Randall guitar amps

[AfricaBrass]

I think he'll be happy with the Randall. It's much better than my first amp was. 

My first amp was that Fender Champ you mentioned! I still have it, but it needs work.

I'm glad you'll be getting it fixed. Those are great amps.

[AfricaBrass]

Now of course I can't stand the DX7 Rhodes sound because it was on so many late 80s tunes - crappy Chicago ballads, Billy Ocean etc. I sold the DX7 in 1994 and bought an acoustic piano - they never go out of style. Funny how you can listen to a radio station that plays retro 80s and I can pick out all the different keys available at the time - there's the DX7, Juno/Jupiter 6, Oberheim, Korg DW6000, Ensoniq, etc. The tech really drove the tunes and the solos. Think of Cindy Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun loopy sounding key solo - no one would do that nowaday.

I actually thought of getting an old synth and using some of those sounds in a new way with my next recording. They're so far out, they might just be in.

I have an old Kawaii keyboard that I've been using as a midi trigger for years. Maybe, I'll actually use some of the sounds on that thing.

We guitarists were also guilty in the eighties. Fortunately, I couldn't afford the expensive multi-fx processors for guitar back then and bought cheap old effects pedals from the seventies (which ballooned in value ) instead. I played with guys that had these wacky rack setups for their gigs. I don't think they used 1% of what their gear could do.

[7/4]

Since I'm a guitarist, I had a different view of the DX-7. I hated that thing.

I played for a while in a band that had a DX-7 weilding keyboardist. Man... everytime he'd play, it sounded like the frickin' "Final Countdown" by Europe. I couldn't take it and left the band. The 80's gave me a headache.

It took me YEARS to appreciate keyboards after that...

I LOVE keyboards and synths now.

I hated it too! I think they were hard to program (or so I hear).

However...I bought my 1st softsynth last month...and what did I buy? FM7!

It was the fact that it could store multiple tunings that sold me. Plus I can always process it to make it sound a bit more analog.

[AfricaBrass]

Since I'm a guitarist, I had a different view of the DX-7. I hated that thing.

I played for a while in a band that had a DX-7 weilding keyboardist. Man... everytime he'd play, it sounded like the frickin' "Final Countdown" by Europe. I couldn't take it and left the band. The 80's gave me a headache. 

It took me YEARS to appreciate keyboards after that...   

I LOVE keyboards and synths now.

I hated it too! I think they were hard to program (or so I hear).

However...I bought my 1st softsynth last month...and what did I buy? FM7!

It was the fact that it could store multiple tunings that sold me. Plus I can always process it to make it sound a bit more analog.

I'd like to get into soft-synths.

The DX-7 players I knew didn't create their own patches. I bet that was the problem. It just seemed like the DX-7 was everywhere for a good part of the 80's.

[Jim Alfredson]

The DX7 was notoriously hard to program. In fact, Yamaha still has a stigma against their synths for being hard to program, even though that doesn't really have any truth behind it now.

I used to make my own patches on the DX7 but I was a kid and it was more like trial and error than logical sound design.

The FM7 is way cool. It's still one of my favorite soft-synths.

[7/4]

I'd like to get into soft-synths.

The next one I'm looking at is the Korg Legacy collection, but I can wait until I can find a good deal on it.

[7/4]

The DX7 was notoriously hard to program. In fact, Yamaha still has a stigma against their synths for being hard to program, even though that doesn't really have any truth behind it now.

I used to make my own patches on the DX7 but I was a kid and it was more like trial and error than logical sound design.

The FM7 is way cool. It's still one of my favorite soft-synths.

All I've done is create a sine tone patch from scratch. Maybe I can dig into a bit this week. There's a zillion patches for it on the net, it can use anything created for the DX family.

[AfricaBrass]

I'd like to get into soft-synths.

The next one I'm looking at is the Korg Legacy collection, but I can wait until I can find a good deal on it.

Are you using these for recording only or for performance also?

I've considered going completely digital with my recording setup and using soft-synths, but I'm concerned about stuff like latency.

[Jim Alfredson]

Yeah, that's the great thing about it... the ability to load-in any old DX7 patch. It can also do way more than the DX7 can do. It really represents the future of FM synthesis, since Yamaha dropped the ball after the SY77 (which I also have... great synth... you can use samples as operators in the FM algorhythms... way cool!)

[j lee]

I'd like to get into soft-synths.

The next one I'm looking at is the Korg Legacy collection, but I can wait until I can find a good deal on it.

Are you using these for recording only or for performance also?

I've considered going completely digital with my recording setup and using soft-synths, but I'm concerned about stuff like latency.

Unless you're like someone like Donald Fagen, very troubled with MIDI latency no matter the instrument, you'll have no troubles with soundcard latency.

I used to have a laptop rig for performance, a budget notebook with an Echo Indigo $100 PCMCIA sound card plugged in and a USB MIDI interface -- the results from a performance vantage were acceptable, although I never measured sound-card latency personally. If there was a difference in latency vs. a hardware or even acoustic setup, it was something akin to moving the amps several feet farther away from one -- single-digit ms. of soundcard latency, likely.

[AfricaBrass]

I'd like to get into soft-synths.

The next one I'm looking at is the Korg Legacy collection, but I can wait until I can find a good deal on it.

Are you using these for recording only or for performance also?

I've considered going completely digital with my recording setup and using soft-synths, but I'm concerned about stuff like latency.

Unless you're like someone like Donald Fagen, very troubled with MIDI latency no matter the instrument, you'll have no troubles with soundcard latency.

I used to have a laptop rig for performance, a budget notebook with an Echo Indigo $100 PCMCIA sound card plugged in and a USB MIDI interface -- the results from a performance vantage were acceptable, although I never measured sound-card latency personally. If there was a difference in latency vs. a hardware or even acoustic setup, it was something akin to moving the amps several feet farther away from one -- single-digit ms. of soundcard latency, likely.

THANKS! I'm really new to a lot of this stuff. I'm glad it works well.

I'm not Donald Fagen, so I should be fine.

[Robert J]

The DX7 was notoriously hard to program.

Oh man I paid $50 for an extra manual from some publisher just to learn to program - and also because the Japanese to English teranslation from Yamaha left much to be desired. This new manual came with these floppy LPs (like Keyboard mag used to have). I remember for hours trying to get 1 usable sound and then ruining it with some oscillator I couldn't see because I hit the wheel by accident and you had to press 3 buttons at the same time to save something.

I also remember crossing the Detroit river to get some extra sounds and the E! upgrade from some guy in Warren - from an ad in the back of Keyboard mag. It was a Sunday night, a friend drove because I didn't, and we're in this guy's basement while I gave him cash for the stuff. Kind of spooky when I look back. That's where I got the 5000 sounds I barely used, and the 16 track sequencer that I did (about 2 tracks). It was at that time that I realized we cannot all be Brian Eno just because we own the same stuff.

[Jim Alfredson]

Ah, getting stuff in Detroit. Man, when my dad and I bought the SY77, we saved up enough money and found a guy in Detroit that would sell it to us for $2k (it was going for almost $3k at the time). Crazy Clarence or something. Fucking asshole.

We get to the store, in downtown Detroit, and it's the floor model he's selling us. No biggie, it was fine. But there was no box. So he said, "Here, give me the money and then you can follow us to the warehouse to get the box." They were going to have the synth with them, by the way so they could put it in the box at the warehouse.

Ummm... yeah. My dad just looked at him and said, "I don't think so." and started to walk out. He was all like, "Okay okay, I'll have my boys go get the box and we can just wait here."

Anyway, we got that thing back home to Mason and I had school the next the day, but I stayed up ALL night playing it, and figuring out the sequencer. My mom was mad, but I did go to school the next day.

[7/4]

I'd like to get into soft-synths.

The next one I'm looking at is the Korg Legacy collection, but I can wait until I can find a good deal on it.

Are you using these for recording only or for performance also?

I've considered going completely digital with my recording setup and using soft-synths, but I'm concerned about stuff like latency.

Composition.

I haven't used a synth live in almost 3 years, but I can see bringing them in later this year. But I'm not interested in bringing a laptop on the road.