Soundcloud Share Thread

[AdventAlan]

In spite of the age and what you refer to as a demo, I find it quite lovely and enjoyed it very much.
The intro keyboard part sounds very M1 ish, what did you use?
Thanks for sharing, it's amazing what we did with the technology of the time, and where we are now. Like the early samplers when 128kb of memory(Ensoniq and Emu) was a lot, and how you had to get very creative when sampling. lol

Thanks very much for your kind words, Richard! The only synths I owned at the time were a Roland D-50, a Roland Juno-106, and a Moog "The Source"--and, if memory serves, I used the D-50 for the opening chords (and also for the string/bell pad before the drums come in and the chords in the final section as well) and the Juno-106 for the swirling step-sequenced line in the intro. Based on the limitations I had at the time, I ended up having to dead-stop the final chords of the intro by having my sequencer (probably Dr. T's KCS on an Amiga 1000 at this time) send an abrupt MIDI volume change to 0. The Source makes a brief entrance in the transition into the final section as well.

When I first formed Advent, it was very cool to have several new synths in our collective arsenal, including a Emulator II+, Yamaha DX5, Korg M1, and Korg DW-8000. We got a lot of use out of all of them back in the day.

By the way, I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to hear your music and plan on remedying this shortly.

Best wishes and thanks again,


Alan

[Rarebird]

Very cool to hear, Renate. I look forward to checking out both of the tracks you posted very soon. It's interesting to hear that you were also another Amiga user too.

Cheers,


Alan

The Amiga was my first real computer (well the first computer I really used). Before that I only had a ZX Spectrum, for a Basic programming course.
I still remember when I recorded some stuff I wrote with a program named DMCS in the demo-studio of a more or less well-known Dutch musician and I had to take my computer with me on the train. I didn't take the monitor with me and we had to move the television from the house to the studio, because the computer could only be connected with a scart cable.

[BobM]

Ahh, I said Alesis VST's - I meant Arturia. Big mistake there. I had Alesis on the brain. The Arturia stuff I'm sure you know. It's very good.

[AdventAlan]

Ahh, I said Alesis VST's - I meant Arturia. Big mistake there. I had Alesis on the brain. The Arturia stuff I'm sure you know. It's very good.

Thanks for the clarification. (I'm familiar with Arturia synth plugins and like what I know.) Cheers!

[Rarebird]

Thanks for the clarification. (I'm familiar with Arturia synth plugins and like what I know.) Cheers!

I like those Arturia synths as well. I still have some instruments on my wishlist for Arturia, before I want to buy a new version. The current version already has some istruments I don't have, but I would love to add some organs: pipe organ, Eminent and Lowrey, a Roland SH5 synthesizer. Roland RS202, pianet, ARP Odyssey, ARP Prosoloist.

[clivey]

RE AMIGA



Me too.Another huge fan of the Amiga Demo scene and Mod scene. Aminet still has all that stuff. We used a a1200 and a600 midi linked together SMPTE`d to a tascam 4 track to write and record this album. Octamed and Musicx software, audio engineer 8 bit sampler.

not too proud of it but it was 92

[Top Cat]

Thanks very much for your kind words, Richard! The only synths I owned at the time were a Roland D-50, a Roland Juno-106, and a Moog "The Source"--and, if memory serves, I used the D-50 for the opening chords (and also for the string/bell pad before the drums come in and the chords in the final section as well) and the Juno-106 for the swirling step-sequenced line in the intro. Based on the limitations I had at the time, I ended up having to dead-stop the final chords of the intro by having my sequencer (probably Dr. T's KCS on an Amiga 1000 at this time) send an abrupt MIDI volume change to 0. The Source makes a brief entrance in the transition into the final section as well.

When I first formed Advent, it was very cool to have several new synths in our collective arsenal, including a Emulator II+, Yamaha DX5, Korg M1, and Korg DW-8000. We got a lot of use out of all of them back in the day.

By the way, I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to hear your music and plan on remedying this shortly.

Best wishes and thanks again,


Alan

I've got a D50(bought new when it was released) and I didn't recognize the sound, very cool.
Had a Emulator II+HD for about 5 years that I picked up online from Noisebug in CA. Worked great and had a Macbook with Sound Designer software. I loved the sound so much, I spent all my time making samples and it distracted me from actually making music. Sold it to a friend in GA a couple of years ago.

It's great you rescued the song from a cassette. Even if it's not given a proper release, I think it's important to keep a proper archive of our musical journey.

In reference to Arturia, I have their Prophet 5V but don't find myself using it much. I also have their compressor bundle and love them. I've got my eye on the SQ80V, it looks and sounds like a winner, and is a perfect companion to my VFX-SD. But the price is a bit too high, so I keep waiting for a special sale.

[AdventAlan]

RE AMIGA



Me too.Another huge fan of the Amiga Demo scene and Mod scene. Aminet still has all that stuff. We used a a1200 and a600 midi linked together SMPTE`d to a tascam 4 track to write and record this album. Octamed and Musicx software, audio engineer 8 bit sampler.

not too proud of it but it was 92

Very cool to hear that you were another Amiga music user. Coincidentally, I'd also used Music-X on my Amiga 1000 and, in fact, that may actually be the sequencer used in the demo I posted. (I have a hard time remembering the chronology and cutover timing between Dr. T's KCS and Music-X, though I'm sure I used both.) Using SMPTE with a TASCAM four-track is cool too, though that's one time-sync option I never used. The track you shared came out very nicely, by the way.

I still have the old Amiga 1000, but am not sure I still have all the floppies (both for booting the OS and the project files). Haven't powered it up in probably 30 years or more.

All the best,


Alan

[AdventAlan]

I've got a D50(bought new when it was released) and I didn't recognize the sound, very cool.
Had a Emulator II+HD for about 5 years that I picked up online from Noisebug in CA. Worked great and had a Macbook with Sound Designer software. I loved the sound so much, I spent all my time making samples and it distracted me from actually making music. Sold it to a friend in GA a couple of years ago.

It's great you rescued the song from a cassette. Even if it's not given a proper release, I think it's important to keep a proper archive of our musical journey.

In reference to Arturia, I have their Prophet 5V but don't find myself using it much. I also have their compressor bundle and love them. I've got my eye on the SQ80V, it looks and sounds like a winner, and is a perfect companion to my VFX-SD. But the price is a bit too high, so I keep waiting for a special sale.

Hi again, Richard. Very cool to hear that you were another early Roland D-50 user as well. I used to do a lot of my own synth programming and may have created the patch for the opening chord sequence. If memory serves, I may have also created the string pad with bell attack transition patch too, but the final section of that demo actually used the "Breathy Chiffer" factory preset (#31) as documented here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM6c_jxVVlM&t=1608s

While you've got me thinking about the D-50, I actually had intermittent problems with the display going blank after a little while. It didn't happen all that often, so I lived with it for quite a while until I'd volunteered to lend my D-50 to Seppo Kantonen for the Pekka Pohjola Group shows that took place in NYC back in March of 1993. Not wanting to risk the display dying on Seppo, I opened up the unit and was able to fix the problem, rather simply, by reseating its ribbon-cable connection. (It's never failed since and I still use the synth every so often.) Also, as a kind gesture of appreciation, Seppo let me keep all his custom patches that he'd loaded in across the internal memory bank. (There were some very nice sounds, though I've never actually used them in any recording or performance.)

Quite a coincidence that you had an Emulator II+HD as well. Henry Ptak (my Advent co-founder) was the one who had the E-II+ and he definitely leveraged its capabilities quite effectively. In addition to all the great sounds, I seem to recall us recording backing vocals for one chorus of the opening track on our self-titled debut album, "Maginot Line," and then using the Emulator to sample the results and play them in later in the track. (The limitation of recording on a TASCAM Porta One four-track cassette was the motivation, by the way, as we didn't have enough tracks to add multitrack vocals throughout.)

I think I may have mentioned this before, but I've recently postponed purchasing any new synth plugins in favor of digging in to programming two powerful free soft synths:

https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/
https://vital.audio/

Both are quite powerful and offer various sets of filter emulations (Surge XT offering the most).

Cheers,


Alan

[Top Cat]

Hi again, Richard. Very cool to hear that you were another early Roland D-50 user as well. I used to do a lot of my own synth programming and may have created the patch for the opening chord sequence. If memory serves, I may have also created the string pad with bell attack transition patch too, but the final section of that demo actually used the "Breathy Chiffer" factory preset (#31) as documented here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM6c_jxVVlM&t=1608s

While you've got me thinking about the D-50, I actually had intermittent problems with the display going blank after a little while. It didn't happen all that often, so I lived with it for quite a while until I'd volunteered to lend my D-50 to Seppo Kantonen for the Pekka Pohjola Group shows that took place in NYC back in March of 1993. Not wanting to risk the display dying on Seppo, I opened up the unit and was able to fix the problem, rather simply, by reseating its ribbon-cable connection. (It's never failed since and I still use the synth every so often.) Also, as a kind gesture of appreciation, Seppo let me keep all his custom patches that he'd loaded in across the internal memory bank. (There were some very nice sounds, though I've never actually used them in any recording or performance.)

Quite a coincidence that you had an Emulator II+HD as well. Henry Ptak (my Advent co-founder) was the one who had the E-II+ and he definitely leveraged its capabilities quite effectively. In addition to all the great sounds, I seem to recall us recording backing vocals for one chorus of the opening track on our self-titled debut album, "Maginot Line," and then using the Emulator to sample the results and play them in later in the track. (The limitation of recording on a TASCAM Porta One four-track cassette was the motivation, by the way, as we didn't have enough tracks to add multitrack vocals throughout.)

I think I may have mentioned this before, but I've recently postponed purchasing any new synth plugins in favor of digging in to programming two powerful free soft synths:

https://surge-synthesizer.github.io/
https://vital.audio/

Both are quite powerful and offer various sets of filter emulations (Surge XT offering the most).

Cheers,


Alan

Love reading the background stories about some of your equipment and songs.
The YT video you referenced, Dr Mix, love that guy, his enthusiasm is off the charts, and I've still got Breathy Chiffer in the D50 and have at least 8 Rom cards I bought at the time, plus the Sysex stuff from the internet, and a working RAM card.
I can't remember if I replaced the battery or not, but all is good and she looks brand new cosmetically.

The last soft synth I bought is a modular from Cherry Audio, and love it. Heard a lot of good things about Surge, but I find I still use my hardware most of the time anyway, except for M Tron Pro.

If you do get time to check out my music, Souncloud and YouTube(my video versions) are the most recent, while Bandcamp is mostly older stuff from a couple of years ago.
I think my favorite new one is We All Will Be.

[AdventAlan]

Love reading the background stories about some of your equipment and songs.
The YT video you referenced, Dr Mix, love that guy, his enthusiasm is off the charts, and I've still got Breathy Chiffer in the D50 and have at least 8 Rom cards I bought at the time, plus the Sysex stuff from the internet, and a working RAM card.
I can't remember if I replaced the battery or not, but all is good and she looks brand new cosmetically.

The last soft synth I bought is a modular from Cherry Audio, and love it. Heard a lot of good things about Surge, but I find I still use my hardware most of the time anyway, except for M Tron Pro.

If you do get time to check out my music, Souncloud and YouTube(my video versions) are the most recent, while Bandcamp is mostly older stuff from a couple of years ago.
I think my favorite new one is We All Will Be.

Hi again Richard,

Apologies for the delayed response. (We just got back from a short vacation in St. Croix and I didn't bring a computer along.)

Thanks very much for your kind words about the stories. Things were pretty crazy prior to our trip, but I very much look forward to checking out your music soon (and will start with SoundCloud and YouTube as you suggested.)

All the best,


Alan

[Top Cat]

Hi again Richard,

Apologies for the delayed response. (We just got back from a short vacation in St. Croix and I didn't bring a computer along.)

Thanks very much for your kind words about the stories. Things were pretty crazy prior to our trip, but I very much look forward to checking out your music soon (and will start with SoundCloud and YouTube as you suggested.)

All the best,


Alan

No worries Alan.. it's just a hobby for me(50 years), and it's just something I HAVE to do, plus it keeps the nutty outside world in perspective, and is a great release.

Glad you were able to spend some vacation time and not having a laptop is a wonderful idea to unplug.
We live in Florida since we retired and came down here to take care of my mom(who was able to stay with us until the end).
WE have the Gulf 10 minutes away, a lake less than 5 minutes and a river that opens to the Gulf about 10 minutes away. So we consider every day a vacation day. lol

I'll check out some more of your stuff as well, I've been holed up in my spare room writing a new song..so the internet is last on my list of things to do when I'm having fun in the studio.

[Guitarplyrjvb]

Sorry, it's been a while since I visited this thread.

Bob: I love the sounds you get with the cover of Starless. You nailed it! I think it's amazing that you found musicians that wanted to cover that one!
Clivey: You've got some great atmospherics going on your stuff. It's great for headphones listening with the lights off!
Renate: Your compositions are very impressive and amazing considering that you do most of it from your computer.
Alan: Your musicianship is off the charts! Love both of the tracks you posted. Your keyboard chops are pretty impressive, too; I had thought you were mainly a guitarist with your Advent stuff but those quick keyboard arpeggios under the string washes were sweet!
Richard: Look forward to hearing more of your music when you get your new one wrapped up.

All the best!

Joe

[Rarebird]

Sorry, it's been a while since I visited this thread.

Renate: Your compositions are very impressive and amazing considering that you do most of it from your computer.

All the best!

Joe

Thanks!
I started composing by writing notes on paper at school during Dutch classes, so in a way I'm used to create something in my head.

For more than a year I've been working on a new composition 'Annus horribilis'. The composing is already done, but I'm still working on the recording, changing volumes, velocities and adding controllerinformation, so I can record it sounding less mechanic.

[hippypants]

Enjoying many of these songs. It's fun to hear what all the members on PE are doing. Truly inspiring.

[BobM]

Thanks Joe. Starless was a 12 minute monster. We tried doing the long one-note guitar solo and got bored, so we went and did our own thing, even quoting another old Crimson song in that section. Do you recognize it?

Here's another proggy one I just completed with one of my guitar friends. Enjoy.

https://www.bandlab.com/ptmconsultin...e-0050f280f352

[Top Cat]

Sorry, it's been a while since I visited this thread.

Bob: I love the sounds you get with the cover of Starless. You nailed it! I think it's amazing that you found musicians that wanted to cover that one!
Clivey: You've got some great atmospherics going on your stuff. It's great for headphones listening with the lights off!
Renate: Your compositions are very impressive and amazing considering that you do most of it from your computer.
Alan: Your musicianship is off the charts! Love both of the tracks you posted. Your keyboard chops are pretty impressive, too; I had thought you were mainly a guitarist with your Advent stuff but those quick keyboard arpeggios under the string washes were sweet!
Richard: Look forward to hearing more of your music when you get your new one wrapped up.

All the best!

Joe

Welcome back Joe, you've been missed. Hope all is going well for you, but if you're absence was self imposed, I understand, it's good to step back now and then(I'm not a big Facebook user, but I find I need to take regular time away from there as well).
Hope you're working on some new music, and the new one is coming along fine, and the good news is, it's a short one! lol

Thanks!
I started composing by writing notes on paper at school during Dutch classes, so in a way I'm used to create something in my head.

For more than a year I've been working on a new composition 'Annus horribilis'. The composing is already done, but I'm still working on the recording, changing volumes, velocities and adding controllerinformation, so I can record it sounding less mechanic.

Annus Horribilis, I love it already...looking forward to hearing it when it's finished.

Enjoying many of these songs. It's fun to hear what all the members on PE are doing. Truly inspiring.

Yes, I think a lot of other members miss out on hearing how good some of the music here is, I think the word Soundcloud scares them off because they think they're demos, or just old farts messing around with a synthesizer or guitar...far from the truth.

Thanks Joe. Starless was a 12 minute monster. We tried doing the long one-note guitar solo and got bored, so we went and did our own thing, even quoting another old Crimson song in that section. Do you recognize it?

Here's another proggy one I just completed with one of my guitar friends. Enjoy.

https://www.bandlab.com/ptmconsultin...e-0050f280f352

WOW!! this is really good, great keys and guitar playing and love your synth solo in the middle.
I was beginning to think you had taken off with the Masters Tour as a roadie or something, good to see you are still here. lol

[Rarebird]

Annus Horribilis, I love it already...looking forward to hearing it when it's finished.



Yes, I think a lot of other members miss out on hearing how good some of the music here is, I think the word Soundcloud scares them off because they think they're demos, or just old farts messing around with a synthesizer or guitar...far from the truth.

Well I could consider myself an old fart, or at least the female version (I don't feel old though) and I mess around with synthesizers or something, or rather with a computer. And in a way they are demos.

Annus horribilis is written for violin, tenor sax, Fender Rhodes piano and bass, all from sampler, second Fender Rhodes piano (Nord Electro), Nord G2 Engine, Arturia virtual MiniMoog, virtual Moog modular, virtual Solina stringensemble and another virtual MiniMoog as bass-synthesizer. I suppose it is more rock-like.

[BobM]

I was asked to play strings and orchestrate this beautiful song by Queen. Our singer is just incredible, but he had a different style in mind. This is the original track that we did and he wanted to discard it for a more acoustic version. I grabbed the stems before he could throw them away and mixed and mastered this version for myself, because I think it is just wonderful. (IMO the acoustic version he is making just sucks compared to this.) Check it out.

[Top Cat]

I was asked to play strings and orchestrate this beautiful song by Queen. Our singer is just incredible, but he had a different style in mind. This is the original track that we did and he wanted to discard it for a more acoustic version. I grabbed the stems before he could throw them away and mixed and mastered this version for myself, because I think it is just wonderful. (IMO the acoustic version he is making just sucks compared to this.) Check it out.

I'm not a big fan of throaty vocals(just my personal preference), but he is very good at that style.
I think the instrumental parts of the song including your string parts Bob, are excellent.

Well I could consider myself an old fart, or at least the female version (I don't feel old though) and I mess around with synthesizers or something, or rather with a computer. And in a way they are demos.

Annus horribilis is written for violin, tenor sax, Fender Rhodes piano and bass, all from sampler, second Fender Rhodes piano (Nord Electro), Nord G2 Engine, Arturia virtual MiniMoog, virtual Moog modular, virtual Solina stringensemble and another virtual MiniMoog as bass-synthesizer. I suppose it is more rock-like.

lol, well I'm definitely an old fart as well.
Wow, what a great combination on instruments..looking forward to hearing it when completed. Please don't take another year. lol

[Rarebird]

lol, well I'm definitely an old fart as well.
Wow, what a great combination on instruments..looking forward to hearing it when completed. Please don't take another year. lol

I think I'm able to record it before the end of this month. Thought of using 2 Fender Rhodes pianos inspired by te Magma line-up. Also picked some idea from a book about Supersister.

[Rarebird]

I was asked to play strings and orchestrate this beautiful song by Queen. Our singer is just incredible, but he had a different style in mind. This is the original track that we did and he wanted to discard it for a more acoustic version. I grabbed the stems before he could throw them away and mixed and mastered this version for myself, because I think it is just wonderful. (IMO the acoustic version he is making just sucks compared to this.) Check it out.

Really love this. Don't know the original, but I like this very much.

[Rarebird]

Thanks Joe. Starless was a 12 minute monster. We tried doing the long one-note guitar solo and got bored, so we went and did our own thing, even quoting another old Crimson song in that section. Do you recognize it?

Here's another proggy one I just completed with one of my guitar friends. Enjoy.

https://www.bandlab.com/ptmconsultin...e-0050f280f352

Love the synthesizer-sound in the solo. I think something with a square wave. What did you use for it?

[BobM]

That was a Jupiter 8 from Arturia. They are having a big sale on the V series of synths, like 75% off the regular price, so I finally picked up the whole set and used that one for the strings and solo.

[Rarebird]

That was a Jupiter 8 from Arturia. They are having a big sale on the V series of synths, like 75% off the regular price, so I finally picked up the whole set and used that one for the strings and solo.

Interesting. I have the Arturia Jupiter 8 as well. An older version of the suite, but more than enough instruments.