A lot of other synth players arguing here over presets and whatever. Who cares. Use what you like. Use what instrument you like. Doesn't matter if its hardware or VSTi. Doesn't matter if it's FM or analog. It literally doesn't matter what you use as long as you like it and it works for you. It's your music. Do what you want.
Herbie Hancock: "By the time you program this thing, you forgot what you were going to program it for." Maybe that's the reason I never get anything done.
Lamster66 Well, I may have been a little too liberal with the term "finished"! 15 finished, and 15 in near-finished limbo, may be more accurate. My point is, I've created WAY more sounds than I probably have years left to play! But by god when I do write I have a backlog of sounds to choose from! (So why do I find myself creating new sounds when writing, other than just selecting and moving on?) The problem is these killer (and mostly affordable) softsynths with their ability to create virtually any sound you can imagine, and many you can't! But would we have it any other way?! Nah!
This excerpt is off a weekly programme called Rockschool, back in the late 80's, if I'm not mistaken. For a budding synth player like me it was a must watch. There was a drummer, guitarist (as seen) and bass player as well as the keyboard/ synth man. Oh, the memories! ❤️
I know this video is old, but it's actually refreshing: the people interviewed are all professional musicians, and they are adamantine in highlighting the cons of vintage analog instruments, especially the voltage controlled ones. Nowadays, commercial resellers in all disguises seldom even mention those inconvieniences, but the limits are still there, plus the unreliability that comes with age. Also, it's heartwarming to see all the enthusiasm about midi, computers, and digital synths: it was the dawn of the modern recording studio, without whom you would have to be Stevie Wonder to have access to synths and record electronic music. And, when people nowadays talk about dawless, they still talk 90% of the time about a computer with a digital software system, that interacts via midi. Some things do not change, only the attitude.
The 80's were a magical time if you were the right age... For adults it was all about the never ending quest for the almighty $$$, for the pre-teens it was Saturday Morning Cartoons and the drag of school. But for us lucky ones, who were in our teens/early 20's, the 80's was heaven. The best music, the best movies, the best drugs, the hottest gals with their tight leather pants, too much makeup and perfume, and the hair that reached to the sky. It was quite a time to be alive :-)
Me too - just want to bury myself in that 1987 synth rig, but with the exception of replacing his "piano" keyboard with a modern digital piano - it would be hard to give up my Roland FP-4F for anything the 80s had...
Vince Clark using a BBC Micro running sequencer software, pricey in the 80's, about £400, which was a lot. The BBC went on to become Acorn Computers which eventually became ARM which runs almost every mobile device on the planet.
It's was my second computer and I basically learned programming on the acorn electron and the bbc micro b. My father had the Acorn Master and everybody around us had commodore c64s. Video's like this instantly brings back memories. I love them
I liked how back in 1987 (the date of the series this compilation was sourced from) Herbie Hancock was talking about the "touch" of a piano and synthesizer and predicting how "that day will come" when electronic instruments would be able to reproduce the nuances of an acoustic piano. He knew...
Rock School! I have this on VHS. I got it as a birthday present when I was a teenager in the 80s. It wasn't easy to acquire in the 1980s, in America, in my neck of the woods. I also got an accompanying book. I still have it somewhere. . .
This was absolutely fantastic programming from the BBC back in the 80s. It told you exactly what you needed to know to get your band off the ground. I used to watch avidly each week. Thanks, Rockschool.
"The way you hit the key... At this point synthesizers are still not quite as sensitive... you can't create all the nuances out of the synthesizers with your fingers that you can out of an acoustic piano... but that day will come". I imagine Herbie watching this and saying "I KNEW IT!".
Herbie Hancock's point about professional programmers should not be overlooked. Some guys like Vince Clarke and Thomas Dolby were techies themselves, but many other musicians weren't. One name you'll see on a lot of albums from the UK is Andy Richards, who played or programmed on songs that were at #1 in the UK for 19 weeks in 1984 e.g. he created the keyboard parts on FGTH's "Relax" and should have got a songwriter credit.
Yes kids, this is how we used to do it. I started out with an Atari Stacey 4 Laptop running Notator by Emagic which many don't realize eventually evolved into Logic. Alesis HR-16 Drum machine, Yamaha DX-7, Proteus, Korg Poly 800, Roland U20, Roland S220 sampler. Fast forward to today and it's all on a Mac running Mainstage and a controller. Times have changed kids. This is an especially good thing as far as the Shumett goes. LOL
This was the 80s. I understood the technical manuals from the synths back then. The 2000s synth samplers were crazy complicated. Now you get this stuff on your puter in a collection of libraries.
Teddy L Boulden I don’t use PCs..only for loading my music online. There’s nothing hard about learning a “newer” digital synth. It’s great to jump in and find out what they can do. I own 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000 onward synths. ALL synths (analog AND digital) are editable! ✌🏻🎶🕶
Brilliant, used to love rock school. Many classic moments, herbie Hancock with his Mac whilst Vince Clark plays blind man's drums with his BBC micro. Square waves for strings cos sawtooths for brass. Herbie's "i have a man to do my DX7 programming, but I do know how it works, honest". Mind you shows you how will designed MIDI was, still the standard new be it 5 pin or USB. Thank you for sharing.
I loved watching this program as a kid, growing up with ideas of owning a synth one day, and a guitar too. Clear simple information for fans of earlier synths, with a nod towards the use of a sequencer thrown in. Later synths were linked via MIDI, so you could buy a 'MIDI synth brain box' (a keyboardless synth) and just use the synth keyboard from a different unit fitted with MIDI capability. MIDI is probably old tech by today's standards, but it was a great leap forward at the time. My oldest (analogue) synth is the KORG Delta, and I also own a Roland RD-500 piano, and a MIDI connected Proteus FX unit. These are enough for me, but the temptation is, always there to buy a modern synth!
Grooving Gecko Everybody uses presets. Jean Michel Jarre used an Elka Synthex preset for the laser-harp. The opening gong on MJ's "Beat It" is a Synclavier preset. Art of Noise is full of Emulator presets, and the infamous Shakuhachi sample found everywhere from Enigma to "Sledge Hammer" and Santana/Hooker's "The Healer" is an Emulator stock sound, as well. They're everywhere.
Yes, I know. That was the point of my comment. It wasn't a negative comment. Underlying meaning of my comment: "To all you people complaining about modern producers using presets, everyone does, even the greatest musicians of all time".
Love this video. You can literally see the evolution to what we have today. I look at my array of "plugins" and "presets" in my DAW and wonder how to wrap my brain around it all. Look at the huge rooms, the rack and racks of keyboards and other gear. And all the cable routing (power, MIDI, audio, patches). It's always been this complex. Oh yeah, and at the end of the day, it's supposed to all sound like music!
This has to be one of the first times anyone saw a Paul Reed Smith guitar. His prototype was made in mid 80's - note the headstock where he hand signed the thing with gold sharpie and on back the serial no. was gold sharpie. Looks like a 10 top but with no birds on the neck maybe a CE 24?? Oh, were there synths in this video? I couldn't tell - the Adorn mousse was poisoning my eyes and ears.....
And now you can jam ALL of that into an IPAD. Insane how far we have come. I have a Roland digital 8 track I can't even sell, as well as an ASR-10 and Proteus-2000. Nutty.
