For the keyboardist!

[svguerin3]

Hello, I'm a keyboardist myself, and I was listening to some of the sounds you create for solo's, etc, and a lot of them are incredibly accurate to the actual sounds from the albums. I myself have been able to replicate most of the sounds needed for PF songs (I get most of them either out of my kurzweil MicroEnsemble module or my Roland JP-8000 synth). However, I absolutely do not have certain sounds that are as accurate as yours. Some examples of the sounds I am lacking are the solo synths on Welcome to Machine and Have a Cigar, the middle-part of Sheep "moans" that go from C to A while other sfx are going on, the Dogs synth solo section, and the buzzing "drone" at the end of Hey You (right before the high last verse begins).

Do you have any suggestions on the route I should take to get these sounds? I'm looking to buy one more keyboard, but the Korg Triton Studio 76's are discontinued and expensive. How are the TR series? Do you think the sounds could be milked out of those?

Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated! Thanks and continue to keep up the great work.

-Vince

[Golem]

Thanks for the compliments! Great to hear from a fellow keyboardist out there taking on the "Wright" challenge of sound sculpting. I've always loved the sounds Richard Wright gets, and Jon Carin floors me with his stuff too.

I feel my sounds have come a long way, and need to go a LOT farther too. About 6 years ago, I decided to sell all my rack gear and Midi mapper in favor of an "all-in-one" workstation, to simplify my rig setup and incorporate samples. So, I bought a Yamaha S80 and a Korg triton Classic 61. The Korg provided 64 megs of sampling, and it has proven to be invaluable in emulating sounds and effects for the Floyd stuff. The Yamaha did a great job with Acoustic/Electric Pianos and strings. Lots of hours spent playing snippets of Floyd tunes through headphones and programming!

The Triton Studio is what I replaced the "Classic" with, and it's a great board. It does 96 megs of samples, reads/burns CD's, resampling, Streams audio, HD recording, etc. I also added a Triton Extreme to the rig not too long ago, simply to add functionality and to have a spare board in case one goes down.

The Sheep "Moan" sound I created is by layering three different on-board patches in octaves. The Tritons also provide great effects, and they can run up to 10 at a time! That proved very useful on this patch and the "Machine" lead, which is 3 oscillators in octaves too. These sounds are made using stock ROM samples onboard with lots of Compression and EQ tweaks.

The "Hey you" effect is simply a Korg ROM sample of a choir (with LFO pitch modulation) blended with samples of bumblebees I found on the web. I like it ok now, but I'm planning on working that one further.

The "Dogs" lead is an 8-layer blend of patches that I just put together through experimentation and lots of tweaking. The key to that patch is the legato Portamento and the LFO modulation. That one took a long time, and gave me many headaches!

The Korg TR series is very cool, but my only concerns are the limited effects section and the keyboard action. I end up using more effects than it provides on all my patches. If I were you, I'd try to find a used Triton Extreme. They hold up pretty well, have almost all the benefits of the Studio series, and they have a great keyboard action (Yamaha) as well. Used you can find them for about the same price as a new TR. The other benefit is that the Extreme comes stock with almost all the EXB expansion cards built-in, including the Orchestral set!

Again, thanks for the compliments. This "Floyd" gig is a humblin' sport, like golf! Every audience member knows what to expect, and when I miss something, I'll hear an "OHHH" in the audience like I just missed a 10' birdie!

Bob.

[svguerin3]

Thanks for the fast reply and informative email! This is EXACTLY the kind of info I have been needing to hear, and it sounds like I have some work ahead of me! I've already started hunting around, and I've found a couple of fairly inexpensive Triton Extremes (61-key) out there for sale. I think I'm going to immediately invest in one, so I'll let you know if I have further inquiries - which I probably will! I'll try not to bother you unless absolutely necessary though.

On a different note, I know what you mean about "missing the 10' birdie"! My favorite was one time when I was key-transposed on my main board (yes, I was cheating on echoes, lol), and we began to play Sheep. I forgot to transpose back to +0, and began playing about 10-15 seconds of the EP intro in the WRONG KEY (Db instead of D, I think). There was just no getting out of that one smoothly, heh

[Eroc]

Hey Svguerin -
Are you in one of our 'brother tribute bands'? You obviously are a bit involved with the Floyd keys, like our man Bob is... who, I must say, constantly amazes me and the rest of the band with his accurate sounds and playing!
Eroc

(and btw, while the rest of the band now plays Echoes in Db - we used to do it in D during our early days I hate to admit - I still 'cheat' and use a tuned-down bass... but I've got a good excuse, I have so many other things to think about with this band, lol....)

[PLPFJunior]

Tuning down to D is quite all right bc u drop D.....which I love.....da da DAAAAA......da da da da da (da da da da da da da daaaaa.....) lol. Or Db.....whatever lol. Just use the excuse that a low Db is too floppy lol.

Great keyboard convo tho.....if Joe checks it out, he'll enjoy. Joe 'cheats' his board down too for Echoes.....only he does it to Bm (cuz that is where he learned it)....or at least this is what I think he does. It's been a while.....he might actually do it in C#m now--where the rest of us 'claim' to be...thats that same as Dbm, right lol........

Im done impeding on this convo........peace!

[svguerin3]

haha, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who uses the magic of transposing and tuning. I agree that we have enough to deal with, keeping up with the sounds, songs, and lyrics, to deal with simple things like that which can be fixed easily

To answer your question, I am located in Dallas, TX, and I'm part of "Bricks in the Wall", a tribute band in the area. We are actually scheduled to play House of Blues mid-October (the one in Dallas, of course). We've been using you guys' DVDs as inspiration, and we're looking forward to playing there. Any advice for newbies playing HOB would be welcomed! ;D

[Golem]

Ahh...a full-blown tribute guy! My advice for the HOB: Have fun!

I navigated to your site, and it looks like your sitting on your amp! Trying to make out your boards...hmmm.

As for the Korg Triton series, there are benefits and drawbacks. When it comes to bells and whistles, they reign tops in my book for the buck. As for sounds, they tend to be thin and squeaky-clean. You have to really tweak the parameters to get them sounding fat and "vintage". They're pretty easy to program (MUCH unlike the Yamaha stuff!), but I've been speaking "Korginese" since the M1 days, so it does take some ramping up. If you understand Windows/DOS, it's much easier to navigate/utilize files and sounds, especially since KORG decided not to write any applications for the PC or MAC! On the other hand, you can program everything right on the board, and the touchscreen is pretty sweet for that, even if it is hard to read in sunlite situations.

Enjoy your gig!

Bob.

[svguerin3]

Yep I've been sitting on my amp due to my laziness for buying a new seat, which broke about 10 gigs ago.

As for my boards, I have a Roland JP-8000 synth (the one on the left), and a Kurzweil MicroEnsemble module midi-hooked into an 88-key controller for piano, strings, EP, etc. As for the top keyboard, I use a Roland VK7 organ (soon to hopefully upgrade to the vk8 or hammond xk3).

It's embarassing to admit that I have VERY little experience with sequencing and creating/layering patches for boards (I've always gotten away with using default patches on everything - once again i'm lazy!), so this is something I really need to familiarize myself with. It's good to hear that it's easier to manage on the Korgs, so I'm looking forward to getting it and learning! I might pick up the Extreme this weekend.

Thanks again for the advice! I'll keep you posted.

[Golem]

The Triton Extreme a great board, no doubt. A Swiss army knife type of board indeed! Be prepared to wade through a 300+ page user manual and matching parameter manual! Fortunately, they're written in good English and pretty logically laid out.

What kind of amp do you use? I like the VK series Hammond clones. I think they're basically as good or better than any out there. I'd carry one, but I'm really happy being able to do everything with 3 boards, especially with stage space at a premium. Drawbars would be great, but I don't think they're necessary with Wright's approach to the Hammond. With 2 Tritons, I can simulate the swell and the great and have independent control. Then I can switch to whatever sounds on each board too. I'm currently using 0 Midi cables and hope to keep it that way!

[Eroc]

If you're playing there (at HOB Dallas) then you are working with Anthony, who was formerly the talent buyer for the HOB here in Cleveland - he is a great guy to work with and treats all the artists with respect... he showed a lot of faith in us from the beginning (of course we were a hot property already when HOB came to town) but more importantly he believed in our ability to play outside of the club and helped us develop into more of a concert act, promoting us at other theaters outside of town and around Northeast Ohio.
The overall HOB experience is grand - especially for the artist... at least here in Cleveland, they've always treated us well.

I think I remember corresponding with one of your guys in the past about elements of the Wall show and how we pulled it off - I'm glad that it seems to have worked for you too!

The only thing that concerns me, tho, is your band's use of "The Sight & Sound of Pink Floyd", the tagline we've used with our name (and always prominently in our logo) from the beginning in 1995... not that originality is the name of the game in the tribute band genre, but I guess it can be said that "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery", lol...

[svguerin3]

To answer you question about the amp I use, it's actually a Roland KC-550. It's treated me really well (despite that one wheel keeps falling off!!), and is practically a tank - the way it puts up with the beatings I dish upon it!

About the tag line ("Sight and Sound"), my sincere apologies for this if it's on our part - I personally was not involved in setting that up, but I was under the impression that HOB put it on the website themselves.. However I may be wrong, so I will relay this to the band and make sure that HOB won't include this as a part of our title in the future; I completely understand your concern, and I would feel the same way.

In addition, please know and believe that we have the utmost respect and admiration for you guys; we even took out a practice to watch your DVD for tips and pointers on areas we need to tighten up, and I know the HOB probably wouldn't even blink an eye at us if not for you guys' success up in Cleveland - we are definitely grateful for this.

-Vince

[Eroc]

Hey, no problem svguerin3, I just actually thought it was kinda funny ... and yes, it did occur to me that it may have been HOB's idea too, lol.

Seeing that you've checked out the DVD (which I humbly thank your for ordering thru the website!), just wanted to make sure you are aware of our 'newer' co-vocalist/guitarist Jamie Combs, who joined us in 2006 and has really helped take the band to the 'next level'... I'm real anxious to get some decent video out there (very soon!) with him on it, this band is so much more 'accurate' now, and it's great to have another Floyd Fanatic on stage and helping with the direction of the band.
In the meantime we have some great audio of him with us on our MySpace page - www.myspace.com/floydtribute.

Again, thank you for your interest in the band, I do appreciate it and it really is flattering, and very cool enjoying the company of 'others like us' out there, lol... I've had great conversations with Dan of Which One's Pink, Alex of the Surrogate Band, and Tom of the PF Experience (although I haven't had the time to be active in the PinkFloydOnline.com's Floyd Tribute Forum lately - that should change soon!). It really is enlightening to have that interaction we've been able to achieve between many of the country's top Floyd bands.

Eroc