Doepfer

Hi Doepfer Community,

just wanted to report from my experience being on stage
with my Doepfer A100 Mini System.

We performed at Pathos, Munich last Friday. The only 
instrument I took was the Doepfer.

It worked. 

The machine didn't let me down.

I'm now thinking of using it at MayDay and Love Parade
this year.

From that experience I will now open my Doepfer Module
chapter again and gear my doepfer towards a mobile
performance device.

Sound-wise, I have decided to leave the experimentation
corner and move towards the classic keyboard setup.

This means that I will be thinking about Polyphony,
what Keyboard to use with the Doepfer, and focus on
warm analog sounds I primarily access thru a (standard)
keyboard. So spend less time turning nobs, more time 
keeping the fingers on the keys.

From all the things you can do with the Doepfer system,
I'm therefore now looking into the "normal" synthesizer 
operating mode. 

As I have been tortured thru a classic piano education
in my youth, I feel comfortable expressing myself thru
the keyboard itself. What the Doepfer System gives me 
though, is an extremely fat and unprecedented warm sound. 
This is what I'm looking for. Less rhythm-oriented or
sound-design oriented patches or altenative user 
interfaces. User Interface is exactly the point here. The 
standard keyboard happens to be a really well-debugged
user interface I came to value again on stage, whilst
turning nobs is cool but gives me less overall 
expressiveness, that is, while being on stage.

I have managed, however, to play a pretty fast bass line 
with my left hand on the keyboard while slowly turning 
one nob with my right hand on my Doepfer system
on stage (took me a while to practise - accessing two 
different user interfaces [keyboard, nob] with each hand 
independently under stress conditions without any
loss of timing). 

I think this essentially means that I will keep a certain
patch going as-is and unchanged for a while, and try to 
patch all "configuration" of that sound into one or 
two nobs that are easily accessible on stage. What I
mean is: on stage its dark, or lights flash - and if my
Doepfer buries nobs under the cables from the patch,
it is *really* hard to get to the right nob fast - also while 
being only under half my brain capacity since my other 
hand keeps a groove going on the keyboard - so chances 
are high that you end up turning a different nob by mistake.

So I'm thinking of using blind plates next to that one 
module in my new setup that is patched to be safe to 
operate under live conditions.

Anyone with similar experiences and thoughts?

Cheers,

- Sebastian