to know about
    defunct companies that made extremely expensive keyboards... now,
    did I ever tell you about CompSync... :-)
    
    -b

    re -1
    
    In fact, I was listening yesyterday to Peter Gabriel's "so"
    the credits mention Gabriel playing a Prophet but most of
    thw work was in a CMI ( ... was wondering what's that
    I though heard it before ... mmmhhh ...).
    
    And of course the name refers to a machine that is more than a synth.
    
    BTW, Gabriel did very interesting works sampling african
    sounds with his emulator in his first records.
    
    And also, when was for analog digital-controlled synthesizers,
    THE option for Polyphony was the Prophet!.

    
    
    I was BLINDED by science!

       <<< Note 755.16 by CPEEDY::MARKEY "He's ma...ma...ma...mad sir" >>>

    
Hey -b,

Didn't (or did?) the Fairlight have a video synthesis package that went
with it?  I remember seeing the Grokster a few times (solo) when he'd set
up this little camera and manipulate it from the same setup he played on.

I was under the assumption that the Fairlight did both audio and video...

thx for the note.
bob

    
    
    As -b said, Fairlight is the name of the company, the CMI is the synth,
    
    From "Vintage Syntehsizers" (Miller Freeman Books ISBN 0-87930-275-5)
    page 195:
    
    "Like any startup company, Fairlight was financially strapped during
    the CMI's early development. Luckiliy since their machine was based
    in a computer (**), Fairlight was exposed to some opportunities that
    most musical instruments manufacturers wouldn't have been. "It's jus
    happened that Remington Office Machines were looking for a bussiness
    computer. They had a software team and they heard that we'd developed
    this dual processor (2 Motorola 68000) computer that ran BASIC and C.
    So they asked , 'can we write application programs and sell your
    system as an office product?, Obviously we said yes, because
    we had no other income apart from a few vide products" 
    
    So we can supose Fairlight also made video products,
    
    carlos

    
    > So the processor in the CMI is a 68000?
    
    The processors (2 per voice) in the Series III were 68000s. The
    series II used 6502s (also in pairs per voice). The Series II
    was an 8 bit sampler... technically on the same plane as the
    Ensoniq Mirage, although far superior sounding due to Fairlight's
    "bit stretching" technology, in which the position of the low
    order bit was scaled using a multiplying DAC, essentially
    raising the noise floor. The Series III is a 16 bit sampler,
    and there are many after-factory mods to the D/A section, as
    well as AES/EBU digital I/O support.
    
    With all the great synths out there that I've used, my all-
    time favorites are still the old Arps. Sampling technology
    (I own both Akai and Kurzweil samplers) has made it possible
    to get the really great sounds off of the old synths, but
    to reproduce them polyphonically. There was always some trade-off
    (due to cost) between polyphony and really fat sounds. Now,
    we sample the really fat stuff off a mono synth and then
    reproduce it polyphonically using a sampler.
    
    Some of the best synth sounds of all time though were ones
    that came from sampled "natural" sounds with processing. For
    example, one day Gabriel was having some work done on the
    rain-water dispersal system at his old residence in Swainswick
    (Ashcombe House)... the workmen were putting up big cast
    iron/lead pipes and one of them slipped down the stone walls.
    Peter heard the sound and decided he wanted to sample it
    ... in the Series II. Slowing the sound down, adding
    a little "noise" generated by scribbling with the light pen,
    and then putting the result through an old Eventide 960,
    and the result is that phenomemal sound at the beginning
    of "Lay Your Hands On Me" on "Security".
    
    -b

    
    Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention:...
    
    The system console on the late 70s/early 80s vintage Synclaviers
    was none other than the venerable VT100...
    
    -b

    
    Wow!
    
    One famous ARP user: Brian Eno!
    
    Another one?

    
    Stevie Wonder, for starters...
    
    -b

Don't forget Nash the Slash from FM!

Now there's a one man band...

    Tony Banks of Genesis also used Arp's...a ProSoloist live from ruffly
    '73-'77 and a 2600, studio only...
    
    Wes

    
    Tony Banks is convinced of the unique sound of analog, versus digital
    synths.
    
    Though anyone has mentioned Herbie Hanckok as a Minimoog user.
    
    Trivia: Wich techno pop/dance english guy has recording everything
    he has made on analog synnths?
    
	
    Vince Clarke - Depeche Mode / Yazoo / Erasure
    
    

    
    reading quickly through this string I think someone said Moog were no
    longer around. Well it may be coincidence but there's a company in
    Tewkesbury UK called Moog, right next door to one of my customers - as
    far as I know this is Moog of MiniMoog fame and they're in business.
    
    Graham 
    
    BTW, what about Hawkwind ? they were building their own synths and
    sound processors before most of the stuff mentioned here had been
    invented (Moog excepted, of course !)
    

    
    
    I've not been able to post the complete Moog Music history
    but the only fact I have on-hand is that Bob Moog has another 
    company dedicated to produce Theremins, (check Keyboard mag
    and you will se the ads) the bussiness who
    payed his studies and made him able to produce synths.
    
    For any company called Moog, Bob has nothing to do with it.
    
    
    On the othe hand, any famous Prophet 5 (the king of analog 
    polyphony) users?
    
    What synths did Eddie Van Haled used most? was a Synclavier?
    
    

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    This was taken from the Sting/Police list.
    
    I promise I will post the complete Moog Music story
    
    
-------------------------------------------
    
From:	US3RMC::"demery@natlab.research.philips.com" "MAIL-11 Daemon" 11-DEC-1995 09:43:41.33
To:	police@xmission.xmission.com
CC:	
Subj:	Re: Synclavier vs. Mac


The Grey Mouser <tomlam@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> wrote:
> 
> You'd think that as a musician, Sting would be using a Mac for his work, 
> but he uses a Synclavier(sp?)...  What the hell (or as the religious 
> would say, "heck") is that? 

The Synclavier is a digital sampling synthesizer made by New England
Digital, which can also be used as a digital hard-disk recorder.
The most famous Synclavier users are Pat Metheny/Lyle Mays of the
Pat Metheny Group and the late, great Frank Zappa.  Mays uses the
Synclavier just like a conventional synthesizer, i.e., with keyboard
entry, while Metheny uses his guitar as a trigger (the only person
I know of who does -- Zappa stated that that was because Metheny has 
phenomenal technique, and is able to hit only the strings that need
to be hit; sloppy technique means that you hit too many strings, and
the Synclavier accepts everything as input, so the result sounds
awful).  Zappa, on the other hand, used the Synclavier as a 
perfect orchestra -- one that didn't need to go through months of
rehearsals to play his music right!  Zappa had the biggest and best
Synclavier system, giving him 48 tracks, and God knows how many
voices, at a total system cost exceeding $1 million.  To hear what
a Synclavier is capable of, listen to Frank's posthumous masterpiece,
Civilization Phaze III.

Put simply, a Synclavier makes a Mac look like a pocket calculator,
so it should come as no surprise that Sting uses one.

Hope that helps, Dem (demery@natlab.research.philips.com)

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