Sunday Synth Jam: Here’s an old-school Berlin School synth jam, via Dutch synthesist Martin Peters.
Technical details below.
via attorks:
Two weeks ago I bought a Moog Prodigy in pretty good shape. Since then I have cleaned the keys, key contacts and switches, I sanded and repainted the wooden parts, replaced the power elco’s, drilled two holes to add CG/Gate-in jack busses and made the connection to the printboard and I tuned the VCO’s. I may replace the trimpots for tuning with multiturn trimpots because tuning is very fiddly now and I don’t know if the current trimpots are reliable. Anyway, after tuning the Prodigy and connecting it to the Q960 sequence I came up with this improvisation. So that’s the reason you see the guts of the Prodigy. The Prodigy bass is very fat, perhaps a bit more fatter then what I can get out of the Modular. I very much like the basic approach of the Prodigy and the yet the variety of sounds you can get out of it.
The music starts with an 8-step sequence coming from row 3 of the Synthesizers.com Q960 driving the Moog Prodigy. After that an 8-step sequence from row 1 of the Q960 is driving the Synthesizers.com Modular. Percussive blips from the Waldorf Q Keyboard are added which are arpeggiated sounds synced with the MIDI clock from the Doepfer MAQ16/3. Then another 8-step sequence from row 2 of the Doepfer MAQ16/3 is added to drive the self-built Modular. Chords are played on the Roland XP-80 which MIDI-out is connected to the Oberheim OB-Mx so you hear a combination of 2 sounds when I play the XP-80 keyboard. The solo is performed on the Clavia Nord Lead 1. Anne used my iPhone 4 to film this video.
You can download/see/hear the video and music from my website.
Monstrous! love it!
Where have all the key changes gone?,
Long time passing.
Nice sounds, but boring compositionally. However, not unlike most other “synthesists”. Tons of equipment does not a good composer make!
Look up minimalism sometime -probably the most important music philosophy in the last 20-30 years.
its a ‘berlin school’ style synth jam,… so your criticism is unfounded and serves to ridicule yourself., your comment reminds me of a famous quote ”tis better to be thought of as a fool, rather than open ones mouth and remove all doubt”….
incase you didnt realise the Berlin school of synth music is loosely based upon minimalist esthetics,.
Why don’t you share some of your amazing and exciting compositions with us then, so we can all be inspired by your greatness…
I stand by what I said. Although, I do often use minamalistic compositions to relax and make me sleep better. Actually, I find Berlin school pretty good for that. Wish they still had the “Hearts of Space” radio show late at night, great to relax to, but really not musically inspiring.
Fantastic music as always, what kind of fool doesn’t like Berlin School.
I appreciate the description and the music….. fine esthetic and informative. As stated in a previous post, more music instead of settling having a last say to keep from losing face. At least more neutral, however lacking in moral boost, could be made better with the inclusion of evcat’s music. Some of the ridiculous in proportionate reaction to instrument choice, however long winded, this has not approached.
I too, spend more time reading and listening to the works of others. Particularly a retrospective, as opposed to attempts to make audio sound better using a studio w/ misconstrued instrumentation, this contribution manages nicely. The addition of leaving me time to impose w/ less precise knowledge, dimly aware how each entry served to highlight the era/genre of the music so I’ll not forget.