Wiardgroup

Hi Norman
--- In wiardgroup@yahoogroups.com, Norman Fay <vietgrove@g...> wrote:
> Apologies for any typos, and for rambling on so.

speaking strictly for myself..

au contraire!
i love to see somebody else's account of wiardness so lovingly detailed!

lately i've gigged out with the SNO cases (containing 300 and
1200-series Wiards) at least once a month and i want to amplify your
comment about the Wiard's (especially 300) 'dvisibility' into many
voices. There's a lot of functionality under those panels and that
aspect really shines in live shows when 'just one more' LFO will make
the difference between a static timbre and an animated one. The
JAG/Blacet dual linear VCA(x2) has become especially indispensable to
my live performances. It even saved our butts by standing in for a
broken monitor mixer once!!!! 

i share your fears about theft and damage too, my whole band (&
occasional crew) are conditioned, by now, to not even offer to pick up
the SNO cabinets and the Cabs always ride in my car, with me, never in
the truck. A bicycle cable through the handles tethers them backstage
if they have to be unattended during frantic "inter-band" gear
switching. i've tried using samples of my analogs ala Ableton Live and
i won't lie and say that that method isn't very effective too, but
it's a different instrument, plain and simple, and try as i might,
i've found nothing that rivals live analog for immediacy and gestural
responsiveness, especially in improvisation.

i enjoyed your account very much, thanx
avanti!

-doc




> I played a concert in Leeds, UK last night, doing this kind of spacy
> synth music/prog rock thing that me and my guitarist friend Mark do. 
> I thought it would be fun and perhaps creative to take the
> Wiard/Blacet synth along, and indeed it was.   I planned to use it
> partly to cover sections where I was loading in backing parts to the
> sequencer, and partly for improv bits.  After we'd done our proper
> soundcheck, and when the other musicians were doing their soundchecks,
> I turned off our onstage monitors and set up the modular on
> headphones.  Obviously, I didn't have time to set up some great
> detailed patch, and it would have been stupid to do so anyway, given
> the nature of what we were playing.  I set it up as follows, dividing
> it into as many different sound generating "cells" as I could:
> 
> 1/the noise ring fed one of the waveform city wave shapers, which was
> set to one of the quantising wavetables.  This then ran into the omni
> filter, and this went into the x1 input of the LH mixolator.  The omni
> filter cutoff was controlled by the ar envelope of the waveform city. 
> The idea was to have a kind of randomly generated sequence.
> 
> 2/the other waveform city ran into a blacet frequency divider, which
> ran into a borg filter, then into the x2 input of the lh mixolator. 
> The idea here was to have a manually controlled drone, where I could
> control the timber of the drone via the bor
g, and add interesting
> subharmonics via the level controls on the frequency divider.
> 
> 3/a woggle bug output via a borg to the y input of the lh mixolator. 
> the clock out of the wogglebug triggered a blacet EG1, which
> controlled the cutoff of the borg.  I took the step cv out of the
> other half of the wogglebug, and stuck it into the decay cv of the
> EG1.  I was kind of hoping for the transmission from outer space thing
> the wogglebug can do.
> 
> LH mixolator x+ out went to x in of RH mixolator. LH mixolator x- out
> went to a blacet time machine.  The output from the time machine went
> to the y input of the RH mixolator, using the joystick I could control
> the balance between the wogglebug and the 2 more, er, "tonal" elements
> on the horizontal axis, and the blend between dry sound and delay on
> the vertical.
> 
> I used the wiard/blacet during 2 improvised sections.  During the
> first, I mainly used the wogglebug.  I suppose you'd have to say it
> was a failure, though I had an absolute blast -
> I didn't realise just how overpowering the sound of the wogglebug
> would be!  It went full on and just totally overwhelmed everything.  I
> was grinning like a maniac, but at the end there was just this shocked
> silence from the audience.
> 
> The second section was better.  I brought up the noise ring controlled
> sequence pattern, and since the soundcheck it had settle into playing
> this beautiful harp glissando like riff.  When I turned it up, I was
> just like wow, listen to that.  It kicked us off into this great,
> albeit somewhat disjointed improv.  Just about exactly what I was
> hoping for. noise ring thru quantiser is such a great source of
> inspiration.
> 
> The strengths of the Wiard in this situation are/were plain - mainly
> the way in which it can easily be divided into several
> sound-generating cells, but also its unpredictability, the way it can
> throw up something to surprise you, and give you something to strike
> off from.
> 
> Also, of course, it sounds great.  This goes for the Blacet modules
> too - I had the Binary Zone in the rack as well, and I wish I'd used
> that last night.
> 
> In the music scene the event was aimed at, the most common/accepted
> way of using a modular instrument on stage is "berlin school" style -
> a Moog, or more commonly an "arrick" set up to play step sequencer
> patterns and thunderous bass drones a la Tangerine Dream "Ricochet". 
> While I have respect for several artists creating music in that style,
> Wiard-style is more inspiring to me, I think.  I'll certainly do this
> again.
> 
> So, although it may be scary to take yr Wiard instrument out to play
> live - the fear of theft or damage is obviously pretty grim, I
> recommend it very strongly, it's a real thrill.
>