Renaming the Keytar

Some in the comments of this post think we should rename the mighty keytar. Like it's too geeky or something. If you have anything better to call it, feel free to comment. I'll leave you with these classic keytastic videos while you ponder what could possibly relabel the classic keytar. Update: Polls added.

Brilliant Key Solo!

YouTube via t0asta. Vladima

Keytar - Song For Michael

YouTube via DrRyman. via the worst keytar videos ever on oobject

Songs From The Silver Box

Roger O'Donnell has a new release featuring the Moog Voyager. via Alka who is credited with additional drum and synth programming on the album. You can find the release on Amazon.

http://www.rogerodonnell.com/

Press Release:
"Anyone who fell in love with Roger O'Donnell's 2006 album, The Truth In Me, will most assuredly do the same with Songs From The Silver Box. In some respects, the template established by the earlier album remains in place for the second: the ten electronic songs are again performed almost solely with a single instrument, specifically the producer's beloved Moog Voyager; the album includes a mix of instrumental and vocal pieces (with his partner Erin Lang appearing once again on the new release); and as The Truth In Me ended with an extended composition (the fourteen-minute “...And So I Closed My Eyes”) so too does Songs From The Silver Box close with the thirteen-minute “Musique Pour Irakli.”

A key difference between the albums, however, is the presence of beats on the new album, a change that nudges O'Donnell's material closer to the refined melodic electronica associated with Boltfish artists such as Cheju , Mint, Milieu, and Joseph Auer. Though O'Donnell's material may (as reported) find its inspiration in the music of Autechre and Daedelus (among others), it evidences little of the alien severity of the former and the sample-based mayhem of the latter; O'Donnell's oft-pastoral settings, by comparison, are soothing and serene, and exude a warmth and humanity that sets his music apart from other genre practitioners.

The opening notes of “The Prince of Time” immediately identify the music as O'Donnell's when the Moog Voyager's warm sound is used to generate the song's kinetic bass and treble melodies. A few minutes into the piece, a midtempo funk pattern, the beats courtesy of Alka member Bryan Michael, makes its entrance, setting the stage for an extended synthesizer solo. Michael also programs the locomotive patterns that drive “If You Were Alone” and, interestingly, the pitter-pattering beats that appear in other pieces are likewise suggestive of “Trans-Europe Express” in their propulsive quality. Gentle pastel melodies dance over a repeating bass pattern in “Endlessly,” a song whose surface quietude tends to camouflage the emotion that slowly swells as it advances from one stage to the next, with lovely flourishes emerging ever-so-surreptitiously at the four-minute mark. Elsewhere, a beatific trip-hop lilt underscores the open-air splendour of “Changing” while “Always” brings a refreshing, free-floating spirit to the album.

On the vocal front, Lenka's siren-esque contribution to “In Your Hands Now” bolsters its already rapturous character, with the Australian singer's multi-tracked voice sinuously navigating a path over the rolling hills of the keyboard melodies and lightly skipping beat pattern. The first piece composed for the album, “Musique Pour Irakli,” originated when O'Donnell was commissioned to write and perform the music for an haute couture fashion collection in Paris for the Georgian designer Irakli. Swaying rhythms and intricate keyboard melodies suggest an elegant latticework of patterns and colours, while Lang's layered vocalizing offers intermittent sparkle. Her breathy singing also lends an appealing innocence to the melodically radiant “Tiny Pieces of You.” In its quiet way, the song is perhaps the album's most powerful, due in no small part to the fact that the intensity of feeling Lang and O'Donnell have for one another is so palpable.

O'Donnell's history will always precede him—how many others can say they played keyboards for the Psychedelic Furs and The Thompson Twins, and was a long-standing member of The Cure?—but such background is almost incidental in the case of the solo releases. They signify not just a new chapter in his career but an altogether separate volume, and anyone expecting songs remotely resembling The Cure's should look elsewhere. At this stage, O'Donnell has nothing to prove and could easily rest on his laurels, which makes the pleasures afforded by his wonderful solo material all the more satisfying."

The Casio VL 1 sequencer

YouTube via RothHandle

DX7 Orient Express

DX7 Orient Express from dvamateur on Vimeo.
"An attempt for Jarre's Orient Express on a DX7"

D50 Orinoco Flow

D50 Orinoco Flow from dvamateur on Vimeo.
"Quite a bit too fast, and the hits in right hand are at a wrong time. But that's the best I could do to imitate Enya's Orinoco Flow theme..."

Next video is in HD.

D50 Brass

D50 Brass from dvamateur on Vimeo.

DX7 Frequency Modulatioin

DX7 Frequency Modulatioin from dvamateur on Vimeo.
"Creating some simple tones using frequency modulation synthesis."

DX7 Frequency Modulation Part II

DX7 Frequency Modulation Part II from dvamateur on Vimeo.
"Creating a clarinet sound using frequency modulation."
sent my way via fischek.

Synthesizer Programming - Episode 4 - Trance / Dance gated / polysynth sound

YouTube via Thalassa77
"How to create a Trance / Dance gated / polysynth sound. From a basic patch to a powerful dance sound using supersaw wave . The parameters values are approx. Values are expressed in %. The synthesizer is synth1 a free vst synthesizer but you can get similar sounds using similar parameters with other synts ( hardware or software )"

Something Nice For Your Cat (part 2)

YouTube via JohnLRice. Part 1 here
"More of the same as part 1, just a different take . . .except . . . I turned off the main light! Wow, pretty clever, eh? ;-) Thank you very much for taking the time to listen, comment and rate!

Simple unrehearsed soloing featuring are the wonderful sounds of MOTM-300 sine waves passed through MOTM-440 and MOTM-485 filters. For more information on MOTM synthesizers go to www.synthtech.com/"

MC-8 Programming

YouTube via btpro
"Tutorial of Roland digital sequencer MC-8.
MC-8 released in 1977."

Analogue Bass how to - Casio CZ

YouTube via benanderson88
"Re uploaded the video... seeing as the first one had alot of empty space where nothing happened.

This is a video showing how a Casio CZ can have a similar sound to a vintage Roland Juno Bass-line as well as being a simple "how to" for programming it."

House with the Juno-106 and CZ3000

"My new house song titled "purple haze" using the Roland Juno-106 and the CasioCZ3000 synthesizers. This is a live-mix, no overdubbing.
Enjoy.
(c) Ben Anderson 2008"