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[Tam o' Shantie]

of course keys are cool! just listen to the queers 'punk rock confidential' LP and feel some of those mad organ solos, besides the old 10ew classic 'DFTA' had keys in the chorus and so does the new feel-good summer smash 'whoops!'. the coolest synth sounds i have heard were on the most recent locust album!

[betamax]

Originally posted by Ibid:
Real Shocks do indeed turn out some fine tunes. BedHead's Stu is a programming genius too. The only man I know who can make sequenced stringed instruments sound like the real thing. His sequenced accoustic guitar sounds are awesome.

making sounds out of synths that sound like real instruments is not something I would do, but its tres admirable if it works....all that velocity, aftertouch, and gate programming / randomising / humanising is mega time consuming, but does add realism....i have a mate in France who does it on string samples and makes it sound like a Michael fucking Nyman record, amazing basically

my thing on the other hand is just creating sounds that are very non-real.....anything from stuff that can go grrrrrrrr! and have the same energy as a road drill or wee bleeps as cute as the Clangers....but mostly in yer face squelchy stuff...and electro drums too (not the real sounding type either)

we usually program synth sounds as part of writing the song....Flava playes the tunes in time to our drummer like the robot sequencer she really is, and I manipulate the program in real time untill we all like it. Then the sound gets saved and is often exclusive to that that song as it would probably sound bollocks on another song

we only really use guitars to back up the synths, not the other way round as someone bizarrely said it should be done earlier

and the best synths weve used.....

Waldorf Pulse (the ultimate squelch box)
Nord Lead 2 (thee fucking uber synth!!!)
Electron Sid Station (sounds like a super nintendo)
Casio VL Tone (bedroom fun)
Moog MicroMoog (otherwise called the squelch organ)

we actually had a huge synth sale a while ago and the microkorg went with lots of other stuff even though it was a decent synth

future synths we aspire to are the Electron Monomachine and the Nord G4......we'll just have to get rich first...bastardo!

synths vs guitars?

>both

Superb stuff betamax.Stu actually does his sequencing commercially, creating backing tracks for his own band and for duos and solo acts all over the world. If you've ever heard an act with bad midifiles, you'll know the size of this market. He does do the real synth stuff too, mostly for his own songs. He too likes your work.

[Mouse]

I want my hands on a Yamaha DX-7 & an Oberheim