Vectorman

I think it's fairly early in the chain for me, too. But indeed, compression surely does accentuate it. I think the biggest godsend plugin I've found in recent times is oeksound soothe 2. All the excessive resonant peaks I used to tame with manual EQ band automation (like those pesky "e" vowels), that plugin clamps them down to the point that I hardly ever have to use EQ automation on a vocal now. Also can work a trick on other potentially harsh things like guitar solos. Apologies to the Cowboys for going off on a vocal production tangent in the new album announcement thread, btw. Nice job on the new release, guys!

The new Trevor Rabin...

fwiw, when it comes to de-essing, I've never found a plugin that can control sibilants entirely to my satisfaction as an automatic process. While I found switching to a ribbon mic lessened the issue, that also didn't completely eliminate it. So I at least partly do it the tedious way - separating each sibilant that's still too loud (which is often a lot of them) and manually reducing its gain.

Just listened to the album! Very nice job with the production.. Congratulations on the new release!

I think probably nothing before or after the '80s would have drawn me in quite as effectively. I guess I'm an atypical Rush fan in that I was never really into hard rock as a genre before Rush and it's still not a large portion of my listening (I think Rush and Porcupine Tree are the only hard rock currently on my in-the-car music shuffle). Prior to developing an interest in Rush, from what I can remember, I think a lot of what I liked in my early teens was more synth-heavy. That being the case, 1985 was, I guess, a good point for me to board the train after reading that Keyboard Magazine interview with Geddy and listening to Grace Under Pressure probably 20 or 30 times that summer. My fascination with all the synth sounds and Geddy's keyboard setup was the initial hook, and once ensnared, I quickly developed an appreciation for the bass playing, the lyrical content and everything else. I still like the PoW/HYF-era best in terms of Geddy's bass playing. Really digged the more hyper, funky, inventive lines he fired off on almost every song. I felt like bass parts that really jumped out and grabbed you were never as plentiful on any albums that followed.

Behringer Pro 800, a $399 8-voice VCO analog poly which is a sort-of remake of the Sequential Prophet 600, is getting into some users' hands now. Sounds like it might be a bit yet before it's readily available in the US, though. Pretty much unheard of to get an 8-voice dual-VCO synth for anywhere near this price. I was waiting to make sure it turned out decently before pre-ordering, myself.

We've been on a Netflix documentary series kick lately. Meltdown: Three Mile Island, Challenger: The Final Flight, and most recently Pepsi, Where's My Jet? Strangely, despite it apparently having gotten quite a bit of news coverage in the '90s, I have no memory of ever hearing about the legal battle over the Harrier jet from the Pepsi commercial when it was happening.

I don't believe so...from the description, it sounds like it's a different specimen from 1974 that's been restored. Moog themselves have of course recently reissued the Minimoog Model D for the second time, so you can get a brand-new one with MIDI for a mere $5K.

Yep, when I saw that, of course I had to comment about it to my better half, and then I had to roll the video back because I'd missed a few lines of dialogue while I was babbling about the shirt.

And now that cool and surprising announcement is followed by completely unexpected sad news. https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2022/06/01/sequential-founder-father-of-midi-dave-smith-has-died/

It definitely is a cool and inspirational thing to see a new entry in the Oberheim OB series for the first time in SO long. A few years ago, I probably wouldn't have bet $10 on it ever happening. Hard to say how long the wait could be for those looking to buy the UB-Xa. According to what was stated by Behringer, the only holdup now is getting sufficient quantities of components for a big enough batch to justify starting production, but that might be a while yet. I'm in no big hurry for any of these, though. Leaving aside sentimental factors, my occasional desires for an Oberheim-like texture in a new song are probably, in all honesty, satisfied by software solutions like Synapse Obsession.

The new synth has aspects of the Oberheim OB-X, OB-Xa and OB-8 all rolled up in one. The oldest of those three, the OB-X, was of course the source of the "Tom Sawyer" filter sweep, as well as the poly sounds on "The Camera Eye" and "Subdivisions", etc. Not cheap at $5K, but I guess it's a bargain compared to original OB-X's which are now going for close to $20K. www.oberheim.com

I had posted about what looks like a forthcoming new Oberheim OB-X (or OB-X-inspired synth), but I think the post was lost when there was a glitch with the board. Another short teaser has come out in the interim. Looks like it may be another project done in tandem with Sequential (like the OB-6 from a few years ago). No word on any specifics or expected release schedule.

American Horror Story (on season 1, had never watched it before). And also Lost in Space, season 3 on Netflix. The latter made me physically jump when they suddenly threw in "Tom Sawyer" - on Lost in Space, of all things. I think it was episode 6?

Had no idea there had been new PT available for the last week. This is SO much more instantly engaging than Steven's last two solo albums (especially TFB which, even though I'm very fond of a lot of electronic music, just didn't really grab me). Granted, this track or at least the core of it probably dates back to the earlier 2010's when Steven was still doing (IMO) great solo work. It is rather interesting to see this happening after Steven said that he had become bored with doing guitar-driven music. It's really been a year of things one had given up expecting to see happen...happening. Geddy and Alex announcing a new album in the works with Stewart Copeland is surely right around the corner, LOL.