On 3/27/07, David Powers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Tom, have you ever programmed a digital keyboard from the 80's or 90's?
yes, in fact i have a yamaha tx81z. which i almost never use because of its lack of ease. compared to the sh-101 which is probably the most intuitive synth i own, which gets used constantly because of how easy it is to make a sound, and have it sound good.
Now, I can: A. Instantly map any knob on my controller to any synth/effect/Ableton/whatever parameter I want, with a choice of programs to use. It can even be done with 100% non-commercial, free software. B. With a very small amount of work, build my own synthesizer, if the synth I'm using is missing some functionality I want. Again this could even be done with free software, though it might not be quite as elegant a solution. The closest thing I ever had to this in the past was playing around on the Moog modular in college. In that case you had to be in the class, and you had to sign out little blocks of time in order to use it.
but see, IMO neither of those really has results that matter in the music. sure, a good synth sound is nice, but how many parameters are really necessary for that? even modulars IMO start to take away from the more important things in the music. was it the parameters used for the synth sound that made "strings of life" so awesome? of course not! the same thing goes for rock people who spend all this time trying to emulate their favorite guitarist's tone. the guitarist was a bad mofo not because of his tone, but because of those ill riffs he was playing. tom
