MOTM

Here's my top 10 "records to solder to" (no particular order)

1) Enya - "Shepard Moons". Some may find it 'too mainstream' but I do my best pondering with Enya
in the background. Roland D-50 mania.

2) Robert Rich - "Numena". My all-time favorite EM recording is cut #1 'The Other Side of
Twilight'. Based on Bach's 'Art of the Fugue', but in JI (just intonation), using only a P5, a
Wavestation and an ASR-10. People who claim CEM chips "just sound bad" have never heard this cut,
I promise.

3) Peter Gabriel - "Passion". Established a genre for "ambient world music" that has often been
imitated, never even coming close to topping this. P5, Fairlight.

4) Larry (Synergy) Fast - " Electronic Realizations". Blame the track 'Relay Breakdown' for MOTM.
After I heard this LP, I switched majors from physical chemistry to EE. Honest truth (and I
promply made an F in my first EE class).

5) Rick Wakeman - "Six Wives of Henry 8th". Best Mellotron recording. Period, end of discussion.
What makes the CD disgusting is that it was recorded in 1 take, when he was 19 years old. I'm
gonna barf!

6) J.M. Jarre - "Oxygene". Established the "Europop EM" genre.

7) Philip Glass - "Koyaanisqatsi". The most 'polar' record I can think of. You either think it's
brilliant (me) or a personal living hell (guessing Stooge Larry's opinion).

8) Robert Rich - "Bestiary". Hey, it's 95% MOTM. It's NOT 'music' in the normal sense, but I just
like to try and play "guess the module/patch".

9) Budd/Eno - "The Pearl". Prepared piano flanged to oblivion. But I *like* that. I like Daniel
Lanois' production technique, so I'm biased. Usually what I play after Enya.

10) E. Power Biggs - "The Four Great Toccatas and Fugues". Hey, Biggs was an EE! The pipe organ
was the first synth :) And you listen to this CD and wonder, just how much talent is possible for
God to give to a single person (speaking of Bach).

> 7) Philip Glass - "Koyaanisqatsi". The most 'polar' record I can think
> of. You either think it's brilliant (me) or a personal living hell
> (guessing Stooge Larry's opinion).

This reminds me of a joke:

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Philip Glass?
Philip Glass who?
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Philip Glass?
Philip Glass who?
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Philip Glass?
Philip Glass who?
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Philip Glass?
Philip Glass who?
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Philip Glass?
Philip Glass who?
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Philip Glass?
Philip Glass who?
......

I flatly can't forgive the guy for the Kundun soundtrack (or Scorsese for
Kundun itself). It was the only movie that I ever wanted to mute.

-->Neil

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neil Bradley            In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is not
Synthcom Systems, Inc.  king - he's a prisoner.
ICQ #29402898

Larry Hendry" <jlarryh@...> writes:
(edited)

>While I have great respect for many great players, IMO
>Wakeman is virtually in a class by himself. \ufffdI love the 6 wives CD.


 Ditto on that! I also like Journey to the Center of the Earth and White Rock a lot. :)

 Some of my other long-time faves:

Camel - sort of a Pink Floyd sound at times, but with more lyrical synth parts, mostly courtesy of Peter Bardens who (sadly) passed away last year. That really bummed me out. Add the occasional flute and sax parts.

Happy the Man - hard to describe... eccentric? Some of the best Minimoog playing I've heard is from Kit Watkins. VERY melodic/emotional playing, with great use of pitch bending in a style all his own. Lot's of Solina strings too. Incredible timing and inter-play between instruments and tasteful melody/harmony. Lots of odd meter and tempo changes. Sort of like a cross between Gentle Giant and Kansas, but more..."out there" than Kansas. 

FM - Keys, bass, Electric Mandolin (with distortion!), and drums. Albums to get would be Blacknoise, Survelleince, and City of Fear. I think Blacknoise is available at amazon.com. Also a later release called Retrospective is nice and includes some videos that you can play in your PC. Cameron Hawkins was the keyboard player (I have the osc board from his Minimoog! :) and played bass as well. Hard to compare with another band...definitely progressive rock, with a slight jazz/rock fusion feel at times. Wild mandolin parts from Nash the Slash who still has his own solo career, and one or two (?) albums with Ben Mink (who went on to play with what's her name and film scores). Sci-fi oriented lyrics (think spaceships on a voyage to other planets). Sort of similar to Camel style Minimoog melodies. 

Tomita - classical works done electronic style. :) Lots of Moog modular, Roland modular, Mellotron, and phasing effects. My favorite albums are Snowflakes are Dancing (Debussy), Pitcures at an Exhibition (Mussorgsky), Firebird (Stravinsky), and Planets (Holst). Lots of wacky sounds at times and neat panning effects. Some people dislike Tomita's music beause of this, but on these albums I really dig those sounds. On later albums things did get too corny for me. Anyway, lots of really wild sounds that I can't figure out how he got even to this day. These mid-70's albums are my favorites to blast at 3am in total darkness with the exception of the dancing "hippy light" (a "Luminglas"!). Yes, I'm weird. ;) Tsk! 

 Andrew

Ack! How could I forget Synergy?! This is like Tomita, but without the wacky sounds, and more of a rock context than classical. Lots of Moog modular 15, Oberheim SEMs, Minimoog (i think), DIY things, and on later albums Prophet 5, Memorymoog, and digital synths. Larry Fast went on to play with Nektar on an album or two (he even played with them at their reunion concert this past Nearfest), and then went on to play with Peter Gabriel for many years. He also designed a few "noise makers" for various musicians, including Rick Wakeman. He has a great website that has lots of info on his albums and career. 
 
 Favorite albums: first 4 or 5 of them. First two ("Electronic Realizations", "Sequencer") have the highest analogue content. The album "Cords" has a guitar synth throughout that sounds pretty neat. 

 Andrew

When one listens carefully to Wakeman, you will soon come to realize that he
may possibly be the most accurate and articulate of all who have played
keyboard instruments in recent history.  Listen to  hi s new family album
(not EM, very new age) and you may think it is too accurate and quick not to
be sequenced.  While I have great respect for many great players, IMO
Wakeman is virtually in a class by himself.  I love the 6 wives CD.
Stooge Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Schreiber <synth1@...>

5) Rick Wakeman - "Six Wives of Henry 8th". Best Mellotron recording.
Period, end of discussion.
What makes the CD disgusting is that it was recorded in 1 take, when he was
19 years old. I'm
gonna barf!

For those who are interested, Larry Fast has been playing with the Tony 
Levin Band recently (www.tonylevinband.com).  He put out a recent CD of 
reworks of his older Synergy stuff.  Unfortunately, it was performed almost 
exclusively on digital synths.  He is a big Kurzweil user.  It is an 
impressive work though to coax some very analog sounds out of the digital 
synths.  On the last Tony Levin Band studio album, the band reworked 
Larry's classic "Phobos" from the Cords album, bizarre time signatures and 
all.

The Tony Levin Band has been playing around the world in between the dates 
that Tony plays with Peter Gabriel on his tour.  Check them out when they 
come to your town (They are coming to the House of Blues in Cambridge, MA 
on 3/29, I plan to be there).  They are a very approachable bunch and spend 
time after the show chatting with the folks who come.  Oh, if you do plan 
to see them, be prepared to feel a lot of low end.  Tony is a bass player 
but Larry has figured out how to put together some very powerful sub 
woofers that are used in the show to ummm, enhance the bass.

         Eric


At 11:53 PM 2/28/2003 -0500, you wrote:

>  Ack! How could I forget Synergy?! This is like Tomita, but without the 
> wacky sounds, and more of a rock context than classical. Lots of Moog 
> modular 15, Oberheim SEMs, Minimoog (i think), DIY things, and on later 
> albums Prophet 5, Memorymoog, and digital synths. Larry Fast went on to 
> play with Nektar on an album or two (he even played with them at their 
> reunion concert this past Nearfest), and then went on to play with Peter 
> Gabriel for many years. He also designed a few "noise makers" for various 
> musicians, including Rick Wakeman. He has a great website that has lots 
> of info on his albums and career.
>
>  Favorite albums: first 4 or 5 of them. First two ("Electronic 
> Realizations", "Sequencer") have the highest analogue content. The album 
> "Cords" has a guitar synth throughout that sounds pretty neat.
>
>  Andrew
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

> 3) Peter Gabriel - "Passion". Established a genre for "ambient world
music" that has often been
> imitated, never even coming close to topping this. P5, Fairlight.

I still remember when I first saw the movie - I was blown away by a sound
never heard of
before. One of my all-time favorites, and certainly Peter Gabriel's best
album.

BTW, anybody tried to synthesize an Armenian  Doudouk on a MOTM system?


> 9) Budd/Eno - "The Pearl". Prepared piano flanged to oblivion. But I
*like* that. I like Daniel
> Lanois' production technique, so I'm biased.

Did anybody "reverse engineer" the recording process, i.e. found out what FX
were used,
and how? At first, it just sounds like drowned in reverb, but it's certainly
much more complex.

JH.

> > 9) Budd/Eno - "The Pearl". Prepared piano flanged to oblivion. > 
Did anybody "reverse engineer" the recording process,

Try adding some flanged reverse reverb - it adds that strange 
warped "fade in" that each note has on many of the songs.

Record it dry
Reverse the audio
Add "reversed" reverb
Reverse the audio again
Add flanging and normal "forward" reverb

> 3) Peter Gabriel - "Passion". Established a genre for "ambient world

And his soundtrack for Birdie (which in many ways was almost an ambient
remix album of Security)! When consumer CD players came out, I held out on
buying one until I saw that Birdie had been released on CD. I bought the CD
immediately and then actually had to go out and buy a CD player afterwards
to play it on :-) I'd already bought the vinyl version, but hearing it
without any pops or vinyl surface noise was a such a mindblowing
experience............

Then Passion came out and blew Birdie out of the water on so many different
levels. But, I still have a soft place in my heart for Birdie.

best,
- Scott
____________
http://www.red-noise.com
http://www.strawberryplanet.org