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Last night, for the Halloween trick-or-treating, I decided to "go for it" and play the Dotcom modular synthesizer *live* (I usually decorate for Halloween in the "mad scientist" theme, as that's what I do for a living anyway and I have plenty of lab coats and safety goggles.).
It's an article of faith that one does NOT play modular synthesizers in real time. Even something semi-modular, like an ARP 2600, is _almost_ never played in real time (Ever hear "Frankenstein" by Edgar Winter? That's an ARP 2600. But it took a roadie half an hour to preset the 2600 for the crazy solo, and another ten minutes afterward to make it "right again" afterwards.)
I went "true modular". No keyboard, just patching and knobbing, in real time. (no, my quad ribbon controller is only working if you test-clip it together with 9V batteries). I propped a Roland KC-60 (a small 40-watt keyboard amp/speaker) into the garage window, put up four colored LED strobes that I bought at K-mart, and ran the Dotcom in real time, just from the knobs and cables.
And- it worked! I channeled Edgar Winter and Tangerine Dream and Forbidden Planet and Rocky Horror and every bad SF movie soundtrack ever seen on the Creature Feature, and the trick-or-treaters loved it! I got responses like "Best on the street" and "You really kicked it up a notch." and "Wow. Totally UFO-ville".
One said "It makes the whole neighborhood more halloweeny." "Oh, should I turn it down?" "No, it's good this way."
And best of all, at the end, a parental unit even asked if it was "one of those synthesizers like ... uh...um..." and made plugging-and-unplugging motions. "Like on the cover of 'Switched-On Bach'", I asked innocently. "Yeah, like that!"
I grinned and smiled. No better reward possible.
---- Synthesizer Geeking Follows -----
Things learned:
You don't need a lot of oscillators. I used 2 Q-106 oscs and the Q-150 ladder filter, in 24dB mode as the main sound chain, with the ladder filter flicking in and out of resonance. I have a quad LFO from SSL (thanks Doug!) that I used to modulate filter frequency and resonance continuously, so even if I was at the door handing out candy, there was still "motion" in the sound. The resonance really added a lot to the pulse-wave
wailing from the Q-106's (which were usually tuned either an octave or an octave and a fifth apart); I really like the sound of a filter at the edge of resonance as the filter bends around the incoming signal.
I also used an Encore UEG to put a slow (60-second-plus) wail into the lower of the two audio oscillators. Yet more motion to prevent boredom. I used a Q-125 signal processor to play with gain and offset for the quad LFOs, and that was about it; I had a Q-171 quantizer in line early on, but I didn't like the effect, so I patched it out while other stuff was still playing and didn't go back. I tossed a Q-115 reverb into the mix near the end (as well as an SSL digital delay line) but it didn't do much for the sound.
IMHO, multiples are suboptimal. Get a pack of "twofers" (2:1 1/4 jack stereo splitters) instead; things like this. Be sure to get either mono-in to mono-out or stereo-to-stereo.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/10X-Gold-2-way-headphone-splitter-1-4-stereo-jack-Lot-/250719228927?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a6007d3ff
These twofers are not super quality, but they're cheap (10 for $14). And they make it much faster to patch and avoid the "mult thicket" problem where you have 12 wires leading into a 1-MU block and no clue what any of them do. When the STG wavefolder comes in, I will probably pull my last mult module out and go
pure "twofer".
Surprisingly, you don't need a lot of _rack_ for performing live (for Halloween, at least!). I have a pair of P22 cases and I only used one of them for the whole performance.
If you ever get the chance to perform live, try it!
- Bill
It's an article of faith that one does NOT play modular synthesizers in real time. Even something semi-modular, like an ARP 2600, is _almost_ never played in real time (Ever hear "Frankenstein" by Edgar Winter? That's an ARP 2600. But it took a roadie half an hour to preset the 2600 for the crazy solo, and another ten minutes afterward to make it "right again" afterwards.)
I went "true modular". No keyboard, just patching and knobbing, in real time. (no, my quad ribbon controller is only working if you test-clip it together with 9V batteries). I propped a Roland KC-60 (a small 40-watt keyboard amp/speaker) into the garage window, put up four colored LED strobes that I bought at K-mart, and ran the Dotcom in real time, just from the knobs and cables.
And- it worked! I channeled Edgar Winter and Tangerine Dream and Forbidden Planet and Rocky Horror and every bad SF movie soundtrack ever seen on the Creature Feature, and the trick-or-treaters loved it! I got responses like "Best on the street" and "You really kicked it up a notch." and "Wow. Totally UFO-ville".
One said "It makes the whole neighborhood more halloweeny." "Oh, should I turn it down?" "No, it's good this way."
And best of all, at the end, a parental unit even asked if it was "one of those synthesizers like ... uh...um..." and made plugging-and-unplugging motions. "Like on the cover of 'Switched-On Bach'", I asked innocently. "Yeah, like that!"
I grinned and smiled. No better reward possible.
---- Synthesizer Geeking Follows -----
Things learned:
You don't need a lot of oscillators. I used 2 Q-106 oscs and the Q-150 ladder filter, in 24dB mode as the main sound chain, with the ladder filter flicking in and out of resonance. I have a quad LFO from SSL (thanks Doug!) that I used to modulate filter frequency and resonance continuously, so even if I was at the door handing out candy, there was still "motion" in the sound. The resonance really added a lot to the pulse-wave
wailing from the Q-106's (which were usually tuned either an octave or an octave and a fifth apart); I really like the sound of a filter at the edge of resonance as the filter bends around the incoming signal.
I also used an Encore UEG to put a slow (60-second-plus) wail into the lower of the two audio oscillators. Yet more motion to prevent boredom. I used a Q-125 signal processor to play with gain and offset for the quad LFOs, and that was about it; I had a Q-171 quantizer in line early on, but I didn't like the effect, so I patched it out while other stuff was still playing and didn't go back. I tossed a Q-115 reverb into the mix near the end (as well as an SSL digital delay line) but it didn't do much for the sound.
IMHO, multiples are suboptimal. Get a pack of "twofers" (2:1 1/4 jack stereo splitters) instead; things like this. Be sure to get either mono-in to mono-out or stereo-to-stereo.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/10X-Gold-2-way-headphone-splitter-1-4-stereo-jack-Lot-/250719228927?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a6007d3ff
These twofers are not super quality, but they're cheap (10 for $14). And they make it much faster to patch and avoid the "mult thicket" problem where you have 12 wires leading into a 1-MU block and no clue what any of them do. When the STG wavefolder comes in, I will probably pull my last mult module out and go
pure "twofer".
Surprisingly, you don't need a lot of _rack_ for performing live (for Halloween, at least!). I have a pair of P22 cases and I only used one of them for the whole performance.
If you ever get the chance to perform live, try it!
- Bill
