Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

[PFDarkside]

Anyone into Synthesizers? I don't mean guitar synths, I mean traditional synthesizers. I've been listening to NIN lately and I got curious about how Reznor makes all his sounds... Needless to say I fell down the synthesizer rabbit hole. Holy crap the world of modular synths is wild! It's like the ultimate nerd's homebrew paradise.

I was more familiar with synth usage in classic rock bands like Pink Floyd (Arp, Moog & Synthi-A) Rush (Moog, etc) and Van Halen (Oberheim) along side their Hammonds, but this world of modular and experimental synths is wild to me.

The Eurorack concept is interesting, (relatively) affordable modular synth stuff all adhering to a common standard, and built by small companies.

Here's the video that kicked me off:

Live setup:

(It's still a little strange to me that they use ProTools and a click track live, but I'm trying to open my mind... )

I've got two keyboards, a Nord Electro for "vintage keys" type sounds and an Alesis Micron. I've been messing around with the Micron the last few days, trying to dig into its sequencer and mess around creating sounds. Unfortunately it's a fairly menu intensive unit, I wish there were easier accessible parameters, but oh well. It's still a pretty powerful analog modeler, and quite fun.

Sorry to nerd out, but is anyone else into synths, and if so what do you have and how do you use them? This forum says all other instruments, if it should be somewhere else, so be it.

 

[GoldenVulture]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

I presume your using some kind of Midi keyboard.
I've got a real analog synth, a Korg poly six. I own a basic Midi keyboard too.
The korg legacy collection is three software korgs, an M20, a polysix and Wavestation . The polysix works almost as well as the real one. The Wavestation has lots of sounds and presets as well as the ability to mould /create the sound.
The native Instruments B4 is good stuff too if your into hammonds.
I haven't fooled much with the other software synths but there's plenty of them and all sorts of software plug-ins to use with them.

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

I know what you're feeling but I personally haven't heard analog synth used many times in which I appreciated the tone; Only stuff like the Rentals which use full-blast saw wave Moogs for bass.

if you're a person who likes to dabble in effects pedals, working on analog synth modules seems like that jump from recreational pot and pill usage to horse. Dangerous stuff and so interesting.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

Plenty of software (ab)use going on there, too.

Members of NIN appear in Spectrasonics promotional video material, enthusing about Trillian and Omnisphere. Mr. Reznor is also extremely fond of Bit Reduction processing on both instruments and voices.

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

Devi Ever liked to point out that the Beautiful Disaster pedal/sonic rapist device she made was used by Trent in some of the later non-NIN stuff.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

The korg legacy collection is three software korgs, an M20, a polysix and soundstation [?]

Wavestation WS-1.

The KORG Legacy family has since expanded to include the M1 and MonoPoly. The former is (probably) the genre defining late Eighties ROMpler synth. The latter is very squelchy. I cannot vouch for how accurate the Legacy MonoPoly is because I have never had the privilege of using the real thing.

 

[jtougas]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

All of the ones I diddle around with are VSTi's - Absynth, A few different AAS products (Lounge Lizard, Tassman, Chromaphone), and a few others. Haven't tried running them through amp sims yet, but it's the next logical step, I suppose...

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

I know what you're feeling but I personally haven't heard analog synth used many times in which I appreciated the tone; Only stuff like the Rentals which use full-blast saw wave Moogs for bass.

if you're a person who likes to dabble in effects pedals, working on analog synth modules seems like that jump from recreational pot and pill usage to horse. Dangerous stuff and so interesting.

Oh my, so well put! I love my effect pedals, and I've had the Seek-Wah and Seek-Trem almost since they were released. I also have the below mentioned Truly Beautiful Disaster. (Although it's a bit much for me)

Devi Ever liked to point out that the Beautiful Disaster pedal/sonic rapist device she made was used by Trent in some of the later non-NIN stuff.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

Plenty of software (ab)use going on there, too.

Members of NIN appear in Spectrasonics promotional video material, enthusing about Trillian and Omnisphere. Mr. Reznor is also extremely fond of Bit Reduction processing on both instruments and voices.

Very true. I was amazed by the recording of Pretty Hate Machine how he used a Mac as the sequencer, hardware synths, all put on tape. It was just a process I had never considered, being a guitar -> recording medium guy, and thinking all keys were played on a record.

 

[jtougas]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

If I were recording an external synth (as opposed to the VSTis I usually do), I'd record the MIDI data as well as the audio, in case I needed to completely change the voice.


Sent from my iPad using a bunch of electrons, copper, and probably some fiber optic cable

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

Most of this modular stuff is all CV, no MIDI.

I presume your using some kind of Midi keyboard.
I've got a real analog synth, a Korg poly six. I own a basic Midi keyboard too.
The korg legacy collection is three software korgs, an M20, a polysix and soundstation [?]. The polysix works almost as well as the real one. The sound station has lots of sounds and presets as well as the ability to mould /create the sound.
The native Instruments B4 is good stuff too if your into hammonds.
I haven't fooled much with the other software synths but there's plenty of them and all sorts of software plug-ins to use with them.

Both of my synths are keyboard based. I had the Native B4 and Prophet demo VSTi plugins on my old computer, but I'm not even setup to record right now. Like I said, the internal sequencer is pretty cool on the Micron, it's a very non-traditional way to perform, but there are some cool ways to split/layer/transpose so that a few key latches and live playing can do an entire performance.

Wavestation WS-1.

The KORG Legacy family has since expanded to include the M1 and MonoPoly. The former is (probably) the genre defining late Eighties ROMpler synth. The latter is very squelchy. I cannot vouch for how accurate the Legacy MonoPoly is because I have never had the privilege of using the real thing.

I remember you mentioning your Wavestation previously. That is definitely an iconic sound. Korg is still doing a lot of cool stuff in the world of synths, between their Volcas, Kaoss line, ME-20 analog synth and beatbox type ElectroTribe/MonoTribe stuff. Also the WaveDrum looks very cool!



This whole thread is meant to be an exploration of everything synthesizer, so feel free to post links, videos, pictures, etc...

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

I've started to listen to the radio in the car, as I drive my son about 20 minutes a direction for school now. I finally listened to the M83 song "Midnight City" and it dripped of 80s synth....and I liked it. Then I remembered that M83 did the theme for Oblivion and remembered the jaw-dropping application of hard-synth for the theme of that movie....and I liked it too.

It made me think about what way my musical life would have gone if I didn't let it rot on the vine. I think I would be deep in analog synth usage a'la The Knife, embracing my Gen X coattails.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

Regarding Rush and Moog, this was pretty much limited to the Taurus bass pedals and the Minimoog monosynth. The Seventies polyphonic sounds were often layered Oberheim 2-voice and 4-voice. The Eighties live DVDs reveal a lot of Roland Super JX-10. After that, they used almost anything.

 

[Johtosotku]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

I've only dabbled in software but they have sounded good to my needs. I have a couple of good freeware ones and I've bought the Cakewalk Rapture and the Arturia Analog Factory. The Spectrasonics stuff has sounded awesome, I'd love the Omnisphere but can't really justify the expense at the moment as I haven't done synth stuff in ages.

 

[garryspicer]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

I still have some of my 80's stuff - Yamaha DX100, Cazio CZ101, Yamaha RX21 drum machine & Yamaha QX21 sequencer all gathering dust.
I use the DX100 as the keyboard interface for Reason which is a program I quite like.

 

[jtougas]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

Another guy to explore: Ronald Jenkees

http://www.ronaldjenkees.com/

 

[Kosh Naranek]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

I've been a fan of prog rock and electronic music since I was a kid in the 70's. I'm a big fan of Steve Roach as much as I'm a fan of David Gilmour and Alex Lifeson. So to me, synths have always gone with guitars. Genesis, Pink Floyd, Yes, and other bands that I'm a fan of, always used both together. In fact Steve Howe has in past interviews distinguished between music where the guitar is a part of the band equal with other instruments like keyboards, and music in which the band is more a backdrop or a showcase for the guitar (read "much of the hard rock and metal since Van Halen"), which he isn't such a fan of.

Over the years I went through periods when I got very into writing songs on synths and programming sounds on them, and other periods when I focused on guitar playing. Lately, with the help of a bunch of pedals and plugin effects, I've been trying to get more synth-like sounds from the guitar.

I still have my hardware synths that I've owned since the days when my home studio consisted of these, an Atari ST computer used for MIDI sequencing and preset storage/programming, and a Fostex 4 track cassette recorder. Around 1999 I got an ADAT, and in 2003 I switched to a computer, initially running Cubase SX.
My hardware synths are the exact ones Reznor hated in the 80's. I've also gotten a variety of VST synths from Arturia, Native INstruments, Waldorf, refx, and a bunch of others, and I can see why someone used to the fat, chewy sounds of vintage analog synths might hate the wispy sounds of the 80's do-it-all synths that incorporated samples (usually poor quality) to try to emulate acoustic instruments, electric guitars, basses, electric pianos, some new unheard sounds, as well as analog synths, and did a so-so job at best.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

Ah, the nerd is rising up in me!









Need to just plug the Les Paul into the Splawn and turn it up loud to purge the system!

:18::bigeyes::arg:

 

[uOpt]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

I tried to get into them, but there are many things that bother me that guitars don't have that way.

Manufacturers makes all kinds of changes that "don't affect sound", or build something that "uses the same circuit" and it is far from it. For example, the Juno-106 was a huge disappointment to me after the Juno-60. But of course the Juno-60 lacks essential interfaces and is temperamental. Couldn't Roland have somebody with some ears stand up in a meeting and say "we better put the same oscillators and filters in there"?

Big and unreliable if you want the really synth sounding stuff. Hard to ship.

I also really wanted a Jon Lord like organ "sound", until I discovered that all the Hammond sounds in even the better keyboards are hardwired to already have the modulation in the sound that should come from some expression hardware.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Synthesizers (non guitar, NIN Related)

I also really wanted a Jon Lord like organ "sound", until I discovered that all the Hammond sounds in even the better keyboards are hardwired to already have the modulation in the sound that should come from some expression hardware.

The Nord is a bit of a compromise to me, but honestly they are an amazing blessing compared to the cost, portability and maintenance required for vintage Hammonds, Rhodes, Wurlitzers and Clavinets!

As Modulars are concerned, it's essentially a second golden era. There are a ton of manufacturers making an amazing array of affordable modules now. Analog and digital, CV and MIDI, classic designs and brand new ones. All in the name of experimenting...