keyboard magazine 3 2012

keyboardmag.com STAGE SKILLS · STUDIO SMARTS

A MUSIC PLAYER PUBLICATION03.2012

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Sound, Style&Value

History in the making.

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Tempest is an analog drum machine, the first full collaboration between legendary instrument designers Dave Smith and Roger Linn. If “analog drum machine” conjures up images of the pre-programmed, set-and-forget beat boxes of the past, rest assured: Tempest is nothing of the sort. Its innovative, performance-oriented operating system gives you an extraordinary level of control to create, edit, arrange, and manipulate beats in real time as they play. It is a revolutionary new musical instrument.

To see and hear what Tempest is really about, visit www.davesmithinstruments.com.

Tempest. Made to be played.

TALK

HEAR

PLAY

12 ROCKERS COVER STORY Paul Meany of Mutemath talks.

18 SONG STORIES Rob Hyman on co-writing Cyndi Lauper’s classic

ballad “Time After Time.”

22 BREAKOUTSTune-Yards builds sonic snippets into musique

concrète you can dance to.

26 ROAD WARRIORS Matt Katz-Bohen eats guitars with Blondie.

30 BLUES Six ways to play like blues piano legend Otis Spann.

34 CHORD DOCTORCliff ord Carter on fourths voicings.

8 Voices from the Keyboard community.

KEYBOARD (ISSN 0730-0158) is p ublished monthly by NewBay Media, LLC 1111 Bayhill Drive, Suite 125, San Bruno, CA 94066. All material published in KEYBOARD is copyrighted © 2012 by NewBay Media. All rights reserved. Reproduction of material appearing in KEYBOARD is forbidden without permission. KEYBOARD is a registered trademark of NewBay Media. Periodicals Postage Paid at San Bruno, CA and at additional mailing offi ces. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to KEY-BOARD P.O. Box 9158, Lowell, MA 01853. Canada Post: Publications Mail Agreement #40612608. Canada Returns to be sent to Bleuchip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2.

4 Keyboard 03.2012

CLICK10 Photo of the month.

COVER PHOTO BY MATT ROPER

MARCH 2012CONTENTS26

22

MUTEMATH—MATT ROPER, TUNE-YARDS—ANNA M CAMPBELL, MATT KATZ-BOHEN—PARIS VISONE

REVIEW

KNOW

CODA

40 SPECIAL FEATURE From using your DAW of choice to surviving the gig, do (almost) everything better with Th e Keyboard Know-It-All, our monster collection of tips.

54 THE ART OF SYNTH SOLOING Beyond the whole-step pitch-bend.

56 DANCE French Twists.

58 ROUNDUP Fourteen great keyboards for learning to play.

66 ANALOG Dave Smith Instruments/ Roger Linn Design Tempest.

76 SOFT SYNTH Applied Acoustics Systems Chromaphone.

80 APP VirSyn Addictive Synth for iPad.

82 Our art director helps Ian McLagan move his Hammond B-3. We’re good like that.

What’s Online Right Now!

@ keyboardmag.com/march2011

Video reports from the 2012 Winter NAMM Show.

Elliott Peltzman of the Stone Foxes.

Why bamm.tv might make your band’s video for free!

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6 Keyboard 03.2012

EDITOR: Stephen Fortner [email protected]

MANAGING EDITOR: Debbie Greenberg [email protected]

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Lori Kennedy [email protected]

EDITORS AT LARGE: Craig Anderton, Jon Regen

EDITORIAL INTERN: Sebastian Fotouhi

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VOL. 38, NO. 03 #432 MARCH 2012

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I’ve never liked those editor’s letters where the ed-itor talks about meeting famous people. Nobody likes a—well, the word is unprintable, but it bears resemblance to the name of a ubiquitous coff ee shop. Th at said, I have ongoing gratitude for the opportunities I’ve had to interact with many of my musical heroes—many of whom I fi rst learned about by reading this magazine. A particular expe-rience stands out as to how I caught the bug.

At my fi rst NAMM show some years ago, I was trying out some new workstation Clav by banging away at—you guessed it—”Superstition,” when I began to feel as though there were people standing behind me. Th ere were, and one of them was Stevie Wonder, who’d been making his perennial NAMM rounds. My fi rst impulse was to apologize and run, but then he nodded, as though my playing might

not have sucked, which gave me the guts to ask for a picture with him. He graciously agreed.

Even though I was a hungry freelancer with three tiny articles in Keyboard at the time, I never used that pic as a calling card—that would’ve made the aforementioned word apply to me. But it did give me the confi dence that maybe I could tell more and larger stories. Now, I get to tell them full time. Th ank you, Stevie.

Editor’s Note

Stephen FortnerEditor

My First____________.MIDI ControllerMoldover “A formative experience happened when I got my fi rst Novation ReMote 25,” says the electronic artist and controllerism godfather. “Besides the keyboard, the Novation had a joystick, X/Y pad, eight faders, eight knobs, and more. It was the fi rst time I’d had more controls than I’d ever wanted, all on one interface.” The ReMote’s helped spark Moldover’s controllerist ambitions: “The fi rst laptop I ever used exclusively for music software felt like my dog or my cat,” he says, laughing, “and the Novation was the fi rst MIDI controller that got me close to that feeling. But it started breaking because it just wasn’t built for my type of kinetic, physical performance. After a year of playing shows with it, I started ask-ing myself, ‘how can I make this better?’” This led to the modifying, customizing, and ultimately scratch-building of MIDI controllers for electronic music for which Moldover is now famous. | moldover.com | Michael Gallant

VOICES FROM THE KEYBOARD COMMUNITYTALK

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8 Keyboard 03.2012

I love how the Kaossilator morphs between rhythms, but I wanted to wanted to expand beyond its presets. Turns out it’s easy to make Ableton Live emulate the Kaossilator drumming style, in which sliding your fi nger horizontally on the X/Y pad switches patterns and sliding it vertically increases eff ect depth. I as-signed the same CC to the Activate buttons of four Live tracks, then set the response range of each track so that CC values 0–31 activate track 1, values 32–63 activate track 2, and so on. I then assigned a second CC to control the wet/dry mix of a ping-pong delay in the master channel. Now, map those two CCs to the X and Y axes of any touchpad, and you’re in business! David Battino

Key SecretsUnexpected Features of Your Gear

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9 03.2012 Keyboard

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1.Scenes from Taxi Road Rally 2011

To catch up on previous episodes of the Packrat and his

time-traveling keytar, visit keyboardmag.com/packrat.

Richard Lainhart, an inexhaustible composer, fi lmmaker, and teacher whose works inspired multiple generations of electronic musicians and digital media art-ists throughout the world, passed away on December 30 near his home in New City, NY. He was 58. Lainhart was one of the seminal fi gures in contemporary American electronic music, composing more than 150 works over the course of nearly four decades. Th ese explorations dated to the early 1970s and pre-fi gured the elec-tronica, ambient, trance, and other sound art movements that would eventually celebrate him as an aesthetic fi gurehead.

“If it wasn’t for Richard, I would never have been introduced to the Haken Con-tinuum, played the huge modular synth he designed for me with Roger Arrick, or played the lap steel,” says renowned key-boardist Jordan Rudess, who collaborated with Lainhart on many projects. “Richard was a giving man and one of the smartest people I’ve ever known.” Ron Goldberg

Richard Lainhart was a tremendous resource to the magazine over the years and a valued member of our Keyboard Corner forum. View our tribute page at keyboard mag.com/lainhart. —Ed.

DEPARTURES

Mic Check!Q: Home studio dwellers, what microphone do you fi nd yourself reaching for more than any other?

Kirk Fischer: Audio-Technica AT4033 is the go-to. Studio Projects C1 for vocals.

Bobby Cressey: Studio Projects C1.

Jim Reynolds: Shure Beta 58.

Justin Havu: MXL 990.

Tracey DeMarco: BLUE mics for vocals and acoustic instruments.

Andy Lewis: Neumann TLM-103.

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THIS IMPRESSIVE ARRAY OF vintage Casiotones, transistor organs, and analog synths re-sides in the personal studio of Boston electro-pop sensation and lifelong Keyboard reader Casey Desmond. “I hoard and I’m totally obsessed,” she laughs. “The collection shall continue until I’m swimming in soundmak-ers!” One of the rarest of those is a Suzuki TroniChord—it’s the white instrument with rows of blue chord pads, located on the table to her left. In her lap is its more familiar successor, the teardrop-shaped Omnichord. “The only thing possibly rarer than the TroniChord is the red Whitehall organ in the back,” she says. It’s not all vintage for Casey, as her arsenal also includes a Moog Slim Phatty, Ac-cess Virus TI Polar, and Teenage Engineering OP-1. Visit her at casydesmond.com, and get a full list of the gear in this picture at keyboardmag.com/march2012.

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QUICK—THINK OF A BAND WHERE THE KEYBOARDIST IS THE FRONTMAN. Chances are you fl ashed to synth-pop, prog, jam bands, or maybe singer-song-writers we think of as having bands rather than being bands. Mutemath draws on all of the above while conforming to none of it. If you’re an afi cionado of one of those genres, you will fi nd something to love on their latest album Odd Soul, thanks in no small part to the blazing keyboard chops of leader Paul Meany. If those genres leave you a bit cold, you just may fi nd what you’ve been missing. In either case, they’ll rock your face off. The inimitable Mr. Meany made time to tell us some of the sonic secrets of Odd Soul.

BY STEPHEN FORTNER

MUTEMATH

12 Keyboard 03.2012

ROCKERS » SONG STORIES » BREAKOUTS » ROAD WARRIORS

Saviors of the Keyboard-FrontedRock Band

For Odd Soul, you chose not to work with a producer. Why? Th e last record, Armistice, really took it out of us. I love Armistice, and it was certainly the gateway to get us to Odd Soul. But the old process had become fatigued creatively, so the key for us was to lock the door on anyone who was knocking. We

just holed up in my house for about six months and didn’t come out until we had something we really loved. Th ere were engineers helping us towards the end when we were doing overdubs in Los Angeles, but it was important for us to go through the ugly part of the process by ourselves—when producers or engineers get onboard too early,

it’s unenjoyable for them because making songs is daunting. You’ll record and build up a lot to just break it all down and start from scratch. We tend to do that a lot.

On much of the record, especially “Tell Your Heart Heads Up,” keyboards and guitars seem to meld into one huge instrument. Was that intentional?We embraced the allure of the riff on this record, and the guitar riff at that, which is a conven-tional starting place for any rock band. How we dress it up is what starts making something feel

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13 03.2012 Keyboard

like us. I think that’s where the diff erence is in any band. “Tell Your Heart Heads Up” is a great example of a song that’s based around a riff , but then there’s B-3 organ along with all the candy of the Moog Voyager dancing around the guitar riff . Looking back, we’ve always done this sort of thing pretty well, but we pushed ourselves to do it a lot more on this record.

“All or Nothing” has so many layers—the TR-808-like beat in the intro, the Rhodes in the middle, the instrumental part that begins and ends the song. How did that track evolve?It started as an idea that was based around the intro, but that was all the song did at fi rst. It was this stepchild of the record in a bad way. Th en we just started changing things up, taking more dramatic moves, and it got better. Usually when we got stuck with an idea, we’d turn on the Moog Voyager just to see what would happen. We’d never actually messed with one before this re-cord, which I fi nd hard to believe now. We fi nally got our hands on a Moog and it drove “All or Nothing” to a place we were happy with. I think the outro is a really special moment on the re-cord—probably more reminiscent of things we’ve done in the past, live.

So is the Voyager also used for the bass on “Allies”?Yeah. We have a lot of fun with synth bass, though Roy [Mitchell-Cardenas] is such a great bass player that it can be a tough call whether synth bass serves the song better than bass guitar. But

14 Keyboard 03.2012

that’s one of the freedoms I enjoy about this band—we don’t have a Mutemath record unless there’s some attention-grabbing synth bass part! [Laughs.]

Another favorite of mine is “Cavalries,” which starts in 6/4 time, then alternates to 4/4 with B-3 and Rhodes just rocking out. What inspired that?I can speak for Roy and myself here. One of the artists I remember us bonding over very early on—about 15 years ago—was Herbie Hancock, specifically the Head Hunters record. We loved that type of approach to band freedom and cre-ating with synths. We let go on “Cavalries” as far as bearing that influence. We’ve never re-corded a song like that before and it was one of the last songs we did. The record started out as just ten songs and after we started letting peo-ple hear it, it felt like maybe we weren’t quite done yet. Eventually, we added three tracks: “Odd Soul,” “Walking Paranoia,” and “Caval-ries,” which was just set up as a three-piece with Roy on Bass, Darren [King] on drums, and me on Rhodes through a wah pedal. I remem-ber us trying the idea in a few different time signatures, and we wound up picking two of the three and put them into one song.

Did you try 5/4 as well?We’ve never successfully pulled off a 5/4. I’ve always thought the trick to an odd time signature is that it can’t feel like one. We’ve tried it, then come back a couple of days later and said, “No, it sounds too forced.”

At the end of “Cavalries,” the B-3 and synth pads combine with wall-of-sound vocals, which sound simply huge. How were those recorded?We recorded a lot of the vocals through a Focusrite ISA preamp that happens to sound really nice when you overdrive it. About half the record has that vocal sound. Th en Darren, who’s kind of the eff ects guy, found this really nice—I’m not sure what he used—some kind of phasey, quick delay, and he just turned up the feedback on it and it wound up being a nice vibe. If things got too muddled, I’d go back and double or triple the tracks with a clearer vocal sound.

Another track, “Sunray,” has a loungey, almost Martin Denny vibe. Where did thatcome from?A lot of the tracks start with Darren assem-bling and manipulating samples. “Sunray” was actually one such track he made four or five years ago, and we brought it up as we were looking for ideas and it was just that initial vibraphone part. When we started working, it became this sort of jam session. One of my favorite composers is David Axelrod, and that song was certainly cut from that tree.

Were there any songs where you got stuck, and how did you overcome it?Initially on “Quarantine,” all we had was the intro, and it wasn’t feeling inspired. I remember thinking that maybe this song just wasn’t meant to be, and Roy wouldn’t accept that as the fate of the track! [Laughs.] He just picked up a guitar

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16 Keyboard 03.2012

and started doing all these addenda. Also, you know, when you’re recording with computers, you usually use a click and decide on a tempo up front so you can edit in other things later. With that song, we had to turn off the click. We’ve had a lot of ideas that have that particular feel and tempo, and sometimes you just get stuck and start creating the same thing over and over again. So it really helped to turn off the click.

Both “Cavalries” and “Quarantine” make me think of vintage rock operas that have multiple movements. Do you have conscious progressive rock infl uences?I’ve always been a fan of Peter Gabriel, early Genesis, all the things they’ve done. Often I forget, but there were moments in my life where that style was all I was listening to. You know, you start creating things and you don’t necessar-ily know where it’s coming from. It’s usually a fan who goes, “Oh, that really reminds me of what-ever.” Odd Soul has a lot of infl uences from when each of us fi rst started listening to music—Roy’s memories of learning Jimi Hendrix and Beatles with his dad in the garage, me fi nding Blood Sweat & Tears and Steve Miller in my dad’s re-cord collection and kind of obsessing over them. I think all that stuff just lives inside you over the years. And it’s all in this record.

What was your main recording medium on this album?We did the main tracking—and a lot of the mix-ing—on a Roland VS-2480 [standalone hard disk recorder]. In between, trying to manage all the tracks and piece them together, we did that in Logic. So there was a graveyard of CDs all over the attic of my house from just transferring fi les. I remember my fi rst project in a recording studio in 1998. Th ey charged $50 to burn one “glass master” CD. Now we use CDs like toilet paper . . . I don’t know if the 2480 can go anymore. It’s falling apart on us, so we might retire it.

Why choose the VS-2480 in the fi rst place, now that presumably you can use whatever you want?We got it when it fi rst came out. I was thinking about trying to record things on the road, and I got so comfortable that I really knew how to make things sound good with it. So no matter what studio we went into, I’d always bring it in. Th rough this project, I’ve kind of learned Logic by default. But the 2480 is a lot of fun. It’s always great bring-ing it into a studio and watching people laugh as I run it through their big Neve console!

What has helped you achieve your vision more: record-it-yourself gear like the VS-2480 and Logic, or working in a big studio?I’ve enjoyed each medium and phase of technol-ogy for what it is. Th ere wouldn’t have been a Hammond B-3 on this record if we hadn’t had the chance to go into a big studio at the end. I was just using organ patches up to that point! Being able to go into the studio and use what was there to adorn things was really fun. More important than what technology we used, though, was just to start on our own without people looking over our shoulders, even if they were the closest of friends. Th at proved to be a very therapeutic experience.

If you had to narrow it down to three or four top infl uences, who would they be?Certainly Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon”—I’ve spent many days trying to play that well. I went through a Bruce Hornsby phase when I was

younger. I learned a lot of his songs that really got me going on piano. Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder—those guys are so expressive.

As a parting shot, what’s your assessment now that Odd Soul is complete and you’re touring it?I’m proud that it’s our most high-spirited record-ing yet. Our band started out as an electronic experiment. It was Darren and myself, just a two-piece, and we were creating music with samplers and keyboards. It became this hybrid rock band over the years as we started touring and adding band members—because there was this energy that happened organically as we began to play live. It’s always been tricky for us to record that while retaining what we originally started as and what it has evolved into. I think this record certainly does that the best. It was immediately a good collection of songs to play live. We took it to the stage and it clicked. It worked.

Remix Mutemath’s “Odd Soul” in real time and take a video tour of their stage rig.

keyboardmag.com/march2012

“We’re certainly taking the same Moog Voyager we used on the record,” says Paul Meany when I ask what gear will take the diverse keyboard sounds of Odd Soul to the stage. “I wound up buying a full-size Hammond organ, which is really fun but a whole new level of commitment! [Laughs.] Of course we’ve got the Rhodes. We’ve always needed samplers for sounds created in the studio that we can’t really recreate live. The Nord [Stage 2] has been great for that—we started using it as a sample brain and it held up in small clubs and bars with erratic power. I intend to bring a Roland Juno-60. I’ve always used one but never owned one; I’ve always borrowed it from friends or studio. We’ve started using a Korg MS2000 as well.” The band will also likely bring the rare Helpinstill Roadmaster electro-acoustic upright piano Paul was known for playing on earlier tours.

TOURING THE NEW ’MATH

WHO CAN FORGET 1984? APPLE INTRODUCED THE MACINTOSH, SONY ANDPhilips debuted the CD player, and a strikingly original singer and songwriter named Cyndi Lauper ruled the airwaves with “Time After Time.” Nearly three decades and countless cover versions later, the song’s co-writer Rob Hyman tells us how three words and a reggae riff would turn into a pop masterpiece.

CYNDI LAUPER’S

BY ROB HYMAN AS TOLD TO JON REGEN

Time After Time

18 Keyboard 03.2012

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HEAR ROCKERS » SONG STORIES » BREAKOUTS » ROAD WARRIORS

In the early ’80s, I was playing clubs around Philadelphia with the Hooters, with an early sound infl uenced by the English “2 Tone” scene. I’ve always been a big reggae fan, and we bor-rowed a lot from bands like Madness, the Specials, the Police, and the English Beat. (We’d go on to play shows with many of those bands.) Th e ’80s Philly scene was a thriving one, and after many failures, we were starting to achieve lift-off .

We took a break around 1982 to ’83, and during that time, I got a call from my longtime friend and former college roommate Rick Chert-off , who had played drums with both Eric Bazilian and me. Rick had become a successful producer, first at Arista Records and then at Columbia,

where he was producing a new singer named Cyndi Lauper. Instead of hiring session cats, Rick wanted to create a band feeling around her to really dig in to the music. The Hooters were playing in New York at the late, great Bottom Line club, so Rick brought Cyndi and we met. Right from the beginning, we hit it off. At that time, we had a rehearsal space in the Mana-yunk section of Philly, and Cyndi was crashing on a friend’s couch in the area. I’d pick her up everyday, and we jumped into creating her al-bum. Eric, Rick, and I fleshed out demos with a LinnDrum for songs like “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” and “All Through the Night.”

After months working in Philly, we moved to

Rob Hyman co-founded the Hooters with Eric Bazilian and David Uosikkinen, and the band opened 1985’s historic Live Aid concert. He built Elm Street Studios near Philadelphia in 2001, and continues to tour internationally with the Hooters. Find out more at robhyman.com.

19 03.2012 Keyboard

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“Time After Time,” Words and Music by Rob Hyman and Cyndi Lauper. Copyright © 1983 Dub Notes and Rellla Music. All Rights for Dub Notes Administered by WB

Music Corp. Used by Permission of Alfred Music Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights for Rellla Music Co. Administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square

West, Nashville, TN 37203. Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved.

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Ex. 2.

Ex. 3.

New York City to do the big budget recording at the Record Plant, with Bill Wittman engineering and John Agnello assisting. Towards the end, we were pretty fried. We’d been working for months and felt like we were nearing both completion and exhaustion. Rick came in one day and said, “We could use one more song,” at which point I was ready to shoot myself! [Laughs.] So a night or so after that, everyone went on a dinner break, and Cyndi and I, never having written together before, got to work.

Cyndi had seen a listing in TV Guide for the 1979 Sci-Fi fi lm Time After Time, which is what inspired the title. I started playing a bouncy reg-gae/ska feel on the piano around those three words. Her album had a lot of those infl uences on it, as did the Hooters, so that’s what came to mind. Ex. 1 is that fi rst musical sketch, though it doesn’t look much like the fi nal song.

After that fi rst idea, Cyndi and I started talk-ing. We were each going through relationship turmoil at that point, and because we hadn’t written together before, we were able to open up to each other in a way that you often can’t with someone you know well. Soon, the song under-went a complete transformation—from a ska-like piece to something much deeper. Th e tempo slowed, and those moody verse chords and lyrics soon revealed themselves, with the melody fol-lowing the chords. Ex. 2 shows that slower feel, which I’ve recreated on the Roland Juno-60 with a pretty accurate version of the original synth patch. Th at pad served as the foundation for the entire track, along with Eric’s lovely chorused guitar. It’s a very minimal arrangement, which

served to showcase Cyndi’s emotional vocal. Th e writing and recording of “Time After Time” were one and the same. We wrote everything in the studio at the 11th hour and then went straight to 24-track. Th e demo is the record.

Th e fi nal musical element we needed was the bass line for the choruses. We had the verse, the bridge, the now-slower chorus, and all these lyrical images—everything was feeling great. We just needed to expand on the chorus. One thing that’s interesting is that there’s no bass on the track except on the choruses. I had the idea to add a reggae-ish bass line on the Juno in the choruses, which actually took the song back to where it began. Ex. 3 is that bass line, played on the Juno-60. It really colored and supported the chorus in a strong way. Later, I added vocal har-monies alongside Cyndi. Th e blend of her sweet, soulful voice and my edgier, grainy tone created yet another interesting layer in the mix.

“Time After Time” was released on January 27, 1984 and went to number one on the Bill-board Hot 100 chart. It was nominated for Song of the Year at the 1985 Grammys, with Cyndi winning the Grammy that year for Best New Art-ist. Th e funny thing is, I remember hearing the entire She’s So Unusual album after we fi nished it and thinking, “Th is sounds so diff erent than any-thing else. Where’s it going to fi t on the radio?” Goes to show how much I know!

20 Keyboard 03.2012

ROB ON THE JUNOWhen I got the Roland Juno-60 around 1982, it was my new toy, but it’s remained my favorite synth ever since. I’m not a big technical or MIDI guy, and the Juno was far easier to navigate than something like the Yamaha DX7, which involved menu pages and algorithms just to get a sound a little brighter. All I want is for a keyboard to sound good and be easy to use, and that’s why I love the Juno. Its original memory only died a few weeks ago after all these years. Luckily, those programs are backed up on cassette . . . somewhere.

Hear Rob play these examples on the same Roland Juno-60 he used on “Time After Time.”


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IF THE PIONEERS OF MUSIQUE CONCRÈTE COULD KNOW THAT IN THE EARLYpart of the century after theirs, Merrill Garbus would tour the world to critical acclaim from outlets as different as Pitchfork and The New Yorker, they might say, “Yes. Our work here is done.” They’d probably also want a do-over to make their own music as joyful, kinetic, and danceable as hers is. We recently caught up with the one-woman force of nature that is Tune-Yards.

BY STEPHEN FORTNER

tUnE-yArDs

22 Keyboard 03.2012

AN

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Th e vocal parts in your latest viral single, “Bizness,” sound as though you’d sampled yourself and were playing it on a keyboard.I actually programmed myself into a drum machine on a sequencer—the ReDrum device

in Propellerhead Reason. What I did was pitch-shift the voice—I sung “ooh, ooh, ooh” and then edited the steps at all the pitches you hear into Reason’s sequencer manually. I really love the resulting eff ect.

Merrill Garbus on Found Sounds and Live Looping

Can you discuss your early exposure to music and how it led to the way you assemble songs today?I had piano lessons from my mom from ages six to 13. I learned how to read music playing piano, and I sang in lots of choirs. Th e fi rst Tune-Yards album [Bird-Brains] was me with a digital voice recorder going around taking snippets of things and think-ing, “Oh, that would make a cool drum beat.” Us-ing found sounds, teaching myself enough synthe-sizer to do pretty pa-dunky-dunky bass lines and pads, and singing into this voice recorder.

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Can you give an example of being inspired by a sound in the world and then making a beat out of it?From Bird-Brains, the song “Lions”—I was work-ing on Martha’s Vineyard. To get off the island I had to take this ferry, so I was hearing the whir of the ferry a lot. I sampled that, and I realized that I could create a beat just by varying the volume control. So I’d have this drone in the background and then buh buh buh buh. Th at was one of the fi rst experiments. A light went off —I realized I could do this with anything. It’s just making a collage of sound, and that was so incredible to me. Th en I realized that I needed a “clack” sound. Th ere was all this extra wood in the room, so I just slapped boards against each other. I was also working with kids at the time, so in one of the songs, a sneeze is a little percussive thing that gets repeated.

What was this voice recorder?Th e one I made the Bird-Brains album on—was a Sony ICD. It’s not a video camera or even pro audio, but a small Dictaphone kind of thing for offi ce work. Th e unit has deteriorated a bit over time; it’s got a very diff erent sound to it than it used to, which is interesting to me.

What do you use now for capturing sounds?I actually use the same Sony—it just has a dif-ferent flavor to it. I also use the Zoom Q3HD, which has been great. Also my smartphone—everybody now has a device on which they can capture sounds.

What tools did you have on Whokill that you didn’t have on Bird-Brains? With Bird-Brains, I had the Sony digital voice

recorder and a desktop computer from 2000. I had Audacity—just the basic free version. With Whokill, I had a studio. I started with that “Bizness” loop we were talking about earlier. I created a demo that went along with it, and it fell short. So we took a lot of the rough stuff, went to a studio to track it with Eli Crews in Oakland at New and Improved studios, and got all these delicious-sounding things.

Can you tell me about the bass line and the beat on “Gangsta”?Th at one was another Reason ReDrum beat that I created and then we overdubbed. In the studio, in an eff ort to get away from the rigidity of a click, I’d do a looped click track that would have a little bit more human error in it—just enough to make it fl exible. Th en I did live drums in the studio, and when we came out of that, I added what had been a demo of what I’d done in Reason, and ReDrum was the more industrial-sounding thing. At a certain point I thought, “I want that machine in there as well, not just the acoustic drums.” We also ran things through a [Tech 21] SansAmp—one of my top ten favorite pieces. We used it on that drum track, and it gives it a real crunchiness; it’s abrasive, like it’s gonna tear you up. I love it.

What keyboard synths are on Whokill?Th e MicroKorg. Th e fi rst track, “My Country,” is when the MicroKorg comes in. Th e Roland Juno-60 was the fi rst analog synth I was ever exposed to,

24 Keyboard 03.2012

Watch the videos for “Bizness” and “Gangsta.”


and I got goose bumps. Waves of sound are physi-cal, and I needed to have something like the Juno to make those waves malleable in my hands—then I could understand what a synth was doing. So many people are obsessed with synthesizers—analog, modular—I’d heard those words for so long and couldn’t connect with them, and fi nally I got it. Th e only “synth” I was comfortable with before was a Casiotone because it was something from my childhood. On Bird-Brains, the synthe-sized sounds are all coming from two Casios I had as a kid.

Th e looper pedal plays a pretty signifi cant role in your live sets. . . .Th e live show couldn’t happen without it. I use the Boss RC2, which is just the single pedal with a start switch instead of the double pedal. Press once and it’s recording, press twice and you’ve got the end of the loop, then you press again and you’re recording over that, over and over again. Th at was technology I could handle! [Laughs.] Any more than that and I’m like, “Whoa, we’re not making music now, we’re dealing with com-puters.” I’m a believer in limitation bringing about creativity.

How has this limitation in particular helped your creativity?Something I’ve learned about performing live with this pedal is you really need to have a close connection with the audience because something is bound to go wrong every show. Even if it’s not wrong, the song can have such a different feel from one night to the next. That’s what I love about working with the looping pedal—you and the audience have to be right there with each other. When you mess up, if you’re lucky, you can get them to laugh with you instead of booing you off the stage. I didn’t know one piece of machinery could in-fluence my life so much but it has.

Was there a light bulb moment when you said, “I want to do this”?Yeah. It was my song “Jamaican.” Th at was the very fi rst track I did with the digital voice re-corder. At the time I thought, “Oh my God, this is what I want to do with the rest of my life”—to create feelings with sound.

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MATT KATZ-BOHEN JOINED IN BLONDIE IN 2008 FOR A WORLD TOURcelebrating the 30th anniversary of the classic album Parallel Lines. After the tour solidifi ed his position with the pioneers of new wave, he retreated with the band to record, and has made his presence felt on their latest album Panic of Girls.

New Wave for a New DecadeBY TOM BRISLIN

BLONDIE

26 Keyboard 03.2012

PA

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Th e band wrote songs as a group and also worked individually, sending each other tracks to build upon. “Often it originated with Chris Stein,” recalls Matt. “He’d send me a Logic track, ask for a certain type of feel, and I’d write the parts and send them to Debbie Harry.” Some initial tracks made it onto the album largely unchanged, as Matt’s sensibilities seemed to fi t right in to the band. “I’ve always loved the

simplicity. I admired the parts that [original keyboardist] Jimmy Destri put on tunes like ‘Heart of Glass.’ I’m a simple, vibe-and-hook keyboard player, so it fit in well.” The band would appear to agree, as Matt’s own songs “What I Heard” and “Love Doesn’t Frighten Me” landed on the album as well.

In the studio, Matt played Wurly, Hammond B-3, and Hohner Clavinet. He brought in a trio of

Rolands from his live rig—Jupiter-6, Juno-106, and Fantom-G—then fl eshed things out with Arturia Minimoog V and Prophet V soft synths, and “a little bit” of Reason programming. Th e band trusted Matt’s taste in keyboard parts, but had one rule: “I was forbidden from using the pitch-bend wheel. It was like when Metallica had to hide the wah-wah from Kirk Hammett!”

Did the new wave heroes off er Matt any sage advice? “Th ey recommended I listen to Brian Eno, Warm Jets, and Pulp. Live, I keep my eye on [drummer] Clem Burke for visual cues, and Chris and Debbie tell me to go crazy and do whatever I want.”

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30 Keyboard 03.2012

BLUES » CHORD DOCTORPLAY

OTIS SPANN MAY HAVE BEEN FROM JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI, BUT HE MADE HISname as a Chicago bluesman, and was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. On Muddy Waters tracks like “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man,” and “I Just Wanna Make Love to You,” his piano playing has phrasing and feel that seems to defy musical notation. Psychotherapy, acupuncture, and yoga all may have their uses, but listening to Spann just might be the best prescription for the blues. Here are six of his musical signatures in the context of a slow 12/8 blues in his style. To preserve the fl ow of the piece, the concepts described below don’t appear in exact numerical order in the sheet music.

6 WAYS TO PLAY LIKE

Otis SpannBY CLIFFORD CARTER

Ex. 1 demonstrates how Otis often approaches a chord by fi rst playing the chord a half-step below it. Th is occurs on the eighth-note that precedes the downbeat to bars 3, 4, 5, and 8. You can’t actually bend notes on the piano, but this makes it sound like you can.

Ex. 2 illustrates chords and octaves with tremolo, or what some blues players call shaking the notes. Ex. 2a does this for a full bar in the right hand, and sounds great behind a solo or vocal. Ex. 2b uses the tremolo for one beat with an octave, creating a faux sustain. This brings a quality to the piano more tradi-tionally associated with stringed instruments like the guitar.

Otis Spann often plays four against three: groups of four or eight notes in the duration of a dotted quarter-note. He freely goes in and out of stat-ing 4/4 against the eighth-note triplet feel inherent in 12/8 time. Exs. 3a and 3b have eight notes per beat over dotted quarter-notes, while Ex. 3c has four notes per beat. Spann had a strong ‘inner clock’ that let him move between these two feels regardless of what other rhythm section musicians were playing.

As is often the case in blues and jazz, Spann sometimes plays major and minor thirds at the same time. In Ex 4, the chord in bar 3 is A7, which has C# as its major third. But the right-hand improv over that chord employs the minor third: C natural. Try improvising with minor thirds when

playing dominant chords in this style. It’s a great way to add harmonic fl avor to your solos.

Ex. 5 illustrates how Spann often plays groups of notes in a given beat that are not di-visible by two. Notice how beat 3 of bar 9 has nine notes over a dotted quarter-note. Th is is an example of a blues lick that the player just feels, and one that doesn’t truly correspond to a given time signature. Again, Spann’s inner clock is the conductor here.

In Ex. 6, I approach the E7 chord on the downbeat of bar 11 with three eighth-notes(D, D#, and E) played in octaves on beat 4 of bar 10. Th is is a way that Otis often leads into the turnaround—defi ned as the ninth bar of a 12-bar blues. He also uses it to approach the E7 on the third beat of the last bar.

To wrap up with some general observations, notice the absence of upper chord extensions such as ninths, 11ths, and 13ths—they’re gen-erally not part of the harmonic identity of this style of blues. Also, Spann sometimes plays fi lls (between vocal phrases or during a solo) in the bass clef range. Th is seems simple, but it’s ex-tremely signifi cant stylistically.

Get audio examples and watch Otis Spann play “T’aint Nobody’s Business If I Do.”


31 03.2012 Keyboard

CA

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AV

ID S

OK

OL “We often talk about ‘not overplaying’ when accompanying, but in the Chicago

blues style, you can get away with ‘notey’ phrases throughout vocal or instrumental choruses,” says Clifford Carter, who has appeared with artists such as James Taylor, Betty Buckley, and Harry Connick Jr. “You still need to be sensitive to the phrasing of the singer or soloist, but there is indeed a license to respond with ample rhythmic and melodic activity. In other words, let it rip!”

KEEP IT SIMPLE—OR NOT

32 Keyboard 03.2012

Ex. 1. Ex. 2.

Ex. 3a. Ex. 4.

Ex. 3b.

33 03.2012 Keyboard

Ex. 5.

Ex. 6.

Ex. 2b.

Ex. 3c.

DURING MY FIRST YEAR IN COLLEGE, A FELLOW STUDENT SHOWED ME FOURTHvoicings on the piano. These are commonly used by jazz pianists like McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea. This was a revelation for me, as I’d been hearing them on recordings for ages, and suddenly I could see on the keyboard just how they were constructed. “Oh, that’s the sound,” I exclaimed. Fourth voicings can be integrated into many styles of modern music, and often work well on instruments from piano to Rhodes to Hammond organ. Here are some fundamentals for getting fourths into your ears and hands.

34 Keyboard 03.2012

Go Fourth!BY GEORGE COLLIGAN

PLAY BLUES » CHORD DOCTOR

“There was a period in the Middle Ages around the 13th century, when parallel fourths and fi fths were considered consonant and resolved, while thirds were considered dissonant and unresolved. Now we tend to think the exact opposite,” explains George Colligan, who has worked with Cassandra Wilson, Buster Williams, and Ravi Coltrane. Most recently, he joined drummer Jack DeJohnette’s new quintet and released Pride and Joy as a leader on the Piloo label. Colligan is also Assistant Professor in Jazz Studies at Portland State University.

Get Medieval

Audio clips of all these chord voicings and exercises.


McCoy Tyner’s name is almost synonymous with the creative use of fourths in jazz.

36 Keyboard 03.2012

1. Fourth BasicsA fourth refers to an interval (distance) between two notes. A half-step is the interval between F and F#, for example. A perfect fourth is fi ve half-steps between two notes, which, from F, would be Bb, as shown in Ex. 1a. An augmented fourth is six half steps, so in this case, F to B as in Ex. 1b. Fourths alone have a “suspended” sound (Ex. 1c), and perfect fourths impart a solid quality when you stack them as in Ex. 1d. What’s interesting is that once you start adding augmented fourths (Exs. 1e and 1f), they take on a more unresolved quality. Whether you have perfect or augmented fourths, you can move these voicings around to create new key centers within your solos.

& 44 ˙ ˙n & 44 wwb

& 44 wwwbb & 44 wwwb & 44 www

& 44 ˙ ˙bEx. 1a. Ex. 1b. Ex. 1c.

Ex. 1d. Ex. 1e. Ex. 1f.

2. Function and ResolutionLet’s examine the functional application of fourths. In Ex. 2a the perfect fourth resolves to the third. In Ex. 2b the augmented fourth (F and B) functions as the seventh and third of a G7 chord, which then resolves to a C chord. Th e cool thing about stacked perfect fourths in jazz (as well as in impressionistic music from composers like Debussy and Ravel), is that stacked fourths are not “functioning” rigidly—they’re just sounds which can be moved (Ex. 2c). Each chord has a color, and as long as you like the color, you can bend the rules at will.

& 44 ˙̇b ˙̇Ex. 2a.

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44

44˙̇ ˙̇˙ ˙

Ex. 2b.

& 44 ˙̇̇b ˙̇̇ ˙̇̇bbb ˙̇̇bbEx. 2c.

3. Favorite Fourth VoicingsMeasure 1 of Ex. 3a has both an augmented fourth and a perfect fourth. Th is is the go-to left hand voicing for an F7 chord. It contains the fl at seventh, the third, and the 13th. What’s great about this voicing is that if you put a B in the bass, it becomes a B7#9 chord. Furthermore, if you put a C in the bass, the chord becomes a Cmin13. Th e next bar contains two voicings with perfect fourths, which can add a sense of fl ow to the left hand. Ex. 3b is also an example of moving left-hand chords that could be used over Cmin7 or F7. Ex. 3c is what jazz pianist Mark Levine calls the “So What” voicing, referring to the famous tune by Miles Davis. It’s a great minor seventh chord voicing consisting of three fourths plus a major third. Th is voicing contains, from the bot-tom up, the root, 11th, seventh, third, and fi fth, and sounds great when moved in whole steps. Ex. 3d is a fourths sequence typical of what jazz pianists in the 1960s might have played.

? 44 wwwb ˙̇̇b ˙̇̇bbEx. 3a.

? 44 œœœb œœœbb œœœ œœœ œœœbb œœœ œœœ œœœEx. 3b.

38 Keyboard 03.2012

4. Progression PracticeEx. 4a shows my go-to fourth voicing for ii7-V7-Imaj7 progressions. Notice that the fi rst chord is a “So What” voicing with the root played by the left pinky. Th e second chord is built on fourths from the fl at seventh of the chord—all perfect except for the augmented fourth much like we saw in Ex. 2b. Th e third chord is also a “So What” voicing, this time built on the third of the chord. Try chanting to yourself, “So What from the root, fourths from the sev-enth, So What from the third” to remember this useful sequence. Ex. 4b is an example of using an upper structure to create an altered dominant sound. In this case, you have the root, third, and fl at seventh in the left hand, and you have perfect fourths from the sharp ninth of the chord in the right hand, which gives you a great voicing for a C7#9#5 chord.

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44

44˙̇̇ ˙̇̇bb˙̇ ˙̇

Ex. 3c.

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44œœœbb œœœ œœœ œœœnœœ œœ œœb œœb

œœœbb œœœ œœœ œœœbœœ œœ œœ œœb

œœœ œœœ ˙̇̇bbœœb œœ œœ Œ

Ex. 3d.

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44wwwww

Dmin7

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G13

wwwwwO

Cmaj13Ex. 4a.

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44wwwbbbwwwb

C7#9b9#5Ex. 4b.

5. Solo LinesExs. 5a through 5d all illustrate right-hand lines using fourths. Just like fourth-based chords, right-hand lines containing fourths are very moveable, and while they often create dissonance, they have a built in structure which gives them weight and a strong sonic identity. Try creating your own lines, moving them up and down by whole-steps, half-steps, and other interval combinations. Th e sky’s the limit with fourths!

&?

44

44‰ jœ œ œb œ œ œwwwb

œ œb œb œ œ œ œEx. 5a. Ex. 5b.

& 44 œ œ œb œn œ# œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ# œ# œb œ œ Œ Ó

& 44 œ œ œb œ œ œ# œ# œn œb œb œ œ œ œn œn œb œ# œ# œb œ Ó

& 44 œ œ œb œ œ œ œ œ œ# œ œ# œ# œ# œb œb œn œ œb œ œ Ó

Ex. 5c.

Ex. 5d.

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Digital Performer Master Class, artists’ favorite tips, and more!


SPECIAL FEATURE » SYNTH SOLOING » DANCE

It’s no secret that we hope every issue of this magazine helps you do everything better. This month, though, we’ve assembled a gargantuan grab bag of tips on everything from setting up your live keyboard rig to getting the most out of popular DAWs and workstations to songwriting for fi lm and TV. About the only game we can’t help you up is World of Warcraft—but you’d rather be making music anyway, right?

40 Keyboard 03.2012

Effi cient Gig SetupBY STEPHEN FORTNER

Having come up as a weekend warrior in numerous cover bands, Keyboard’s editor played enough bar gigs, weddings, and casuals that setup was far less painful once he learned to follow these rules.

1. Work from upstage to downstage. I used to place all the heavy stuff , then connect all the cables. On a tight stage though, this meant making trips around or under my rig to run cables, squeezing between the edge of my keyboards and the bass amp or drum kit, and otherwise wasting bodily motions. Instead, place the upstage-most “footprint” of gear fi rst—likely your amp, rack gear, and/or powered fl oor monitors—then run all neces-sary cables from them to where your keyboards will go, before you even unfold your keyboard stand(s).

2. Make snakes. Gang cables together with Velcro straps or zip ties. I suggest at least two per keyboard stand: one for all connections on the left sides of your keyboards’ rear panels and one for all connections on the right. Depending on how much of a pedal person you are, you may have a third just for running between keys and pedalboard. Color-code connectors with rubber bands or electrical tape so that plugging in becomes a process

KNOW

The Keyboard Know-It-All

you do without thinking. Audiophile wisdom says to avoid running AC and audio cables in parallel, and though I’ve never had a problem doing so at a bar gig, you may opt for separate gangs for power and audio.

3. Carry a good stereo direct box. Because you can fl ick the ground lift and kill annoying hum if nothing else, but also so the house engineer can never tell you there aren’t enough DIs for you to run in stereo. (If there aren’t enough main mixer channels for you to run in stereo, get a better gig.) I swear by Radial Engineering’s stuff here.

4. Keep your footprint consistent. Th e only cable runs whose lengths should need to vary from venue to venue are that of the main power drop to your keyboard riser or area, likewise the audio from your main DI or mixer to the front-of-house input panel. (You are carrying long extension cords and extra XLR cables for that, right?) Inside your keyboard kingdom, all should be familiar and repeatable—though you’ll want to build extra length into the amp/rack footprint-to-keyboard footprint run for larger venues where you’re able to put your amp or speakers further back to let them “throw.”

5. Secure cables and snakes to keyboard stands with Velcro. If you want a tidy appearance, don’t “barber-pole” cables around the stand’s legs or X-members to take up slack—they’ll really fi ght your tired, impatient self when it’s time to tear down.

Tips and Tricks To Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better

41 03.2012 Keyboard

Revitalize Your Jazz RepertoireBY ELIANE ELIAS

Brazilian jazz pianist Eliane Elias is known for her often-unconventional choice of repertoire. Here in her own words are Eliane’s top tips to help you expand yours.

1. Make lists of tracks that move you. If I’m in a store or a restaurant—wherever I am, I make sure to write down what I hear that draws me in. And if I don’t know what it is, I ask. [Th e iOS and Android app Shazam can listen to a song; identify the artist, title, and album; and keep a list of tagged tracks for you. –Ed.]I keep a list of songs from all genres of music that I instinctively relate to and can imagine myself performing.

2. Listen intentionally. Because I’m always traveling, I’m lucky to be

exposed to all kinds of music almost all of the time. But if you’re not always on the move, make it a point to go on “listening expeditions” to check out artists and musical genres that you wouldn’t collide with otherwise. I also do musical reconnaissance on Pandora all the time.

3. Change the style. What’s the point of performing a piece of music the same way it’s always been presented? Experiment with stylistic changes to songs you’re thinking of covering. For example, take a swing-feel tune and make it Latin or Brazilian. I do this on a number of tunes, including the famed jazz standard “Th ey Can’t Take Th at Away From Me.”

4. Change the key. One thing I have done ever since I was a student is to play everything in every key on the piano. Having facility in all 12 keys allows you to recognize the particular sound each one has. Some keys sound warmer, and some sound darker. So changing a key can inject a diff erent feel into even the most familiar material.

5. Add lyrics. Try writing words to music that’s missing them. On my 2011 album Light My Fire, I wrote my own lyrics for the song “Stay Cool,” with music by the famed jazz trumpeter Kenny Dorham. Th is will expand your creativity whether you’re a singer or not.

Playing Arranger KeyboardsBY JIM ESHLEMAN

Arranger keyboards are so different from most synths and workstations that they re-quire their own approach to performance. These auto-accompaniment instruments provide a “one-man-band” experience and can have many functions, from educational tools for beginners to advanced recording features that rival those in studios. But at their heart, all arrangers have styles: short drum/bass/accompaniment patterns of one or two measures of music—usually from many eras and cultures—that follow your chord changes in real time.

1. Mixing and editing styles. Styles often have subdivisions that mimic song sections, i.e., Intro, Verse (A), Variation, Chorus (B), and Outro/Ending. Th ere are also transitions or fi lls for get-ting from A to B and back. To begin custom-izing your styles, use the arranger’s mixer to change volume levels and alter or delete a style’s instruments. Then try exchanging parts to create new styles—take the bass pat-tern of one, the guitar riffs of another, and the drums of a third. Mixing and matching style segments will get you comfortable with creating your own styles from scratch.

2. Split points and chord recognition. The split point decides which section of the key-board the accompaniment will follow while the chord fingering settings determine if accom-paniment chords will be chosen based on one finger, two, or other combinations up to the entire keyboard. Trial and error is usually re-quired to get the desired results. One- and two-note settings (e.g., add the key a half-step up to change major to minor) are fine for novices, but with “full keyboard” settings, transitional notes from the right hand can often change the style chording in undesireable ways. So I choose the middle of the road: a “fingered on bass” setting which reads only the left hand with the lowest note selecting the bass. This often works best.

3. Change chords ahead of the beat. Even with modern microprocessors, there’s still a split-second needed for an arranger to decide what chord it will assign to the accompaniment style. For greater accuracy, try playing left hand chord changes slightly ahead of the beat. Once you become good at it, the diff erence will be imper-ceptable to most listeners and “the band” will be more likely to get the chords right.

4. Give yourself a hand—or a foot!Performing live on an arranger can be daunt-ing—you usually have to switch song sections within styles while playing with both hands and controlling other functions. A MIDI pedal-board (of switches—not the organ kind) can make this task easier. Every manufacturer offers dedicated options (such as the Yamaha MFC-10 or Korg’s EC-5 for its PA series) but almost any arranger can allow pattern start/stop, style variation switching, or effects to be controlled by standard MIDI commands. Happy arrangers need happy feet!

5. Arrangers in the studio. More than just for entertaining, arrangers make great songwriting tools, and many higher-end models off er multi-track song-production, not to mention integra-tion with various DAWs. Yamaha off ers voice ed-iting software for the Tyros family, as does Korg for the PA series. MIDI channels are assignable for multiple left- and right-hand parts as well as accompaniment instruments within styles, and you can often assign voices to separate outputs. By setting the arranger as the master MIDI clock, you can sync your DAW to what amounts to a vast MIDI loop library.

42 Keyboard 03.2012

Get Your Song in a Movie or TV ShowBY ROBIN FREDERICK

Robin Frederick, head of A&R at Taxi, former A&R director for Rhino Records, and author of Shortcuts to Songwriting for Film and TV, shares her best tips for breaking into this growing market for bands and songwrit-ers. Get more at robin frederick.com.

1. Focus on a common experience. Unlike instrumental underscore, songs in fi lm and TV are mostly drawn from artists’ albums. Th ey exist be-fore the scene is ever written. Which begs the question: If you don’t know what scenes your songs may be used in, how can you write a song that will work? Many scenes feature similar emotional situations: falling in love, falling out of love, confl ict, celebration, or facing challenges, to name a few. Use one of these as the central lyrical theme and your song will be more likely to fi nd a home.

2. But don’t get too specifi c! Avoid detailed stories in your lyrics, as they might confl ict with what’s onscreen. Th is includes specifi c places, dates, or names. “I love you, Ashley” will confuse viewers if the heroine’s name is Emily. Writing too specifi cally about a romantic breakup confi nes your song

to that situation, whereas lyrics about loneliness or sadness could work in scenes about other kinds of loss. Let the script tell the story while the song expresses the feelings.

3. Study how songs are used in fi lm and TV. Th e best uses often occur near the end of episodes of today’s top TV dramas. In shows like Grey’s Anatomy, House, and Th e Vampire Diaries, songs are used to underscore a peak emotional moment or give continuity to a closing montage. So yes, I’m telling you to watch more TV.

4. Music must emotionally support the lyrics. Music tells the listener what to feel. When lyrics and music are in confl ict, it undercuts the emo-tional impact of the song. Faster tempos generate excitement, raising the viewer’s pulse rate. A mix of major and minor chords emphasizing the ma-jor has a more optimistic feel than emphasizing the minor. A vocal melody that relies on the three notes of an accompanying triad will feel uncompli-cated, honest, even naïve, while one that features notes outside the basic triad will tend to feel more ambivalent and complex.

5. Make your whole song strong. I sometimes hear songwriters ask, “Why should I worry if my verse or bridge is weak? Th ey’re only going to use ten seconds.” Not so. Many film and TV uses are two minutes or more, and those are the ones you want because they pay more royal-ties. Busy music supervisors won’t take time to look for the good bits. More importantly, they look for songs that move them as songs. Th ese are the ones they keep in their personal playlists and remember when the right scene comes along.

l k

Korg Workstation Workfl owBY RICHARD FORMIDONI

Whether you’re still playing a classic Triton, a new Kronos, or al-most anything in between, Korg workstations all behave in similar enough ways that product manager Rich Formidoni’s fi ve favorite tips are required reading for operational ease.

1. Safety pin it. Ever notice that safety pin icon in a drop-down menu on any touchscreen Korg workstation? It keeps the menu open, even after you’ve selected what you want. Th is way, you can quickly perform your next operation without having to re-open the menu, which is helpful during deep editing.

2. Double-duty Compare. When you’re editing a Program or Combi, the Compare button switches back and forth between your edits and the saved ver-sion of the sound. In Sequence mode, it serves as an undo/redo tool, so you can make “before and after” comparisons while recording or editing.

3. Choose your control. Th ere are often several data-entry methods on a Korg synth or workstation. On the Kronos, for example, the value slider is great for quickly going to either the top or bottom value of a parameter. Th e data wheel is great for hearing the eff ects of gradual changes as you play. Th e up/down buttons are best at making precise, incremental changes. Lastly, use the number pad and Enter button when you know the exact value you want.

4. Lock the stick. A familiar sight on a Korg keyboard is the X/Y joystick. Players who are used to a conventional, non-springy modulation wheel sometimes think they’re at a disadvantage because the joystick is spring-loaded on both axes. However, in many Programs and Combis, SW2 (the button just above the joystick) locks the position of the joystick Y-axis—and the ribbon controller if the model has one. If this function isn’t pre-assigned to your favorite sound, it’s easy to program.

5. Eff ects primer. On most current Korg workstations, eff ects can be used in three roles: IFX (insert), MFX (master), and TFX (total). IFX can be applied to timbres or tracks on an individual basis, with the ability to chain and route more than one timbre/track to the same IFX. MFX operate on a send basis, so you can send varying amounts of each timbre or track to a single MFX. Th ey’re good for reverb, chorus, or other eff ects you may use often. TFX are always on, and aff ect everything. Th is should be the last link in your chain, for a stereo compressor, limiter, or other kind of mastering eff ect.

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46 Keyboard 03.2012

Kurzweil ClinicBY DAVE WEISER

Dave Weiser isn’t just a senior software engineer at Kurzweil. He’s a bona fi de vintage keyboards fanatic and a heck of a player. We asked him for fi ve things that make him love his day job, and he sent us these useful tips.

1. Intuitive Entry. All PC3 Series instruments include this feature for assigning controls to parameters, as do the legacy K series ’boards. On any PC3, PC3LE, or PC3K, go to the DSPMOD page. On the left column you will see settings for parameters like pitch, fi lter frequency, resonance, and so on. Move the cursor to the parameter you’d like to control—let’s say fi lter cutoff . Now move the cursor to the right column to “Source 1.” While holding the Enter button, simply move the desired controller—the mod wheel or a slid-er, for example, and it’s assigned.

2. Search. Th e Search function, found in all PC3 and K series boards, lets you to type in a word and the keyboard will do its best to fi nd a matching object from the mode you’re in (Program, Setup, etc.). Hold the Enter button and press “0” (zero) on the keypad. Th is opens a dialogue where you

can type in, say, “Jaco.” Hit Enter. You will be taken immediately to program #110, “Jaco Fretless.” Th is can be very handy for fi nding a type of sound, like “Oboe” or “Flute,” in a large list of presets.

3. Set controls. Th is feature in all PC3 series in-struments quickly captures the values of any re-altime controls like knobs, sliders, and switches. Select any program and hit Edit. Use the soft but-tons at the bottom of the screen to page to the right until you see the “CTLS” and SETCtl” tabs. Now adjust the desired controllers and hit the SETCtl soft button. Your settings are now part of the current Program, which you should save.

4. Info and Reverse Info. On any PC3 series instrument, while playing any program or setup, hit the INFO soft button at the bottom of the screen and you’ll see a list of all active controllers and the parameters to which they’re assigned. Instead of having permanent labels for controllers like “Chorus”

or “Filter Frequency,” assignments are custom-ized—you’d probably never need “Distortion Drive” control on a Clarinet. Reverse Info sends a message any time a controller is used, listing the parameter aff ected as well as a realtime value for its depth. For example, on a typical synth lead sound, move the mod wheel and you’ll get a message that reads, “Vibrato Depth: 45” and the number will change as you move the wheel. Th e PC3LE has Reverse Info enabled by default. To enable it on a PC3 or PC3K, go to the Master page, fi nd the Display parameter in the right column and select “Ctls.”

5. Easy Audition. Hit the Play button while in Program mode and you’ll hear a short example of how the current sound was meant to be played. Okay, you probably don’t need to be told how to play a Rhodes or Clav patch, but I fi nd it help-ful when auditioning drum kits, especially since there are so many in the machine, and more on the way in an upcoming ROM expansion.

Desktop MasteringBY CRAIG ANDERTON

Though I’m a big proponent of getting your music professionally mastered, these tips have proven just as valuable for pre-master-ing as for when you have to master the project yourself.

1. Save all of a song’s plug-in processor settings as presets. After listening to the mastered version for a while, if you decide to make “just one more” slight tweak—and the odds are you will—it will be a lot easier if you can return to where you left off . (For analog gear, take a photo of the panel knob positions.)

2. With loudness maximizers, never set the ceiling to 0dB. Some CD pressing plants will reject CDs if they consistently hit 0dB for more than a certain number of consecutive samples, as it’s assumed that indicates clipping. Furthermore, any additional editing—even just crossfading the song with another during the assembly process—could increase the level above 0. Don’t go above -0.1dB; -0.3dB is safer.

3. Halve that change. Even small changes can have a major impact—add one dB of boost to a stereo mix, and you’ve eff ectively added one dB of boost to every track in that mix. If you’re fairly new to mastering, after making a change that sounds right, cut it in half. For example, if you boost 3dB at 5kHz, change it to 1.5dB. Live with that setting for a while to determine if you actually need more.

4. Bass man-agement for the vinyl re-vival. With vinyl, low frequencies must be centered and mono. iZo-tope Ozone has a multiband image widener, but pull-ing the bass range width fully nega-tive collapses it to mono. Another option is to use a crossover to split off the bass range, convert it to mono, then mix it back with the other split.

5. Th e “magic” EQ frequencies. While there are no rules, problems involving the following frequencies crop up fairly regularly. Below 25Hz: Cut it—subsonics live there, and virtually no consumer playback system goes that low. 300–500Hz: So many instruments have energy in this range that there can be a build-up; a slight, broad cut helps reduce po-tential “muddiness.” 3–5kHz: A subtle lift increases definition and intel-ligibility. Be sparing, as the ear is very sensitive in this range. 15–18kHz: A steep cut above these frequencies can impart a warmer, less brittle sound to digital recordings.

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GAIA SH-01

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50 Keyboard 03.2012

5 Sonar Power TipsBY CRAIG ANDERTON

1. Loudness maximizer in disguise. To convert the Sonitus:fx Multiband Compressor into a maximizer, load the “Full Reset” preset to defeat any com-pression. Th en, click on the Common tab, and enable Limit. Turn up the Out fi eld above 0.0; in limit mode, the red clipping light indicates when a signal is being limited. You can typically increase the Out parameter to 6dB (and sometimes more) without audible degradation. Th e ceiling is automatically clamped to –0.1dB.

2. Th e Analyst multiband envelope follower. Th e Analyst plug-in isn’t just a spectrum analyzer—enable Auto and Write automation, and the Analyst will generate fi ve automation envelopes for the track in which it’s enabled: below 500Hz, 500Hz–1kHz, 1kHz–5kHz, above 5kHz, and an average level. With slower computers, you may need to enable “Lo” resolution and nudge the envelopes a little earlier to line up with percussive peaks.

3. Transparent compression. Putting two compressors with low ratios (1.5:1 or below) in series gives com-pression with no audible artifacts—and the VC-64 Vintage Channel is ideal for this. Choose the “Mix and Mas-ter” eff ect routing, which puts compressors C1 and C2 in series. Set them both to an initial threshold of around –5.00, a ratio of 1.5:1, and use the defaults for the other parameters. You won’t hear much diff erence if you bypass one compressor or the other, but when they’re both enabled, the result is nice and transparent.

4. Secret vocoder. If inserted correctly, the Pentagon I syn-thesizer can be a vocoder. Right-click on a track’s FX bin and go to Soft Synths > Pentagon I. Click on the Pentagon I logo, and choose “Voice Modulator = On.” Assign the track input to an interface input with a microphone connected, turn the track’s Input Echo on, and select the Pentagon I patch you want to vocode. Create a MIDI track and assign its output to the Pentagon. Start playback, play MIDI notes, talk into the mic, and the vocoded sound will appear at the Pentagon I track output.

5. Phase shifter construction kit. A phase shifter sweeps notches, and the ProChannel EQ can emulate that eff ect. Set the four parametric fi lter frequencies about an octave apart, and Q to maximum. Enable Automation Write for each frequency knob, and also assign each of these to a group so that moving one fi lter frequency knob moves them all together. Start playback, and vary a frequency control to sweep the notches—just like a phase shifter. Also try sweeping narrow peaks, and combinations of peaks and notches.

Image-Line FL StudioBY JIM AIKIN

Image-Line FL Studio is so packed with features I could eas-ily write a hundred tips. Here are fi ve of my favorites—get two more online at keyboardmag.com/march2012.

1. One wheel to rule them all. My keyboard only has one modulation wheel, and I need to use it no matter what plug-in synth I’m playing. Here’s the solution: In the menu at the upper left corner of the Fruity Wrapper, select Browse Parameters. Scroll down in the Browser until you see “MIDI CC#1.” Right-click this and choose Link to Controller from the pop-up menu. Th e Remote Control Settings box opens. Click the Omni checkbox, leave the Auto-Detect checkbox active, and wiggle the mod wheel. Th e Omni checkbox assigns the mod wheel to whichever instrument is active.

2. Make Unique. In the pop-up menu for each pattern in the Playlist is the “Make Unique” command. Th is clones the Pattern while leaving it in place. After cloning, you can freely make edits to the pattern without worrying that the edits will be duplicated elsewhere. If you duplicate a pattern by shift-dragging it, it won’t be unique: Any edits will propagate across all copies.

3. MIDI out and back again. Th e MIDI Out Generator is handy for se-quencing multitimbral plug-ins: You can put each of the plug-in’s channels on a separate line in the Step Sequencer. Click the gear wheel button in the

upper left corner of the plug-in’s Fruity Wrapper box. In the Settings tab, choose a unique input port that you’re not using for anything else. Create MIDI Out Generators for all of the channels you’ll be using with the plug-in, and set the Port and Channel param-eters. Whatever you record for the MIDI Out Genera-tors will be played by the plug-in.

4. No mix-up. Tucked away in the drop-down menu in the little Channel Settings box for each plug-in instrument is the Assign Free Mixer Track command. Th is is a quick way to get each instrument onto its own mixer channel, thus eliminating any pos-sible confusion over send levels and other mixer settings.

5. Mapping formulas. Right-click on any knob or slider, choose Link to Controller, and use the Mapping Formula box to change the shape of the controller response. MIDI control data runs from 0 to 127, but FL Studio maps this to a range of 0.0 to 1.0 before it arrives at this box. Enter the formula “1 - Input,” for instance, hit Return, and you’ve inverted the control-ler response. Th e little square graphic shows the new response curve. Uncheck the Remove Confl icts box and you can use a single MIDI slider to jam on fi ve or six parameters at once, each responding in a diff erent way.

Ableton LiveBY LOUDON STEARNS

1. Back away from the mouse. Key mapping, once confi gured, gives you single-key access to Live’s most important functions like looping, draw mode toggle, click track, and punch recording. Once you confi gure your set of key mappings, go to the preferences. Th ere is an option to save the current project as your default project, so those mappings will be there for every new one.

2. Quick A/B comparison. When mixing, make sure that changes to eff ects like compression and EQ are really helping the track. Say you have an EQ in a track and you want to try out some new settings. First duplicate the eff ect (Command-D on Mac, Ctrl-D on PC). Turn the fi rst one off us-ing the eff ect’s power button. Enter key mapping mode (Command-K on Mac, Ctrl-K on PC), and map both power buttons to a single QWERTY key, then exit key map mode. Now if you hit that key, the eff ect that was off turns on, so you can hear which version you like better.

3. Go parallel with racks. There are four types of Racks in Live: Effect, Instrument, MIDI, and Drum. Group effects using a key command: Command-G on Mac or Ctrl-G on PC. Instru-ment Racks can layer multiple soft synths to create huge, thick pads. With Effect racks you can split the audio into separate frequency bands, letting you, say, put a delay on just the highs and keep the low end mono. With Drum Racks, each incoming MIDI note has its own instrument and chain of effects, so your snare could be sampled and run through a compres-sor and the kick be could be created with a third-party synth. With MIDI effect racks, you can create complex arpeggiated patterns by

stacking multiple arpeggiators in parallel with other MIDI effects.

4. Be modular and documented. Clips, Racks, Tracks, and Presets can be shared from project to project. Right-click on the title bar of any of these objects and you can assign its color, name, and custom info text that shows up in the help. In the Live Browser, you can look inside other projects, grabbing individual tracks or clips and dropping them into your current project. Also, look for custom info text in the Live library pre-sets—many of the patches give you hints at the best way to use them.

5. Try sound design. One of the coolest Live eff ects, Corpus, creates a “talking” synth. It’s a pretty long process, but the end results are worth the time spent.

Avid Pro ToolsBY ANDY EDELSTEIN

1. Save your favorite screen layouts. Using view presets (via Memory Locations) and Win-dow Confi gurations (accessed in the Window menu), you can store and recall your favorite screen arrangements for tracking, editing, and mixing sessions. Create a set of presets for vari-ous tasks with customized layouts, control set-tings, and track displays.

2. Know how to watch your recording levels. Th e waveform displays in the Edit window are not a good indicator of acceptable levels— tracks recorded too hot can appear to be fi ne. Instead, use your track meters when setting input levels,

and make sure they never display inputs in the amber range.

3. Create a preset library. Rather than building session templates from scratch, save your favorite setups in dummy sessions and use the “Import Session Data” command to pick and choose what-ever you want. For example, you could import from a drum track session that contains ten of your favorite kick confi gurations, another ten for snare drums, and so forth.

4. Use groups to reduce screen clutter. Use the groups function to switch between a set of simplifi ed screen views rather than scrolling around to locate tracks. Create a set of groups that account for all the tracks in your session, making sure each group is small enough so all of its mem-bers can fi t on screen. In Mac OS, simply Ctrl-click on any group name to show only those tracks. With Windows, right-click on the group name, then select “Show Only Tracks in Group.”

5. Punch in mixes to update bounces faster. Route your mix tracks to a bus that feeds a new audio track, then record on that track while play-ing through the mix. After the fi rst pass, you can punch in subsequent updates only in sections where changes have been made, rather than re-recording the entire song. When fi nished, consol-idate the mixed Regions (or Clips, as of Pro Tools 10) and use the “Export Regions [Clips] As Files” command to almost instantaneously generate a bounce with the desired format, bit depth, and sample rate.

Propellerhead ReasonBY ERIK HAWKINS

1. Work fast with templates. After creating a project with your favorite elements— devices, patches, most commonly used effects, audio tracks—make the file read-only so you don’t accidentally overwrite it. Then, make it the

DAW UniversityThe following power tips about four popular DAWs—and one music notation pro-gram—were provided by the instructors at Berklee College of Music Online, and can be found next to even more tips in the Music Production Handbook, available on our site now. To learn more about the renowned music school’s distance courses or to try one on for size, visit berkleemusic.com.

51 03.2012 Keyboard

52 Keyboard 03.2012

Default Song Template in Reason’s General Preferences.

2. Use individual outs for max control. Many devices feature individual outputs, including Redrum, Kong, NN-XT, and Dr. Octo Rex. Learn how to assign sounds to these individual outs for maximum control over each signal in your mix. For example, when you assign the drums in Kong to its individual outs, you can add EQ and com-pression on the Main Mixer to the snare drum but not to the kick, or parallel reverb to the low tom but not the hi-hat.

3. Use combinators for sound design. Com-binators off er a quick and easy way to build your own sounds without needing to know how every synth parameter works. By starting with a mixer in the combinator, you can easily mix and layer instruments and eff ects for a monstrous sound. After you cook up something you like, save the combinator patch for quick recall.

4. Use master bus eff ects. DJs often run an entire stereo mix through an eff ect—such as tempo-synchronized fi lters and delays—to add extra drama to their mixes. You can recreate this eff ect in Reason by inserting eff ect devices such as the PH-90 Phaser and the Alligator Fil-ter Gate, in the Main Mixer’s Master section, at its main output. Th en, automate the eff ect’s By-pass button and some of its parameters to turn up the drama at specifi c points in your song.

5. Use ReWire for third-party plug-ins. A common complaint about Reason is that it doesn’t work with third-party plug-ins—this isn’t entirely true. When you ReWire Reason into a ReWire-compatible DAW program such as Pro Tools or Logic, you can process Reason’s output through third-party plug-ins. In fact, up to 64 stereo outputs can come from Reason’s Hard-ware Interface device and be plugged directly into the DAW program’s mixer.

Steinberg CubaseBY ROSS RAMSAY

1. Be ready in a fl ash with templates. Start by opening a new empty project and then adding the elements that you most often use. Once the setup is complete, go to the fi le menu and select “Save as Template.” Your templates are available in the “More” category of the project assistant when you start a new project.

2. Customize your work environment. In Cubase’s preferences, you can set your knobs to move linear or circular, choose text input on left click for entering data, adjust the color and line in-tensity, and make other interface tweaks. You can also create workspace setups that call up the size, position, and content of your Cubase windows. From the Window menu, open the Workspaces submenu, select “New Workspace,” and enter an appropriate name. Create diff erent workspaces ideal for tracking, editing, and mixing.

3. Use key commands. Th e default key com-mands are listed in the various menus as well as in the manual, and they’ll expedite everything you do. Select the tool you need by hitting 0 through 9, open the mixer with F3, toggle the transport out of the way with F2, and so on.

4. Use VST instrument channels to get the most out of HALion Sonic and other multi-timbral plug-ins. Open the virtual instrument window from the devices menu (F11) and as-sign your virtual instruments to the rack. Any MIDI track can now be assigned to play the vir-tual instrument, and you can activate multiple channels of audio routing to the mixer right from the window.

5. Create multiple arrangements of your song fast with the arranger track. Record your basic parts (such as verse, chorus, and bridge) and add the arranger track from the project menu. On the arranger track, outline each section with the Pencil tool (create and name as many sections of any length as you need) and make an arranger chain by adding the events in the order you want them to occur. Create multiple arranger chains to compare dif-ferent forms of your song. You can even use the arranger for triggering sections in a live perfor-mance. [Not unlike an arranger keyboard with its style variation buttons! —Ed.]

MakeMusic FinaleBY JONATHAN FEIST

1. Get to know the Selection tool. You can access this tool quickly from anywhere by just hit-ting your ESC key. Th is gives generic editorial control over many types of nota-tion elements. So, to move something,

choose the Selection tool and just drag it. To edit it, use its contextual menus (Ctrl-click in Mac, right-click on PC), or if you need deeper control, double-click it to activate the tool that created it.

2. Optimize your notation input. Use a MIDI keyboard plus QWERTY keyboard shortcuts for notation input. It’s dramatically faster than using just the computer keyboard, particularly for en-tering chords. Even the smallest, cheapest MIDI keyboard will be fi ne for Finale work.

3. Use shortcuts. Memorize, customize, and use the keyboard shortcuts (metatools) for instrument expressions, articulations, and other tools. In selec-tion palettes, these shortcuts are generally in the top-right corner of their assigned shape. Customize what key serves as the shortcut by holding down Shift and the key you want to become the new shortcut.

4. Know how to control notation elements. Th ere are essentially three places to check for fi guring out how to control notation elements: the Main Tools palette, the Document Options window (Document menu), and the specialized menu that becomes visible when you select a tool. Nearly everything important can be found in one of those places. Th en, the Utilities menu is a great source of mind-boggling shortcuts that don’t exactly map to specifi c tools.

5. Use the right tool for the job. Don’t fuss too much with getting performance-quality play-back. Finale is a notation program fi rst and fore-most. Other products, such as Digital Performer, Logic, and Pro Tools are optimized for producing audio, and you’ll be much happier using the right tool for the right job.

Download Berklee’s full Music Production Handbook!


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Extend YourselfRemember the three “Ds” of pitch-bending: di-rection, distance, and duration. Until now we’ve kept the distance to a whole-step (two semitones) up or down. Increasing it further opens up a whole world of possibilities that are fun to ex-plore. First, let’s try upward bending.

Go to the page on your synth where bend range is set and change the upward bend range from 2 to 3. (Not all synths have independent ranges for up and down—boo!) Th is is often clearly labeled as “Bend,” but may be located in less obvious places. For example, in Applied Acoustics Ultra Analog, it’s in the preferences. In Arturia CS-80V, it’s the “Ribbon Coarse” setting. In the ES-M synth in Logic, you have to switch the plug-in to Logic’s sliders-only “controls” view to expose the ranges. And in Native Instruments Massive, it’s under the OSC tab in the middle of the panel.

We’ll use the same blues scale in E from last month, as shown in Ex. 1.With the bend range set to +3, any note you bend up will travel a minor third, so the best notes to bend from would be the root (E), the minor third (G), and the fi fth (B), which just happen to outline the root triad of the key. Th at’s a hint for when you transpose the exercises to other keys. Try the three simple riff s in Ex. 2 to get started.

Next, try going back to the repeated-note con-cepts from last month’s column, but obviously using notes a minor third apart, as in Ex. 3. We

KNOW SPECIAL FEATURE » SYNTH SOLOING » DANCE

LAST MONTH WE STARTED TO EXPLORE SOME REPEATED NOTE EXERCISES, learning to play a “real” note and then repeating it with a bent note. This month, we’ll expand on those concepts and, most importantly, begin to explore pitch-bend ranges larger than the whole-step (two semitones up or down) to which most modern synths are set by default. As you spend time learning these techniques, listening and tran-scribing licks from your favorite artists, and learning them in all 12 keys, you’ll develop a natural feel for making them part of your vocabulary.

54 Keyboard 03.2012

can extend this concept to use every note of the scale by adding some non-scale tones for the bent note, making sure that we’re always bending into a scale tone. Th e choices are outlined in Ex. 4.

Muscle MemoryListen to some of your favorite players and tracks and try to hear if and when they’re using an upward bend range larger than a whole-step. Th is will lead you to next important lesson of the art of pitch-bending: You shouldn’t just “set and forget” the bend range, always moving your controller its full travel. Instead, you’ll want to learn to bend intervals by feel and by ear. After all, you’ll still want to articulate half-steps and whole steps as well as minor-third bends. Th at’s what you’re hearing in all the great performances.

Back when analog synths were the only synths, the bend range usually wasn’t adjustable, and it often traveled a fl at fi fth in either direction. Each instrument was diff erent, so when you saw a player with a bunch of synths onstage, they had to adjust their technique for each keyboard. In my early playing days I had both a Minimoog and a Prophet-5 (revision 2, thank you very much) and they felt and were scaled quite diff erently from one another. So I really had to get to know their pitch wheels, and use my ears and muscle memory to bend in tune.

With the upward bend range at three semi-tones, try to reproduce all the exercises we’ve

done since the fi rst column in the December 2011 issue. Notice how you have to fi nd the “just right” location to stop moving the wheel or joystick—it’s not quite all the way. With enough practice it will come to you.

DivebombsA classic track that clearly exposes bend ranges higher than +2 (or even +3) is the intro to Jan Hammer’s “Darkness/Earth In Search Of A Sun” from his seminal album Th e First Seven Days. (You can fi nd it on all the major services, includ-ing Spotify.) Th ere’s also a great version on Jeff Beck with the Jan Hammer Group Live. You’ll hear Jan using arching major-third bends up and div-ing down to two octaves below. As I noted, not all synths let you do this, but if you stay away from strict emulations of vintage synths you’re more likely to fi nd this ability. Try setting your downward bend range to –12 (one octave). Dial in a small amount of portamento (a.k.a. glide) and try the riff in Ex. 6, bending the last note down an octave at varying speeds. Ex. 7 is a way of extending that riff into a longer, repeating phrase.Try changing the C# for a C natural to get more of a Phrygian or Aoelian (natural minor) vibe. You can then try the same phrases with the downward bend range set to –24 (two octaves).

Many people call this a “divebomb” as it’s a lot like guitar players using the whammy bar. Typing “whammy bar technique” into Google will bring up lots of video lessons and clips. Listening to vir-tuoso guitarists like Steve Vai—his fi rst gig with Frank Zappa was billed as “stunt guitarist” for good reason—Jeff Beck, Eddie Van Halen (especially “Eruption”), and Michael Lee Firkins will prove great source of ideas. So try everything from a Minimoog-style lead to a distorted gutiar patch and wail away—headband, piercings, and tattoos optional!

Beyond the Whole-Step BendBY JERRY KOVARSKY

THE ART OF SYNTH SOLOING

Hear audio examples of these techniques.


55 03.2012 Keyboard

Ex. 7.

Ex. 6.

Ex. 5.

Ex. 4.

Ex. 3.

Ex. 2c.

Ex. 2b.

Ex. 2a.

Ex. 1.

French TwistsBY FRANCIS PRÈVE

French Edits by HandStep 1.Grab a bunch of tracks that rock your world. It doesn’t matter what genre, since you’re going to be using less than a quarter-note of each track.

Step 2.From there, crop each sample to a quarter-note or eighth-note, making sure that there isn’t too much rhythmic information in each one. Sixteenth-note hi-hats within a sample could throw the groove off , but stabs and melodic bits can be made to work with a bit of tinkering.

Step 3.Many DAWs let you tune individual audio samples by cents or semitones, so get each of the slices into the same key—or at least to where they’re not clashing. Playing them in rapid suc-cession results in a riff you wouldn’t compose by tradi-tional means.

KNOW SPECIAL FEATURE » SYNTH SOLOING » DANCE

ONE OF ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC’S MOST VIRAL VIDEOS IN 2011 WAS “POP Culture” by French whiz kid Madeon. He mashed up over 30 tracks in three minutes using Ableton Live. The essential technique was using tiny slices of samples of other tracks in clever ways. Justice, Daft Punk, and Skrillex have also created whiplash edits and clever riffs by re-contextualizing tiny samples from other tracks. You can do the edits by hand in any DAW, throwing slices on one or more tracks and moving them around until you get something interesting. To get the same result with a lot less fuss, let Ableton Live’s “Follow Action” feature do most of the heavy lifting.

Original audio example.


56 Keyboard 03.2012

Step 4.Once you have everything sliced and tuned, cre-ate a simple kick/snare groove and start moving the slices around on the same track until you fi nd a pattern that has the vibe you’re after. From there, keep tinkering and refi ning until you hit the magic combo.

French Edits Using Ableton’sFollow ActionsStep 1.All you have to do is set up a bunch of song clips on the same channel. Th en tune each clip and move its start point

to a position where the clip is playing a stab or oth-er interesting bit, using the same musical criteria as described above.

Step 2.Now, highlight all the clips so that adjusting their launch settings af-fects them all identically. Ableton’s Follow Action tools can randomize clip behavior so that after a clip plays for a specifi c amount of time, it jumps randomly to another clip in the same channel. By setting the times to a quarter-note or less, you can let Follow Actions do all the work. Record it to a track so you can listen and fi nd musically interesting sections later.

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ROUNDUP » ANALOG » SOFT SYNTH » APP

HOW MANY NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS HAVE YOU ALREADY GIVEN UP ON? WAS “LEARN TO PLAY KEYBOARD” one of them? You’ll get no judgments from us—only sympathy, encouragement, and the following buyers’ guide for prospective (and erstwhile) piano and keyboard students. Whether you have an instructor or study and practice on your own, buying a keyboard for the purpose of learning and practice is a lot different from buying one to play gigs in a band. To help, here are the educational features we deem most essential, followed by 14 exemplary models that have some or most of them.

58 Keyboard 03.2012

14 Great Keyboards for Learning to PlayBY OWEN O’MALLEY

REVIEW

Feature What It Does Benefi t1. FULL-SIZED KEYS Keys are the same physical dimensions as those on an

acoustic piano.Learning with full-sized keys makes it easier translate your technique to acoustic pianos.

2. WEIGHTED ACTION Simulates the physical feel and action of the mechanical keys on an acoustic piano.

Helps you build fi nger strength and dexterity.

3. TRIPLE PEDALS Off ers damper, sostenuto, and soft pedals like on a real piano, via built-in, included, or optional pedal.

A lot of traditional music written for piano calls for more than just the sustain pedal.

4. DUET MODE Splits the keyboard in the middle with identical note ranges on either side.

Lets student and teacher sit side by side and play the same part in the same range, as opposed to octaves apart.

5. AUDIO INPUT Usually 1/8" stereo mini or stereo RCA. Routes audio from an external source through your keyboard’s speak-ers or headphone output.

Play along with songs from your iPod or other device; great for learning or practicing along with your favorite music without having to convert it to another format.

6. AUTO-ACCOMPANIMENT A “virtual backup band” with a variety of musical styles that responds to your left-hand chord changes. Add realtime variations for intros, verses, fi lls, etc., and you have an “arranger keyboard.”

You can learn timing with a metronome, but auto-accompaniment lets you learn feel. And it’s a lot more fun. A great way to practice improvising and coming up with musical ideas, especially since the virtual band never needs a break.

7. INTERACTIVE FULL SONGS Goes beyond both auto-accompaniment and mere demo song/MIDI fi le playback to let you play interactively with fully arranged songs.

Most beginning students want to play music they already know and love. Song mode off ers this, and often implies some combination of features 8–11.

8. WAIT MODE (a.k.a. auto-stop or “your tempo”)

Accompaniment or song playback will stop if you hit wrong notes then start again when you fi nd the right ones.

Allows you to learn songs at your own pace, and keeps you from getting discouraged or feeling overwhelmed.

9. CHORD DISPLAY Displays the left-hand chord, either on a staff , as a chord symbol (e.g., Em7), or both.

A simple, interactive way to begin associating chord fi ngerings with their names, symbols, and appearance on the staff .

10. PART MUTING OR MIXING Mutes elements of a song being played back, either by instru-ment (drums, bass, etc.) or by left- and right-hand parts.

When you’ve learned a part, lets you “sit in” in the band for the virtual player you’ve muted.

11. LIGHT-UP KEYS In conjunction with song playback or chord display, keys light up to guide your fi ngers to correct notes.

Helps you associate notes on a staff , chords, and what you’re hearing to shapes on the keyboard.

12. SONG RECORDER Records your playing as MIDI, audio, or both Some models off er multitrack recording.

Th e best way to evaluate your progress is to listen to what you’ve played. Also good for aspiring songwriters.

59 03.2012 Keyboard

Alesis CadenzaFeatures: 1 2 5 12Th is streamlined digital piano focuses on conjuring a real piano experience at a student-friendly price. To that end, its 88 keys are full-sized and hammer-action, and the available sounds pared down to eight. Th ere are still some electronic-instrument extras that the piano student will value—two-track re-corder, auxiliary audio input, and built-in metronome—but the Cadenza is for students who want their dollars to go toward an instrument that plays more like its acoustic counterpart.$699 list | $499 street | alesis.com

Casio Celviano AP-620Features: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 12

Th e fl agship of the Celviano line is a best-of-both-worlds digital piano. It not only looks, but plays and sounds, a lot like an acoustic piano thanks to its four-layer stereo multisamples, 88 weighted keys with ivory-like texture, and triple pedal. It off ers many of the features we’ve highlighted like duet mode, song mode with an expandable library (via SD memory card), a 16-track recorder, and auto-accompaniment. Th e price even includes a matching bench.$1,799 list | $1,399 street | casio.com

Casio LK-280 Features: 1 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12Th e keys on the LK-280 may not be weighted, but they are full-sized, meaning small hands can practice stretching for octaves that are the same distance as on an acoustic piano. LK stands for “Lighted Keys.” Th e integrated Step Up Lesson Sys-tem uses familiar, built-in songs so you can learn at your own pace. Th e methodi-cal, guided lessons focus on one phrase and one hand at a time, and off er feedback via a letter grading system. Notes, chord names, and fi ngerings are displayed on the LCD screen. Th ere’s a lot of learning potential here for very little money.$299 list | $199 street | casio.com

Casio Privia PX-130 Features: 1 2 3 4 10 12Th e top seller in the Privia digital piano line off ers an 88-key scaled hammer action (also called a graded action—lower notes off er more resistance than higher ones, as on a real piano) and an optional triple pedal. Th e core acoustic piano sounds are also upgraded from the LK series. Unlike the LK-280, there’s no Lesson System, but an integrated library of 60 play-along songs off ers left- and right-hand part muting and, of course, adjustable tempo. Th e duet mode makes it a great choice for private instructors; that it carries an attractive street price makes it a smart buy for schools and learning centers that off er group instruction.$799 list | $499 street | casio.com

r

asio Celviano AP-620ures: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 12

edal. nlike the LK-280,gs off ers left- and right-hand part

at choice for private instructors; that it carries an ters that off er group instruction.

60 Keyboard 03.2012

Korg MicroArrangerFeatures: 5 6 7 9 10 12Th e mini-keys may be far from piano-authentic, but for $499, this junior arranger workstation has a lot to off er the composition student. Deep editing screens let you customize the over 300 auto-accompaniment styles. Dual sequencers let you capture everything in one go, or record up to 16 tracks one at a time. Th e bevy of buttons may be daunting to some, but if you need interactive fun and a certain amount of instant gratifi cation to stay motivated—and with a minimum physical and fi nancial footprint—you’ve found your keyboard.$749 list | $499 street | korg.com

Korg SP-250Features: 1 2Like the Alesis Cadenza, the Korg SP-250 foregoes features like auto-accompaniment and integrated lessons in favor of providing an uncannily piano-like action (the RH3, Korg’s best) and impressive, stereo-sampled grand piano sounds. Th e included damper supports half-pedaling for added realism. Th ere’s no duet mode, but dual headphone jacks let student and teacher practice together. For historical accuracy in classical music, you can switch between equal (standard), Kirnberger, and Werck-meister tuning temperaments—an option only practical in the digital world.$1,199 list | $699 street | korg.com

Kurzweil MP-10EP Features: 1 2 3 5 12

Th e MP-10EP comes close to the experience of playing a real acoustic upright at an attractive price, not to mention a more compact size than Kurzweil’s CUP-2—though it off ers the same complement of grand pianos, vintage keys, synths, and orchestral sounds that both models culled from the PC3 professional workstation. An onboard recorder can store up to nine distinct performances, and the streamlined interface means you’ll be spending more time playing than fi guring out how to access functions. In lieu of full auto-accompaniment, there are a variety of rhythm tracks with which to play along. It’s an excellent choice for music labs or as an acoustic piano alternative for small spaces.$2,295 list | $1,499 street | kurzweil.com

Roland BK-5Features: 5 6 7 9 10 12

Th e BK-5 adds a 61-key, velocity-sensitive keyboard to the previously released BK-7m Backing Module. Th e display can extract chord names from Standard MIDI Files as they play—a great way to learn chord changes for any of your favorite songs that are available in this format. An impressive array of accompaniment styles and the ability to record audio to an attached USB stick make the BK-5 an attractive choice for the intermediate student looking to polish their performance and improvisational chops.$1,199 list | $TBD street | rolandus.com

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62 Keyboard 03.2012

Roland F-120Features: 1 2 3 4 5 12

Piano students who want a serious instrument without spending all their funds should look into the new F-120. Th e mega-sampled “SuperNatural” piano sound we’ve praised in reviews of stage keyboards like the RD-700NX and Jupiter-80 comes standard. Th e “Ivory Feel” keyboard duplicates not just the weight and action of a real piano’s keys, but their tactile quality. Twin Piano splits the keyboard into mirrored ranges, and the built-in music library includes a number of classical études and better-known masterpieces. Th is makes the F-120 a natural choice for the classical student.$1,799 list | $TBD street | www.rolandus.com

Roland RP-301RFeatures: 1 2 3 5 6 12Many auto-accompaniment modes turn your left hand into the band director, leaving only your right hand for piano duties. Some arrangers, though, scan the entire keyboard and make intelligent decisions about your chord intentions. So does the RP-301R, even though it’s more digital piano than arranger. This lets you play more pianistically while still taking advantage of the RP’s expandable library of accompaniment styles. Th e progressive hammer action weighted keyboard is borrowed from Roland’s top-of-the-line digital pianos, as is the SuperNATURAL piano sound.$2,499 list | $TBD street | rolandus.com

Williams OvertureFeatures: 1 2 3 4 5 10 12Th e Guitar Center-owned Williams brand is underrated, off ering serious bang-for-buck in an acoustic piano alternative with full-console cabinetry. You can layer sounds or use duet mode, and 58 internal practice songs have facility for learning the left- and right-hand parts separately. It also does double duty as a sound module, because you can access 128 General MIDI sounds and eight drum kits over MIDI or USB from your computer. A two-track song recorder that retains data with the power off rounds out the package.$899.99 list | $599.99 street | williamspianos.com

Yamaha EZ-220 Features: 5 6 7 8 9 10 11Th e EZ-220—along with many Yamaha portable keyboards and digital pianos—fea-tures the Yamaha Education Suite (Y.E.S.), a collection of lessons that help you master basics like timing and sight reading. In conjunction with these, the EZ-220 displays chord names, a musical staff , and a fi ngering diagram. You even get a chord dictionary for looking up voicings and their fi ngerings. Various lesson modes help you keep track of your progress by grading your performance. Th e EZ-220 also features light-up keys. Between all this and the price, it’s a great choice for the absolute novice.$299 list | $160 street | yamaha.com

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64 Keyboard 03.2012

Yamaha DGX-640 Features: 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 12

Th e DGX-640 packs Y.E.S. features into an instrument that plays more like a real piano. Its 88 weighted keys are graded (again, the bass notes off er slightly more resistance than the treble) yet at 45 pounds, the keyboard is still portable enough to tote to lessons or around campus. Th ere’s also “Performance Assistant Technology,” which works a bit like auto-correct on your smartphone: Load a song fi le and mash near the right notes and the DGX-640 will play the correct note for you.$1,299 list | $799 street | yamaha.com

Yamaha Arius YDP-V240 Features: 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 12Th e Arius YDP-V240 is a premium hybrid of digital piano and arranger keyboard. Th e advanced sound engine, graded-action weighted keys, and appearance all get close to the experience of playing an acoustic upright, while still off ering digital advantages. You get the Y.E.S., an expandable database of musical styles, and a five-track MIDI recorder. At its approachable but non-impulse price, we’d recommend it to music educators, committed adult students, or intermediate-and-up musicians who play for enjoyment and entertain guests at home.$2,699 list | $1,899 street | yamaha.com

Our video of these keyboards from Winter NAMM 2012.


TempestBY FRANCIS PRÈVE

Sound EngineAt the core of Tempest is a shockingly power-ful four-oscillator synth engine that has Dave Smith’s fi ngerprints all over it. Th e two analog oscillators have the same vibe as the Prophet ’08, Mopho, and Tetra, with sawtooth, triangle, saw/triangle blend, and variable-width pulse options for each—not to mention sub-oscillators for bombastic bass. Th e two digital oscillators can be mixed with the analog ones, and are dedicated to playing drum samples—hundreds of options range from various types of noise, to sounds from the LinnDrum, to TR-808 and 909 type hits, and a lot of things in between, including the Prophet-VS. Th e two sample oscillators are the only digital elements in the signal path—unlike the Evolver, there’s no digital conversion going on for eff ects purposes. I’m a bit disappointed not to see user sampling as well, but you can do so much by simply blending and tuning these four oscillators that by the time you get to fi lter-ing and modulation, you likely won’t miss it.

REVIEW ROUNDUP » ANALOG » SOFT SYNTH » APP

IT’S EASY TO SEE WHY AN ENTIRE INDUSTRY HAS BEEN CHOMPING AT THE BITto get its hands on the Tempest. Combining Dave Smith’s legendary analog synthesis design with Roger Linn’s category-defi ning drum machine vision, calling it an analog beatbox is a severe understatement. Sure, you can use it as the ultimate drum machine, but its core design is that of an instrument. The grooves it generates are playable in truly musical ways, so that your beats are alive in a way that puts the Tempest in a cat-egory all its own.

Speaking of filters, the Tempest offers a fully resonant lowpass affair like Dave’s other synths. Two- and four-pole options are pres-ent, along with an audio mod knob for adding FM from oscillator 1. The lowpass filter is followed by a highpass filter, which is crucial for emulating the insectile percussion that dominated ’70s and ’80s era drum machines from Korg and Roland. At the end of the chain is a feedback knob that routes the VCA output back into the filters for analog nastiness that’s beyond simple distortion.

Modulation amenities include fi ve envelopes (pitch, fi lter, amp, and two aux envelopes that you can assign to almost any parameter) and two freely assignable LFOs. Naturally, these LFOs can sync to tempo, but even cooler, their range extends all the way up to C4, so ring mod and FM eff ects with oodles of sidebands are yours for the asking. Th ere’s also a slew of standard MIDI modulation sources like mod wheel, note num-ber, pedals, and so on. At the end of the signal

DAVE SMITH INSTRUMENTS/ROGER LINN DESIGN

66 Keyboard 03.2012

chain are level and pan controls for each drum, along with a MIDI-based delay eff ect that can be applied to each drum in a kit individually.

Th e Tempest shares six simultaneous voices across its 16 pads. You can have a diff erent sound on each pad, of course, but only six voices can “speak” at the same moment. With all these synthesis tools, though, you can make some truly astonishing sounds that are far more complex and evolving than any other groovebox, so whether this limitation is signifi cant depends on how you plan to use the Tempest. Case in point, many dance grooves are just kick, snare, and hat layered

PROS Fully analog signal path. Incredibly deep synthesis tools. Unprecedented realtime performance features. Great sounding distortion and com-pressor on master bus.

CONS Slight learning curve to user interface. Unit tested only does 4/4 time, though we’re told other time signa-tures will work by the time you read this.

Snap Judgment

The mother of all grooveboxes.

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Bottom Line

6703.2012 Keyboard

with minimal evolving percussion and synth riff s, so six voices is enough. Let’s also not forget that most drummers have only four limbs.

Making GroovesAfter fi ddling with the Tempest’s synth engine for an hour or so, it was time to start making my own beats. So I looked for the pattern select buttons . . . and looked and looked. After about 15 minutes of head-scratching, I cracked open the manual, then started watching the You-Tube quick-start guide. I soon realized that the Tempest is more than a drum machine—it’s a new kind of instrument that raises the whole concept of a groovebox by an order of magnitude. Roger and Dave have taken the essence of a drum machine and made almost every aspect playable. Since this approach is entirely new, with never-

before-seen parameters, it’s best to just describe what a Tempest session actually feels like.

Th e Tempest’s data structure is organized as follows: A “sound” is a single drum or synth patch, a “beat” is a pattern with up to 16 sounds arranged in a kit, including all automation and sound data. A “project” consists of 16 beats. In addition, you can load separate components from

each type of fi le. For example, if you want a kit, you can load sounds from a selected beat without loading the beat itself.

So, to start a Tempest groove from scratch, the fi rst thing you do is whip up a kit using the synthe-sis tools. If sound design isn’t your bag, import just the kit sounds from an existing beat—or use an initialized factory project as a starting point, which is how I got off the ground. Just load the project, initialize the pattern in its beats, and save (with a new name to be on the safe side).

From there, hit the 16 Beats pad function, hit the fi rst pad to select the fi rst pattern slot, select the 16 Sounds pad function to play that beat’s sounds from the pads, and start recording. If you’re coming from an MPC background, just start beat-ing on the pads and making a groove. If you’re a Roland-style producer, hit the 16 Sounds button,

68 Keyboard 03.2012

OS VERSION TESTED 1.1.

SYNTHESIS TYPES Analog and sample-playback.

OSCILLATORS 4 (2 analog and 2 digital).

FILTERS 2/4-pole switchable low-pass, 2-pole highpass.

POLYPHONY 6 simultaneous voices out of 16 dynamically assigned sounds.

Key Info

select a pad, then hit the 16 Steps function, and the pad lights chase through the steps like on a TR-808. Th e nearby Fixed Level button lets you toggle veloc-ity sensitivity on the fl y, so you can easily keep your kicks hard and your shakers lively.

Which brings us to a key point: One of the core aspects of Tempest’s playability is its heavy reliance on using the pads as a user interface tool, not just as drum triggers. To get into Tempest quickly, it pays to familiarize yourself with the

Pad Function area of the control panel. For ex-ample, the 16 Beats parameter (which I initially didn’t realize turned the pads into pattern selec-tors) becomes extremely elegant as you advance in experience, since it makes switching patterns a right-brain performance activity rather than a left-brain programming task.

Once you have your basic groove down on the fi rst pad/beat slot, hit Copy, then the fi rst pad, then hit the second pad. Boom—the pat-tern is copied to the next pad and you can add or subtract drum parts. Because the Tempest is really a wickedly powerful analog synth, pressing the Beats and Time Steps buttons together puts the Tempest into what’s called 16 Tunings mode. Now, each pad plays a diff erent note (using the sound from the most recently selected pad), so you can whip up melodies and bass lines. Cooler still, when you switch to this mode, the display and soft knobs now select diff erent keys and scales, so switching to, say, blues in E requires two just knob twists. Th e fi nal two pad modes include 16 Levels, which assigns a sound to all 16 pads in increasing volume, and 16 Mutes, which lets you toggle each drum on or off .

Once you have a bunch of pattern varia-tions assigned to diff erent pads, complete with

melodies and/or bass lines, the Tempest truly becomes the ultimate interactive groovebox.

Performance ControlFor fans of intricate edits and glitch, the Roll button can do much more than just snare fills. When 16 Beats is selected, pressing this but-ton makes the entire pattern stutter on the current sixteenth-note—or other value based on the Beat Quantize setting. Another button, Reverse, plays drum sounds backward, which is cooler still when you realize it’s inverting all of the drum envelopes as well! Like in Ableton Live, you can set the quantization for switch-ing between patterns, so when you hit a pad to play a different groove, the Tempest will wait until the next bar, the next sixteenth-note, or anything in between.

Taking it up another notch, a pair of ribbon controllers can be assigned to synth parameters both at the pad (sound) level and globally. At the sound level, the ribbons can control almost anysynth parameter—assignments are savable per sound. Epic. At the beat level, programmable for each pattern, the ribbons can control oscillator pitch, lowpass or highpass cutoff , all attacks, all decays, and a few other very useful assignments.

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Watch Roger’s video tutorial and hear the author’s original Tempest grooves.


Each ribbon can also aff ect an alternate destina-tion via the shift key. In 16 Sounds mode (in which each pad plays a diff erent one-shot sound), you can use them to record parameter moves into your grooves, which is great for electro and dubstep-style swoops and wobbles.

Rounding out the mix, there’s an analog distortion and compressor integrated into the master stereo outs. Rather than being slapped on as an afterthought, these are extremely well implemented, with pre-distortion highpass fi lters that reduce low-end mud, and post-distortion fi lters to simulate guitar amp speakers. Th e com-pressor sounds great as well.

Th e Dave Smith website lists features that are in the immediate update pipeline, like time signa-tures other than 4/4, MIDI over USB, playability as a polysynth via MIDI, and an increase to 32 sounds per kit. It’s only because of the fever pitch of demand that Dave and Roger took the Tempest to market before implementing all these, but all the same, I predict you’ll still be scratching the surface of what the Tempest already does when they arrive.

ConclusionsTh e Tempest is indeed the mother of all groove-boxes. Here’s an analogy: there are quite a few DAWs to choose from, but only Ableton Live lets

you seamlessly perform as well as arrange. Th at’s the concept here. Once you get the hang of per-forming your grooves, the results breathe in a way that just can’t be achieved with other products. Under the hood is something akin to a six-voice, 16-track Evolver, with one of the most advanced, truly musical performance sequencers as its heart. Plus, other than two of its four oscillators off ering sample-based sounds, it’s analog through and through. We’re blown away by the Tempest. Even at two grand, it’s going to change the way cutting-edge electronic artists, composers, and sound designers perform and compose grooves. How many new instruments can claim that?

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ChromaphoneBY JIM AIKIN

OverviewChromaphone is not an especially deep or com-plex instrument. It’s not packed with hidden op-tions: A glance at the front panel says it all. Th e synthesis engine is not your standard oscillator/fi lter layout, however. When you start designing your own sounds, you’ll fi nd that the controls interact with one another in unusual ways. Th ere’s more sonic power here than meets the eye, and a bit of trial and error may be needed to get the sound you’re searching for.

At the root of Chromaphone’s modeling are resonators (things that vibrate) and excit-ers (things that strike or pluck the things that vibrate). On the left side of the panel are two sources for excitation signals: a mallet and a


WANT GOOD VIBES? CHROMAPHONE HAS THEM—ALSO GOOD MARIMBAS,xylophones, bongo drums, chimes, gongs, plucked strings, and more. This plug-in synth uses physical modeling to produce a wide variety of struck and plucked instru-ment sounds. Some are amazingly realistic, others so exotic they could come from an-other planet. The tone is detailed and musical, but I wouldn’t call it fat. No samples are employed—all of the sounds are synthesized in real time. This adds expressive power, especially in the velocity response, but a fast computer is highly recommended.

noise generator. Th e signal from these is sent to a pair of resonators. Depending on what resona-tors are used and how they’re programmed, a simple excitation signal can produce a huge va-riety of tones. Eight diff erent resonator types—string, beam, marimba, membrane, plate, closed tube, open tube, and manual—are provided.

Rounding out the feature set are a vibrato LFO, a general-purpose LFO, and a pair of eff ects processors. Th e 20 eff ect types include all the things you’d expect, from chorus and reverb to tremolo, EQ, and overdrive.

Modulation depth is displayed in pale colored arcs around the knobs, and also numerically when the depth is being edited with the mouse. Th e pale arcs are a bit fi ddly and hard to see,

APPLIED ACOUSTICS SYSTEMS

76 Keyboard 03.2012

but overall the user interface is very sensibly designed: Inactive controls are grayed out, modu-lation depth can be zeroed by double-clicking, a preset browser is tucked away under the Manage button, and so on.

ExcitationTh e mallet source produces a brief impulse at the start of each note. It has four knobs: Volume, Stiff -ness, Noise amount, and noise Color. Th e fi rst three can be modulated by key number and/or velocity.

PROS Great for chimes, mal-lets, and pipes. Expressive velocity response. Detailed tone colors with unusual types of control.

CONS Doesn’t receive MIDI pitch-bend. No alternate tuning tables.

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When the stiff ness is low and the noise amount is high, a softly brushed attack is produced. When the stiff ness is high you get a snappy attack.

In addition to the noise in the mallet source, Chromaphone has a second, more fl exible noise source. Its main purpose is to give you an ongo-ing signal that can generate sustaining sounds. It has Volume, Frequency, Q (width), and Density knobs. Th e Frequency and Q knobs control a multimode fi lter that processes the noise signal, and this fi lter has its own fi ve-stage envelope, with a delay segment upstream of the expected attack, decay, sustain, and release.

A low setting for noise density can produce a pleasantly randomized repeating attack, remi-niscent of wind chimes. I spotted a minor bug in the version 1.00 release, however, that causes extremely low settings for this knob to shut off the output of the noise source. I’m told this bug is only in the Windows version. Th e volume, fi lter

frequency, and density of the noise can be modulated by key number, velocity, or the LFO, and both frequency and density can be modu-lated by the envelope.

Using the Direct slider, you can mix the sig-nal from the sources straight into the output, bypassing the resonators. Th is is useful for hard attack clicks, wind noise, and probably a few other things.

ResonatorsTh e resonators are the heart of Chromaphone. Th ey can operate in parallel, providing two in-dependent resonances from the same excitation signal, or they can be coupled. When they’re coupled, the output of resonator A feeds the input of resonator B, but there’s also a feedback loop, causing B to add energy back to A. Th is emulates the behavior of physical instruments. In an acoustic guitar, for instance, the energy of

the vibrating string fl ows into the soundboard, but the vibration of the soundboard also aff ects the vibration of the string.

Th e balance/coupling slider at the far right of the screen controls the volume balance between the two resonators when they’re not coupled, and their relative stiff ness when they are cou-pled. Th e position of this slider can be modulated positively or negatively by MIDI note number. It has a surprisingly large eff ect on the tone.

78 Keyboard 03.2012

SYNTHESIS TYPEPhysical modeling.

FORMATS VST or AU plug-in.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Mac:OS X 10.5 or later. PC: Windows XP SP2 32-bit or Windows Vista or 7 32- or 64-bit. Both: 512MB RAM, 70MB free hard drive space, 1024 x 768 display resolution.

Key Info

With a couple of exceptions, the resonators each have fi ve knobs: Decay, Release, Material, Tone, and Hit Point. Th ey also have inputs for LFO modulation and a built-in pitch envelope with amount, decay time, and velocity response sliders. Th e exceptions are the closed tube and open tube, which only have knobs for Decay, Release, and Radius (i.e., how big around the tube is) and don’t allow LFO or pitch envelope modulation.

Also omitted from the tube models is a four-position complexity switch. With this switch you can control the number of partials that will be generated by the resonator. More partials will give a more complex and realistic tone, but at the cost of some extra CPU usage.

Pitch modulation in Chromaphone can occa-sionally cause undesirable behavior. With either LFO modulation or a pitch envelope, a resonator can go into runaway digital overload, resulting in a really loud and nasty sound. Th is doesn’t hap-pen often, but it happened more than once while I was working on this review.

Th e Material knob models the diff erence between rigid and loose materials by adjusting the decay and release times of the higher partials in relation to the lower ones. When the material is stiff , the high overtones last longer; when it’s less stiff , the high overtones die out faster than the lower ones. Th e tone knob does something similar, balancing the ba-sic amplitudes of higher and lower overtones rather than off setting their decay times.

Th e Hit Point knob adjusts the physical location in the model at which the excitation signal interacts with it. With a string model, for instance, this knob gives a realistic impres-

sion that the string has been plucked nearer the bridge or nearer the middle. Th e tube models don’t have a hit point, because a signal can enter a tube only at its end—think of a fl ute or pipe organ. Decay time can be modulated by MIDI key number, and hit point by key number, velocity, or a random source.

Pitch ControlThe two resonators can be tuned independent-ly, and the pitch of each of them can track the keyboard fractionally. Some of the most inter-esting percussion sounds in Chromaphone are achieved by detuning and fractionally scaling one or both resonators. With the manual reso-nator, you have independent pitch control of four sine-wave partials—and they aren’t restricted to whole-number multiples of the fundamental pitch, so bell tones and other things with interesting harmonics are easy to program.

Th e tricky aspect of fractional keyboard pitch tracking is that when the resonators are coupled, they will be much more in tune with one another on some keys than on others. Th is can cause certain notes or keyboard zones to sound much louder and with more sustain than other notes or zones. Th is isn’t a defect; it’s the nature of physi-cal modeling.

Chromaphone can’t load alternate tuning tables. For an instrument that does a fi ne job with metallophone timbres such as you might hear in a gamelan, this is a signifi cant omission.

Incredible as it may seem, Chromaphone does not respond to MIDI pitch-bend. Given the possible instability of a physical model when the pitch is being modulated in real time, and given the fact that you can’t pitch-bend a marimba or a gong while it’s sounding, I’m almost (but not quite) willing to give Applied Acoustics a pass on the absence of pitch-bending. Th e pitches of the resonators can be automated in your host sequencer, so you can draw bends or “play” them in with a controller if you need to.

Factory SoundsMore than 300 presets are included with Chromaphone, in a dozen categories. Not surprisingly, they’re strongest in the mallets and chimes departments. One of the catego-

ries is called “Kits,” but this is something of a misnomer as Chromaphone lacks the mul-titimbral keyboard mapping that’s normally required for a drum kit. The Applied Acous-tics website says that Chromaphone comes with “ready-made creative kit patches where each note provides a new sound slightly dif-ferent from the previous one. Over the entire keyboard range the sound morphs from bass drum to snare to hi-hat.” The sound does in-deed morph—mainly due to keyboard scaling of the Pitch and Hit Point parameters. The end result, though, is glitchy sounds that, while they might play the roles of kick, snare, and hi-hat in a rhythm track, sound neither like real drums nor old drum machines. Listen to the “Chrompahone Kits” audio clip I posted online and judge for yourself.

Th e electric pianos don’t sparkle as much as I’d like, but the Clavinet has a nice bite. Th e bongos, clay drum, and high tabla are crisp and useful. Th e “Woody E. Bass” and “Velo-Slap Bass” are satisfyingly full-bodied, but I felt some of the other basses were trying a little too hard. Th e patches in the “Strings & Pads” category are breathy or raspy, because they use the noise source to create a sustaining tone.

In the “Plucked Strings” bank, “Electric Con-templation” has a rich hollow-body electric tone, “Soft Harp” does the job, and “Inverted Dulci-mer” has the kind of crazed edge you’d expect from a prepared piano. Chromaphone does a nice job with organ pipes, thanks to the tube resona-tors and the noise source.

ConclusionsChromaphone delivers a surprising variety of expressive sounds, and gives musicians some unusual and useful kinds of control. I’m not a big fan of velocity cross-switched multisamples (and Chromaphone doesn’t use them), so I’m especially pleased with how smoothly and naturally Chromaphone responds to velocity. Programming your own sounds in a physical modeling synth can be a bit intimidating at fi rst, but coming up with evocative new sounds turned out to be far easier than I expected. Chromaphone is a specialty item, not a do-everything work-horse synth, but it’s sure to find a home in many studios.

Factory and original audio examples, including how Chromaphone morphs sounds to create drum kits.


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Chromaphone – Creative Percussion SynthApplied Acoustics Systems

Available NowChromaphone combines acoustic resonators to cre-ate drums, percussion, mallet, string, and synth-like instruments. Drum skins, bars, marimbas, plates, strings, and tubes form pairs that get sparked into life by a configurable mallet and a flexible noise source.Chromaphone’s preset library includes a wide range of expressive and responsive instruments that span from warm and mellow pitched percussions for melo-dies to punchy one-shots and kits for rhythm tracks.

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Addictive SynthBY FRANCIS PRÈVE

What makes Addictive Synth so interesting to power programmers is its approach to sound design. Th e core engine is based on two additive oscillators that let you sculpt their harmonics by sweeping your fi nger across the iPad. If you have any experience with additive synthesis, perhaps by way of Ableton Operator or Camel Audio Alchemy, you’ll be at home here.

Each oscillator has its own fi lter, the curve of which can be drawn with your fi nger. You could draw simple lowpass or highpass curves, but things get more interesting when you draw


IN THE EARLY 2000s, VIRSYN DEVELOPED SOME OF THE COOLEST VST SYNTHSfor Steinberg. Even now, they’re among the companies leading the pack on the VST3 standard, so when they started making iPad apps, I was intrigued.

more peaks and valleys. In some ways this is like a complex EQ, but thanks to the cutoff knob, it still feels more like a synth.

Th e modulation options are extensive, with four LFOs, three envelopes, and tons of scaling options like X/Y tilt and touchpad control that’s like a cross between a Korg Kaoss and a joystick. You can apply these to cutoff , oscillator morph, pitch, and volume. More destinations would be nice, but those four are more than adequate for serious sound design.

Finally, an “arpeggiator” is really more of a programmable step sequencer that interacts with the notes you’re playing. It includes controls for octave, ties, accents, key, and notes, making it more powerful than the usual up-down fare.

The app works beautifully with available

PROS Each oscillator has its own harmonic spectrum. Touch-designable fi lter curves. Extensive modu-lation control. CoreMIDI capable. Can capture your performances as audio fi les.

CONS More modulation des-tinations would be cool.

Snap Judgment

Deep additive synthesis tools with an easy-to-understand interface.

$9.99 at Apple App Store

virsyn.net

Bottom Line

VIRSYN

80 Keyboard 03.2012

iOS MIDI interfaces. I tried it with both IK iRig MIDI and the Line 6 MIDI Mobilizer without a hitch. Addictive Synth can also record audio of your performances for a configurable number of bars and import the results into your computer when you sync your iPad. From there it’s easy to get it into your DAW.

With these kinds of features for ten bucks, Addictive Synth is a no-brainer addition to any iPad-equipped studio or gig rig. Two thumbs way up.

Audio examples.


Classifi eds

81 03.2012 Keyboard

Talent and Employment

Sounds, Sequences, & Software

Education & Tutorial

Acoustic Products and Services

For Sale

Mixing and Mastering

Categories Education & Tutorial

Learn jazz piano on the internet at

www.JazzPianoOnline.com

Keyboard software: animated keys, show

fingering, find names, notation, progressions,

assist learning. For more information visit:

http://albertsoft.com/chords.html

Sounds, Sequences & Software

www.VintageKeyboardSounds.com Authentic

MELLOTRON, B3, and COMBO ORGAN

SAMPLES. All Formats Supported. 562-856-9333

Mixing and Mastering Buying or selling instruments through our Classified Ads offers you convenience, a big marketplace, and a wide range of instruments and prices. However, buying mail-order does have its drawbacks, too. Keyboard Magazine suggests the following guidelines to help the buyer and the seller in these transactions: 1) Get a written description of the instrument, which should include the serial number. 2) Get front and back photos of the instrument. 3) Get a written purchase agreement, with a 24-hour approval clause allowing the buyer to return the instrument for a full refund if it does not meet his/her reasonable expectations.

www.B3GUYS.comHammond Organs & Leslie Speakers

KeyB Organ - Trek II ProductsSales – Service – Parts – Rentals

[email protected] or 615-438-8997

www.b3hammond.com. Buy/Sell MINT Hammonds, Leslies. Wordwide sales.

(701) 400-2933, [email protected]

For Sale

Learn Piano Tuning, Repairing, And Regu-lating, taught by Craftsman technicians. Complete correspondence course includes written and video tape training material, Apprentice Training Manual, much more. Licensed by Departmentof Education. www.pianotuning.com. Randy Potter School of Piano Tech nology, 61592 Orion Dr., Bend, OR 97702. (541) 382-5411.

An ad in Keyboard ’s Classifieds reaches more than 16,900* serious musicians for only $2.40 per word plus $7.00 for an address. Minimum charge: $25.00. Please underline words to appear in bold type and add $0.50 per every bold word. Please indicate clearly any words to appear in all caps and add $0.25 per every cap word. Each phone number, e-mail address, or website address counts as one word. Call for display rates. 3 months minimum schedule required. Deadlines are the 8th of the month, 2 months prior to cover date. Businesses must list business name in ad. All ads must be received in writing, paid in full in advance. All ads must be music-related.

Retail advertisers may not list discounted prices or percentages on specific models, unless items are used or discontinued. Advertisers must provide us with complete name, street address, and phone number, whether or not included in the ad copy (you may list a PO Box address in your ad, however). Mail ads to: Keyboard Classifieds, Attn: Contessa Abono, 1111 Bayhill Dr., Suite 125, San Bruno, CA 94066. FAX (if paying by MasterCard, or Visa): (650) 238-0263. For more information, call Contessa Abono at (650) 238-0296; E-mail: [email protected]. (*Audited circulation; does not include pass-along rate.)

Category: ❒ Marketplace ❒ Duplication ❒ Talent and Employment ❒ Sounds/Sequences/Software ❒ Mixing/Mastering ❒ Instruments ❒ Accessories ❒ Gear for Sale ❒ Acoustic Products & Svc’s ❒ Studio Furnishings ❒ Other

AD ORDER FORM

Acoustic Products & Services

Acoustics First®

SOUND AND NOISE CONTROL MATERIALS

Toll-FreeNumber: 888-765-2900

Web Site www.acousticsfirst.com

Company Name _________________________________ Contact Name__________________________________________________

Address __________________________________________________ City________________________ State ______ Zip __________

_____________________________________________________________

Telephone ___________________________________________ E-mail__________________________________________________

Please print your ad clearly. Use a separate sheet of paper if you need more room.

TO COMPUTE COST OF AD#______words x $2.40 = _______

#______bold words x $ .50 = _______#______ ALL CAPS wds x $ .25 = _______

Address $7.00 = _______Total cost per issue = _______

(minimum $25.00)

x number of issues to run x _______

Total payment = _______❒ Payment enclosed, or Charge my

❒ Visa ❒ MasterCard

Card #

Expiration date:

Signed:

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

(do not include address when counting words)

small ads work too

Faces TimeBY PATRICK WONG

82 Keyboard 03.2012

CODA

A YEAR OR SO BACK I PLAYED A GIG WITH MY BAND, OL’ CHEEKY BASTARDS, opening for Ian McLagan at the Red Devil Lounge in San Francisco, CA. We talked about everything from him playing with Chuck Berry to where to a get a good taco. I remember taking pictures of his famed Hammond B-3, and he told me, “I have painted it over so many times [laughing], it even matched my kitchen once!.” I thought I lost the images, so it was fi tting to come across them the same time the Small Faces were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Outside of a great gig, the one thing I will always remember is helping move that rig onto the stage. . . . What a beast! But how many people can say they touched that B-3?

Ian McLagan (left) with Keyboard art director Patrick Wong

POWER TO THE PEOPLEYamaha’s new DXR/DXS Series active loudspeakers offer superb high-definition sound and class-leading sound pressure levels—in compact designs that provide a level of versatility and value unmatched by any speakers in their class today. With the perfectbalance of raw power and innovative speaker technologies, you can depend on DXR/DXS Series speakers to deliver the full powerof your performance at prices that everyone can afford.

Sound interesting? Download the PDF brochure at

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amplification, rigged applications and more

High-Power Subwoofers with Built-In DSP: DXS12 and DXS15

• Output Levels up to 132 dB with 950W of power• Powerful D-XSUB DSP processing with NORMAL, BOOST or XTENDED LF settings• Compact, efficient and acoustically optimized band-pass type enclosures

DXR8 DXR10 DXR12DXR15

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keyboard magazine 3 2012

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