[sdiy] Alex sings Geddy with formant envelope synthesis?

[Marc Jordan]

The total number of kicks in any given song is known so they could easily
set things up to count kicks and generate video controls from the ones they
wanted.  Of course, if Neil goofs up then thangs would get really outta
whack.  And I've actually seen 'em completely lose it once.  Well, Geddy
lost it & Neil kept it going :)  Maybe on the video-sync tracks he was using
a click-track, but I know they don't use 'em on all songs because sometimes
I definitely notice that they lag or go too fast and can hear Neil trying to
pull 'em back to the correct tempo.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Parkhurst [mailto:tparkhurst at siliconbandwidth.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 8:17 PM
To: 'Marc Jordan'; 'Dave Magnuson'; synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
Subject: RE: [sdiy] Alex sings Geddy with formant envelope synthesis?


>the drummer definitely wasn't wearing phones.  I suspect that they had a
>midi trigger connected to the kick drum or something and it was driving the
>video.  Either that or somebody was controlling the timing at the sound
>board.  They're really doing some cool stuff these days at the big shows.


Being a drummer and being familiar with Rush's music, I'd say you would have
a REAL tough time deriving a clean sync pulse from the kick drum. You can do
that sort of thing if the drummer is playing a VERY simple pattern (kick on
1 and 3 ONLY, for example), but that definitely won't work with anything
reasonably complex. Something very complicated like "Tom Sawyer" has a kick
drum pattern that even changes from measure to measure. Fun to play but
impossible to derive a stable sync from. More than likely, Peart was playing
to a click track. It might have been piped through his monitors, or he might
have been wearing a "Near Ear Device," i.e. a small earphone rather than a
headset.

Tim Servo



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