The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

There are few things more fun than playing loud weird noises live 
with people dancing.

Last night, was the House Will Never be Finished Party at my house, a 
house warming party. We had live bands, a keg of beer, and maybe 50 
people. Wound up playing for about 7 hours, both with a garage band-
the Cooper Hill band doing cover tunes, and with the Electric 
Starlight Space Animals, doing all originals.I'm starting to figure 
ways of putting the AN1X into the mix.

The filter sweep effects are really good for song intros-yes this is 
a cliche, but a good cliche. It's also nice to use these when the 
guitarist is really wailing and all you want to do is to add to the 
tension.

Any lead patch sounds great through a big tube amp. The Wonder patch 
sounds good in a variety of settings. I set it up to morph from the 
funky patch to a more sustained bell piano. Very usefull.

Playing with a real drummer is so much fun. We had two drummers 
taking turns. Gordon followed the old school John Bonham, Ainsley 
Dunbar school of pounding, while Steve was a real tight, from a punk 
school of drumming.

When the volume was loud, I found long attacks weren't real useful. 
Short attack, lots of times percussive leads worked well. I usually 
played higher up to get out of the guitarists's range, but then 
turned the treble down a lot to keep the sound from being too 
screechy.

I turn off the effects when I play live. There's enough stuff going 
on, the effects are more than I can handle. Too hard for me to get it 
to sit in the music, and too hard for me to get a decent sound. I 
originally thought this was the fault of the AN1X's effects, but a 
guitarist friend who really knows effects said that all effects take 
time to work. He said that effects can really take the oomph out of a 
sound unless you have a lot of experience with the settings. Could 
make for an interesting practice routine, learning effects 
parameters. My wife might not think so.

With three guitarists (all too loud) and a drummer (of course too 
loud) and a bass player all playing, I just had to play rudimentary 
riffs. Playing and singing at the same time is huge amounts of fun. 
Playing melodica during a thrashing punk tune is very amusing as well.

Finally, here is my absolutely favorite cheesy pad chord. Use this 
for minor keys. If you're playing in C minor the left hand should 
play C G and D the right hand should play Eb (right next to the D) Bb 
and F. Fifths in other words. Instant tacky lounge ambience, suitable 
for any outdoor soiree.
Shameless.

Rainbow Jimmy
http://www.spaceanimals.com
http://www.mp3.com/spaceanimals