Advice for synth for newbie

[Jackal624]

Hi All,

 

I'm hoping someone with a little more experience than me can make a suggestion for a starter synth that I can use for basic keyboard parts. I play guitar and would like to experiment with getting a cheap midi foot controller like a Roland PK-5A (poor man's Taurus pedals...), but need to know what "brain" to get. Should I just get a computer program, a sound module (like the Minitaur), or a full blown synth that I can midi to the foot controller? I don't want to spend a ton in case I don't have the skills to pull it off.

 

Thanks for any suggestions!

[CygnusX-1Bk2]

I have a PK-5 that have run through an older Roland synth but now it's all softsynths. My app of choice is Propellerhead's Reason for synth/sampling. I also have Native Instruments Komplete and some others. Way more bang for your buck if you go the softsynth route. The only real hitch is the power suply on your laptop. I had one laptop that created a ton of noise on a PA because of the poorly made power supply. Macs are all good but the bad ones are generally on cheaper PC laptops.

[Jackal624]

I was expecting that response. OK, so after I get Reason, where do I go from there? Are there specific sounds that you find yourself going back to again and again?

[CygnusX-1Bk2]

I created a bunch myself, some from presets and some from scratch. I had a need for Moog and Oberheim patches and I found dozens of "Refills" for free online (Refill is the Propellerhead proprietary file type with a bunch of patches). I have created a bunch of sampler sets that I was using when I was with my Rush band. I use it for sound design work so there are some patches that I go back to for certain elements. It's just easy for me to create sounds personally. There is a guy here who uses an Oberheim softsynth that works only in Windows that sounds really nice.

 

The biggest thing about apps like these is how you work in them. It's more important that you work easily in it than someone else you know using it. It really depends on what your needs are. Reason does what I need it to. Some guys I work with prefer Kontakt (or Komplete), others like Omnisphere. There are plenty to choose from, but you will get more bang for your buck than if you hook up to a stand alone synthesizer, which will also work.

Edited January 15, 2013 by CygnusX-1Bk2

[Jackal624]

Thank you for your advice - you make several great points that I never thought of.

[CygnusX-1Bk2]

That's why we're here!

 

Here is Guitar Center's Virtual Instrument selection which includes lots of drum "VI's" but you can narrow the search. However Reason is now considered Music Production Software because it has DAW capability (since version 5 which I skipped so 6 is a bit more elaborate that what I am used to). Abelton Live is also on that page which is what Tony Geranios is using for Geddy's backline on the CA tour (finally dropped the Roland hardware samplers). As you'll see there is a broad spectrum of products.

 

Oh and other things to consider are whether you want a stand alone program or one that acts as a plugin in a host app, or one that can do both. Reason is both a stand alone app and can be used as a plugin in other DAWs. If you are already using a DAW of some kind then there may (should) be a VI of some kind available as a plugin, though it may be limited- but should be anough to get you started on figuring out if you can handle the pedal work.

 

Coordinating how to play foot pedal keys with guitar/bass is a bit of a learning curve. It helps if you can get your guitar playing as automatic as possible so you can concentrate on what to do with your feet. I started life as a drummer so limb independence is something I was already used to. If you notice how Geddy does it these days he's not playing "notes" as much as he triggers phrases that are sampled, depending of the song. Then the keyboard is no longer chromatic but rather becomes sequential. Again it comes down to how he wants it to work for him.

Edited January 16, 2013 by CygnusX-1Bk2

[Jackal624]

Interesting that you brought up something I've been trying to figure out for some time - how to launch samples of recorded phrases that would be in time with the live music being played by the band. Does the drummer have to play to a click track at a certain tempo for that to mesh correctly? I'm assuming it involves some kind of MIDI clock that controls the tempo of the samples as well as provide the live musicians a reference to play to. Being a guitarist, I'm a step or two down the evolutionary scale compared to the MIDI crowd.

 

Thanks SO MUCH for all your help - I feel like I'm making real progress here.

[CygnusX-1Bk2]

That is the $64,000 question!

 

Ideally a band plays a song at the same tempo as consistently as possible. In my early attempts at replicating Rush songs we would run a 4 track cassette machine where tracks 1&2 were a stereo pair of synth only tracks and 3&4 were click. 1&2 were sent to the house and all 4 were mixed for drummer headphones. Pluses were we played in time with the backing tracks (if we started with the metronome properly otherwise it was clusterf*** city). Minuses were the drummer could barely hear the guitar, bass and vocals. Good for the audience, not great for the band. The tape counter was critical and I needed to note what songs started at what count. Time consuming when there are people waiting to listen.

 

Then we moved to using a digital 4 track which was better for switching songs because everything was saved to a disc and time locked. Still not great but better.

 

Once I started making sample phrases triggerable things eased up considerably, but we had to be consistent with tempos. We had a period where we used both backing tracks and triggered events depending on the song but after a while we got away from the 4 track at all.

 

A song like Spirit of Radio which has a tempo based sequencer part was fairly simple and the first song we did with Reason. In that case I created a sequence for the "Invisible Airwaves" section. This was easy enough because it starts as guitar and bass resolve and the bass drum plays along. The drummer got a good level of this in his monitor and it was like playing to the record for him. I assigned the start and stop of the sequence to the low C key of the PK. In Reason there is a cool device called a Combinator which allows the user to combine several modules in one device. You can assign keyboard splits and other cool parameters. So the sequencer was only assigned to the low C. Then I assigned an Oberheim-esque synth (in the proper octave) to E and above for the high synth part. Finally I put a sampler on C#-D# and made a piano sample for the very end (chords and key drag). This was simple and worked like a charm.

 

For a song like The Pass I created a bunch of phrases that are assigned to each key and triggered live on the fly. Force Ten was similar but I had to use either the octave shift or another bank on the PK because there are so many different events.

 

So no you really don't need a click but your band has to play the same tempo consistently. But you must create your phrases based upon the tempo that you regularly play the song. There is an app that I use on my iPhone that allows me to determine tempo by tapping. You can get it here. It's called Delay Genie which is for programming multi-tap delays, but it is good to figure out tempos for this as well.

 

In Ableton live you can actually adjust the tempo live by using a tap tempo input. I am sure since Rush are using Ableton that they are sending tempo to Ableton to follow, probably a drum mix of some sort or manually inputted by Jack Secret. I intend to ask him about this since he is a FB friend. :)

Edited January 16, 2013 by CygnusX-1Bk2

[Distant Signals]

The PK-5 pedals are great. I have them and use them in my Rush band. Cygnus did alot more extensive work trying to incorporate the keys/samples into a live setting. Very cool indeed, but too much techy stuff for me to utilize.

 

Since I am the sole keyboard player in the band, I create alot of stuff "on the fly" Like the syncopated stuff from Spirit of Radio and the ending piano part are all done live and in time with whatever tempo the band has set.

 

The pedals become especially useful on Jacobs Ladder during the middle keyboard solo'ing. I midi my pedals to a Korg DW8000 that has a good low "moogy bass pedal" type sound to fill out the bottom end (since there is no actual bass being played) while I add some layered strings/pad sounds along with the "saw tooth" type sounding lead.

 

For more complex and authentic type sounds, I trigger a sampler with my hands to get those quirky sounds like the car screeching off in Red Barchetta, the "chime" sound in Witch Hunt, the intro driven sequenced key parts for Vital Signs, etc....

 

Our new bass player has the PK-5 pedals as well, so we'll try to incorporate more samples/patterns to trigger from his pedals.

 

It's all fun stuff and I definitely have to be on top of things for everything to come out smoothly.

 

Have fun and enjoy!!!!

Edited January 16, 2013 by RUSH-2112

[CygnusX-1Bk2]

The guy who turned me on to Reason (friend and former co-worker) just wrote a book about Reason:

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/181119_10151223997886200_1376129490_n.jpg

[Jackal624]

Lots of good stuff here. Where do I get a copy of his book?

[CygnusX-1Bk2]

Amazon of course! Edited January 17, 2013 by CygnusX-1Bk2

[Jackal624]

Keeping in mind all the great advice I received in this thread, here's what I did: I decided to go cheap and easy to start with and upgrade later to a PK if I have the chops to pull it together (which I figure there's probably less than a 50/50 chance of that happening...). Anyway, I ordered one of these for $240:

 

http://www.keithmcmillen.com/12step/overview

 

Since I am a Mac user, I have some rudimentary sounds in Garageband that I can use for "live" playing. It also has some recording abilities, so I'm hoping I can make a few phrases or loops and launch them from the footboard.

 

This shoud be enough to tell me if this is a feasible option for us (the Rush cover band I play in). If not, I'm not taking a bath on equipment that is going to sit around and gather dust or get sold at a loss.

 

I'd love to hear your thoughts, good and bad. Thanks again for all your advice - I probably would have gone in a completely different direction otherwise.

[CygnusX-1Bk2]

Smart move!

 

Get Main Stage for Garage Band/Logic. I think it's like $39 at the app store. Garage Band is a consumer/limited version of Logic. Logic is also a good buy at $199 at the app store which is for recording but it also has a LOT of virtual instruments. The disc buy is $499 and they are going to upgrade to Logic 10 soon which means the price will go up. NAMM is this week so we might hear an announcement very soon.