At Paul's prompting, I'm posting a few notes on my gig last Monday evening,
which was the "official" public unveiling of my MOTM stuff. I was playing
with really great jazz bassist, who brought effects and looping devices,
and a funk drummer who also plays turntables. It was the drummer's first
public gig on the "wheels of steel", and the first time the 3 of us have
ever played together. My rig was a rhodes piano, nord lead, roland MC-303
and SP-202 sampler, lexicon LXP-5, jamman, vortex and MRC, and a 20-space
rack containing a Doepfer MAQ, 6 spaces of A-100 modules, and 10 spaces of
MOTM. The gig was basically a total blast, ranging from some HeadHunters
funk/fusion jams to abstract hiphop to ambient drones. It was one of those
rare experiences where the 3 of us often didn't have any idea who was
making what sound, but it still felt cohesive. I recorded it and may post
some mp3's.
As to the modular stuff, I prepatched 3 basic voices, a "drone" voice using
the MOTM 120 in cross mode and a Doepfer A-121 multimode filter, a voice
with 2 oscillators controlled by the MAQ feeding the ring-mod side of an
MOTM 110, and a fairly conventional bass patch of 2 Doepfer osc's and A-120
low-pass filter, 2 MOTM 800's and a 110 VCA, and this patch was controlled
by another row of the MAQ. The MAQ was synced to the MC-303, so I could use
the tap tempo of the 303 to clock everything to the drummer or turntables.
I basically brought the modulars in and out of the mix, sometimes having to
do some very quick retuning by ear to fit.
I learned a few things from this gig. First of all, the 20-space, 3/4"
plywood rack housing the modular is just too big. I'm considering
splitting out some modules into a smaller "live" rack in an SKB pop-up
rack.
Also, for live hands-on use, MOTM has it all over Doepfer. Those big knobs
and spacious faceplates are so much easier to see, and the bottom mounted
patch-points make the knobs way more accessable, even with cords hanging
across the front of the modules. Since I hadn't finished my 420's yet (just
finished the first yesterday), I was using only the Doepfer filters, the
A-120 moog-style filter and the A-121 multimode filter. Here's an example
of how, I think, Doepfer gets their stuff wrong on an ergonomic level. The
2 filters both have 5 knobs in a vertical row. On the 120, the frequency
and resonance knobs (arguably the 2 you're going to be fiddling with the
most) are the top and bottom knobs, respectively. On the 121, they're the
2nd from the top and 2nd from the bottom, respectively. It's a bitch to
keep that straight in the heat of playing, esp. with the cramped front
panels.
Still, it was an incredibly fun gig, and on the basis of that night, we got
asked to do something similar again this weekend. Now that I got my 420
done, I can do even MO'MOTM...
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Dave Trenkel :
improv@... : www.peak.org/~improv/
"...there will come a day when you won't have to use
gasoline. You'd simply take a cassette and put it in
your car, let it run. You'd have to have the proper
type of music. Like you take two sticks, put 'em
together, make fire. You take some notes and rub 'em
together - dum, dum, dum, dum - fire, cosmic fire."
-Sun Ra
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