Author Topic: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread  (Read 300735 times)

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Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #665 on: March 18, 2015, 12:57:03 PM »
Sweet.

Well, tomorrow night will be my first practice with the new electric rig, so we'll see how it goes.
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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #666 on: March 20, 2015, 01:42:26 AM »

Offline Prog Snob

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #667 on: March 20, 2015, 02:13:06 AM »
So wrong.    :lol

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #668 on: March 20, 2015, 07:20:12 AM »
Close.
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Offline Lucien

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #669 on: March 20, 2015, 10:10:50 AM »
Close.

Oh, you weren't wearing underwear. I see.
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Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #670 on: March 20, 2015, 01:11:01 PM »
lol

What I found is that things that sound cool when you are at home and the only musician playing don't necessarily sound as cool with the whole band lol
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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #671 on: March 20, 2015, 01:36:02 PM »
Well, solo performing is a lot different from ensemble, IMO.  If it's just you, it's all you.  But even if it's just you and one other person, the focus totally shifts to what you're building together.  And with a full band, you go all the way with it.  It's the ensemble that matters most, but within that, you still find ways for the individuals to matter, to shine on occassion.

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #672 on: March 20, 2015, 07:41:11 PM »
The most important rule with an elec. guitar path.  You probably need a lot less amp than you think.

Even at a young age, I had a drum machine, synth and sequencer.  So I'd almost always create a quick backing track with those.  If it wasn't for a specific song but more of a "chart" type jam, I'd try to keep the backing as simple as possible.  By the time you get to the band rehearsal, you have a decent musical roadmap in your head that you can concentrate more on jamming than simply playing.

And in some ways, rehearsals were more fun than the actual performance.  At least you don't have a light shining in your face.

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #673 on: March 21, 2015, 04:17:46 AM »
Well, solo performing is a lot different from ensemble, IMO.  If it's just you, it's all you.  But even if it's just you and one other person, the focus totally shifts to what you're building together.  And with a full band, you go all the way with it.  It's the ensemble that matters most, but within that, you still find ways for the individuals to matter, to shine on occassion.
Yes to all of that, but I was just talking guitar effects and patches.
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Offline Kotowboy

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #674 on: March 21, 2015, 04:19:12 AM »
lol

What I found is that things that sound cool when you are at home and the only musician playing don't necessarily sound as cool with the whole band lol

Like that " bitchin" guitar tone you got from your Line6 Pod with no midrange and 100% bass & treble that you suddenly can't hear when you go to band practice :P

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #675 on: March 21, 2015, 05:19:10 AM »
lol

What I found is that things that sound cool when you are at home and the only musician playing don't necessarily sound as cool with the whole band lol

Like that " bitchin" guitar tone you got from your Line6 Pod with no midrange and 100% bass & treble that you suddenly can't hear when you go to band practice :P
:lol Yeah, something like that!
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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #676 on: March 21, 2015, 07:56:48 AM »
Well, solo performing is a lot different from ensemble, IMO.  If it's just you, it's all you.  But even if it's just you and one other person, the focus totally shifts to what you're building together.  And with a full band, you go all the way with it.  It's the ensemble that matters most, but within that, you still find ways for the individuals to matter, to shine on occassion.
Yes to all of that, but I was just talking guitar effects and patches.

Oh, you guitarists are your effects and patches.   :loser:

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #677 on: March 21, 2015, 08:24:24 AM »
Well, solo performing is a lot different from ensemble, IMO.  If it's just you, it's all you.  But even if it's just you and one other person, the focus totally shifts to what you're building together.  And with a full band, you go all the way with it.  It's the ensemble that matters most, but within that, you still find ways for the individuals to matter, to shine on occassion.
Yes to all of that, but I was just talking guitar effects and patches.

Oh, you guitarists are your effects and patches.   :loser:
Hey, I'm not accustomed to having to deal with them.  This is new to me (or new again, I should say).   :biggrin:
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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #678 on: March 21, 2015, 08:47:44 AM »
I forgot i had my amp in the basement.  So I think i'm going to head to the store, get a new guitar cable, plug in the acousitc/electric, and finish learning Along for the Ride. 

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #679 on: March 22, 2015, 10:44:43 AM »
Rocked it out at church this morning. This is gonna be fun.  :metal
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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #680 on: March 22, 2015, 04:43:37 PM »
:metal

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #681 on: April 05, 2015, 04:48:28 PM »
Easter morning at church, we always like to have "real brass" augmenting the sound.  There's nothing like hearing choir, organ, and real brass.  Big sound.  In the old days, we a had quartet; two trombones and two trumpets.  For a while it was just two trumpets.  We had three one year.  Recent years, we've been down to one trumpet.  Local musicians figured out that they could charge $100 or $150 to play at local services, since everyone was doing it, but we're just a small church and don't have a huge budget.  This year, we had some money, but our choir director couldn't find anyone.  Like, nobody anywhere.  We usually hit up the local high schools, but everyone's on Spring Break.

At choir rehearsal a few weeks back, I said "You know, saxophones are made of brass, so technically..."  I'm not sure how serious I was, but if the idea is to augment the sound, why not?  I've played my alto in church a few times with the praise band, and Brian (one of the basses (I'm a tenor)) has an alto and a soprano.  The anthem has optional parts for two trumpets and two trombones.  Checking it out, you could have all four, or just the two trumpets, and it would work.  Just the two trombones would be weird but okay, but if you can get trombones, you can probably get trumpets.  I suggested Brian play his soprano, which is Bb, so he wouldn't have to transpose, and I'd play my alto and just wing it.

The next rehearsal, our director showed up with the two trumpet parts transcribed from the "miniature" versions on the back page of the choir part.  Apparently you had to order them separately (and pay for them, of course), so she just did them on her PC using Sibelius.  I would've done the same if she'd given me the go-ahead, but whatever, she did it, and was obviously on board with the idea.  Our choir is small, but we can afford to lose one tenor and one bass if it meant having brass.  So we did "Joy in the Morning" with a soprano sax and an alto sax playing the trumpet parts.  It was different, but pretty cool. :tup

Rewind to Friday night.  As I lay in bed, I was thinking ahead to this morning, thinking about how cool it was gonna be to have brass, and actually get to be part of it.  I thought about the opening strains of "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" (which is always the opening hymn on Easter morning) and...  Hey, why aren't we doing all the hymns with brass?

So Saturday (yesterday), I shot an email to Shirley (the director) and Brian, and told them I had some time, and wanted to whip up some charts, and what did they think?  I'd be willing to just fly with it, but Brian isn't quite the war-scarred veteran I am, and would want to rehearse it, and maybe wouldn't even feel comfortable doing it with just one rehearsal.  But I sent the email, and then immediately started working on the charts.  An hour later, I had two verses.  I wasn't sure how many verses we were going to sing, but we could do two, alternate between them, skip a verse, whatever.  We had some ammo.  Different harmonies and augmentations, lifted from the actual choral parts and transposed in various combinations. :hat

I logged back into my email and, not really surprisingly, nothing new yet.  So I sent the soprano part to Brian and the two-sax part to Shirley (actually I sent both to both, since it was the same email conversation), and asked Shirley if she knew what the closing hymn was going to be.  Gotta open and close with the brass, right?

I checked throughout the day, but Shirley was gone all day.  I should've just called her.  But Brian answered, asked me if I could meet him early to run through it a few times.  Sure.  Then he wrote back later, said he's tried it and it was a piece of cake, so if we did it once during regular rehearsal before the service, he'd be fine.  Yes!  I never did hear back from Shirley though.  But hey, we'd have brass for the opening hymn as well.

This morning, Shirley happened to check her email and answered me.  She's fine with everything, even thanked me for doing it since she'd run out of time (she should've just asked me --  I would've done it but didn't think of it).  The closing hymn is "Christ is Risen", but at this point I didn't have time, since I too was basically doing a last-minute email check before leaving the house.  Crap.  She showed up at rehearsal with a pad of five-line paper, said asked me if I wanted to whip something up really quick, or she could do it.  Whoa. :omg:

During the sermon, I cooked up a chart for Brian to play based on the descant written for the final verse, and I just winged a second horn part based on the tenor part.  Hey, the harmonies worked, there was some counterpoint here and there, it worked.  Living on the edge.  Writing horn parts 30 minutes before they're gonna be played.

So we did the opening hymn, anthem, and closing hymn with "real brass" in the form of two saxophones, and I got to write the charts for two of them.  And I did it for free, and I'm damned proud of it. :millahhhh

Offline BlobVanDam

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #682 on: April 05, 2015, 04:55:32 PM »
All of the joys of music wrapped into one bundle there. :tup
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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #683 on: April 05, 2015, 09:22:22 PM »
Absolutely.  Doing different things in terms of playing, and arranging, making up some stuff, synthesizing other stuff.  It was crazy fun.

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #684 on: April 06, 2015, 08:22:17 AM »
That is awesome, Orbert!  :metal
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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #685 on: April 08, 2015, 04:25:34 PM »
Update on Orbert's Band

The drama, or more accurately "the trauma", continues.

We rehearse every other Saturday.  Steve (lead guitar) is currently paying the rent driving an 18-wheeler and is on the road 11 days out of 14, so he's only home every other weekend.  JT (drums) runs a restaurant and owns two other businesses and Saturday mornings are just about the only time he can manage.  Our new bassist, Tony, works various odd jobs as he can get them and his schedule can be unpredictable.  The stage is set.

After three pretty good rehearsals in a row, each covering four songs, we had 12 songs -- one set -- and the next rehearsal was to nail them down.  Finally getting a song right after working on it for half an hour or 45 minutes is fine, but if you can't come back to it two weeks later, or four or six, and get through it, you didn't really have the song nailed down.

It turns out that John (guitar, leader, and owner of the basement in which we practice) is going to be out of town, doing college visits with his son.  They've tried, but there's no other date that works.  Can we do Friday night, or Sunday afternoon?  We settle on Friday night.  I pack all my stuff into my car before heading to work, since I'll be driving out there right after work.  During the day, I get an email.  JT's grill cook's grandmother has died suddenly, the cook has called out, and JT has to cover.  Sunday afternoon doesn't work, and by Monday, Steve is back on the road.  So no rehearsal.

Two weeks later, Tony has to be somewhere by Noon for a job, so we move practice time up from 10 AM to 9 AM, so we can be done by 11 and Tony can go make some money.  I get there about 8:30, since I have to set up my keyboards, amp, and sax, so I'm first one there.  I get to the basement and meet Dave, John's friend, who is filling in on bass.  What?  Tony's start time got moved up to 11, and rather than move the rehearsal time yet another hour earlier (and on very short notice), John called a friend of his who plays bass, just so we can get through the rehearsal.

Rehearsal is not great.  At this point, it's been four, six, or eight weeks since playing the songs, plus we don't have our regular bass player, so I'm not even sure what the point was of practicing, but at the very least, it helped the rest of us to run through the 12 songs, scrape off some rust.

Two weeks later, Tony has to miss another rehearsal, as he has something going on and they need him all day Saturday.  He also mentions that now the baseball season is starting, he'll be busy on weekends.  He plays on a minor league team.  What the fuck?  You join a band, knowing that you won't be available on weekends?

John sends an email expressing his frustration.  Anne (singer) has another band, and they suck, but they're out there playing.  Steve has another band, and they're finishing their third set.  Why are we still in the basement with only a dozen songs?  (Answer: because we keep changing personnel, taking "breaks", and cancelling rehearsals when we do have a full band.)  He questions the commitment of people.  He (rightfully, mostly) complains that you shouldn't commit to a band if you can't even learn your parts and show up for rehearsals.

I sent him a reply, him only, saying that we're all busy as hell, but Saturday mornings worked for us for over a year.  Tony is the new guy, and he's a great player and also has an ear for harmonies and background vocals, but if he's the reason we keep cancelling rehearsals, then he's gotta go, and really, he shouldn't have taken the gig if he knew this.

Tony sends a reply to everyone, voluntarily dropping out of the band.  He knows the score.  So okay, this was probably the least painful way it could have happened, we didn't have to fire him or anything, but shit.  Time to find a new bass player.

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #686 on: April 08, 2015, 08:38:50 PM »
I think once you pass the age of 25, these rules apply to musicians:

1.  You have a job (and maybe even family) that takes up the majority of your time.  Rehearsals are the first thing to get tossed out.
2.  You don't have a real job (career), so you have a lot of time to rehearse.  But if you don't have a real job by age 25, it probably means you aren't exactly reliable.  So you miss rehearsals any way.

You really have a clock ticking on doing anything professionally as a musician.

Despite all that, I wish you the best in getting it all worked out.  It definitely won't happen if you don't try.

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #687 on: April 10, 2015, 01:26:45 PM »
That sucks, Orbert.  Hopefully you can find a new bass player.
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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #688 on: April 10, 2015, 02:40:08 PM »
John has contacted Jerry, who was runner-up bass player last time.  Jerry did not play horribly, but he wasn't great, and it took a bit of convincing for JT and Steve to even give the guy another shot.  He's the one who played some very pedestrian parts, and said "But that's what it said on the sheet music."  I know, not exactly promising.  But a not-great bass player is still better than no bass player at all, and if there's one position in our band where we could get away with a not-great player, it's the bass.  If your drummer can't keep basic time, it's obvious and you suck.  If your singer can't sing, it's obvious, and you suck.  If your guitarist can't play, it's obvious and you suck.  Keyboards, just turn him down in the mix and no one will know the difference anyway.

But, and I mean no offense to bass players, if your bass player isn't exactly John Entwhistle, but he keeps the bottom end and is at least in the right key and stuff, the part is covered.  Yes, a really good bass player is a definite plus, and can take you to the next level.  But we have a gig coming up and 20 more songs to learn.  If he's down there just thumping roots, we at least have the part covered.  Anything beyond that is bonus, and he did show some game.  We didn't really give him much time to prepare last time, and after we'd played the song on my iPod for him, he picked up the part, so he does have ears.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and figure he used the sheet music to cheat a little (which I've done) and never had time to come back and work up the actual part.

So John has contacted him and impressed upon him that the position is his if he wants it, but he's gotta step up his game a bit.  John's going to work with him one-on-one a little, then throw him into the fire.  So this should be interesting.

It has now been over a year, over 15 months actually, and we've played two gigs, changed personnel countless times, and currently have no songs in the bag.  Good thing I really like to play and have a high tolerance for bullshit, because this is really getting pretty silly.  But whatever.  It's still fun to get together every other Saturday and jam with these guys.  Life could be worse.

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #689 on: April 10, 2015, 06:48:59 PM »
So anybody here at DTF write songs together over the net (emailing parts and posting up section suggestions on SoundCloud?)  We did that at John Petrucci Forums and it was pretty fun.  I know I saw GoldFalcon (Alex) post here and he was a big part of that. 

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #690 on: April 11, 2015, 01:03:05 AM »
So anybody here at DTF write songs together over the net (emailing parts and posting up section suggestions on SoundCloud?)  We did that at John Petrucci Forums and it was pretty fun.  I know I saw GoldFalcon (Alex) post here and he was a big part of that.

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #691 on: April 11, 2015, 01:04:43 AM »
So anybody here at DTF write songs together over the net (emailing parts and posting up section suggestions on SoundCloud?)  We did that at John Petrucci Forums and it was pretty fun.  I know I saw GoldFalcon (Alex) post here and he was a big part of that.

Now I know why your name looked familiar when I first saw it here.

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #692 on: April 11, 2015, 03:26:15 AM »
Just for reference, we (JP Forum) started a thread for the song and used it to openly discuss the composition process.  I haven't read the rule about not posting links to the Petrucci Forum, so this is the thread:
https://www.petrucciforum.com/forums/showthread.php?76074-The-JPForum-Project

I had this on my computer, so I uploaded it to Soundcloud as v19
https://soundcloud.com/calvin6s/jpforum-project19

For the most part, 7/8 dominates the non-chorus parts, 4/4 is mainly the chorus and Rhys wrote a kick butt jam section that has lots of 5/4-4/4 (you can tell his part as it is pasted with some cool VST sounds so the sonic quality changes).

Keep in mind, we wrote quite a bit of the song just using our VST's and I was using GuitarPro, so it is more of a sketchpad than a full on release sound.  You can only do so much with GuitarPro in terms of sonic quality.  Alex was really good about putting down the actual guitar parts, but I think he took him off his Soundcloud account (or I am just using the wrong address).

It really was a collaboration.  R32BlitzBane started the ball rolling with the clean guitar arpeggiation that became the verse.  I brought in the intro.  Alex came up with the chorus and did most of the initial arrangement.  Rhys wrote his great jam section and was in the process of creating lyrics.  And then there was a lot of others offering embellishments, rearrangements, alterations, etc. of everybody else's parts.  We all had slightly different versions simply because we didn't have a universal VST to exchange the ideas easily.  Often we'd just send each other the sheet music, MIDI file or just transcribe the parts of each other.

I was kind of hoping that somebody here would be interested in starting a whole new process with a thread here (possibly cross-linking to the Petrucci Forum as well as other DT musician oriented forums).

Never really practice my guitar any more.  I always liked writing songs and sections of songs more than shredding.  You get the most growth by writing with other people.  It is just a hobby for me and have no real aspirations of it being anything more than that.  If somebody wanted to give what we (possibly) write a proper instrument recording, great.  But it isn't absolutely necessary.  Just writing is fun enough for me.

This thread was "musicians unite" so I figured this was the place to bring it up?  If there is enough interest, we can start a new thread dedicated to the future song.  I have tons of stuff that can be used as a starting point if that is what it takes to get the ball rolling, but anybody can be the initial spark.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2015, 05:05:42 AM by Calvin6s »

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #693 on: April 25, 2015, 01:54:06 PM »
I kinda feel like this one thread might be trying to do too many things at once, even if the net result is not a whole lot of traffic.  I came in here to give an update on my band, which I've been doing for a while, but then I saw Calvin's post from two weeks ago -- which I'd forgotten about and, unfortunately, I can't really say I'm interested in -- but I didn't want to just pull the thread back in a different direction.

So, what's the overall feeling, guys (and girls)?  It's not really a "chat thread" if it goes two weeks without a post, so it's really been functioning as something of catch-all thread.  Should we maybe have a thread just for people to talk about the various musical endeavors that they're involved in?  Something like that?

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #694 on: April 25, 2015, 03:35:24 PM »
I thought the thread was just a place for musicians to hang out.  I figured I would offer the collaboration thing up and if there were any interested parties, we'd start a new thread for the current song collaboration - like we did at the JP Forum.  Nobody responded, so I guess we can just move on.

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #695 on: April 25, 2015, 04:46:01 PM »
You're not wrong.  I guess I think of the entire Musicians forum as the place for musicians to hang out, and people can (and do) start various threads for various purposes.  I felt kinda funny because the only things I really have to chat about are the various musical endeavors I find myself involved in, and I didn't want to just carry on with that.  It seemed like snubbing you and your idea, and I didn't want it to be like that.  My updates were kinda dominating the thread for a while, but I guess that's how it goes if others don't have a lot to talk about.

So anyway...


Band rehearsal, our first official one with Jerry, our new bassist.  We started with four "older" songs (even through they're all new to Jerry), then worked on four new ones.  We did something different, which was to listen to each song first.  I always have my iPod run through my mixer/amp, the output of which is also fed to the board.  We've gone to it in the past to settle disagreements, or just to review the song itself, but this time, we listened to each song first, then did the song.  I always create a playlist of current songs and listen to them non-stop for days leading up to rehearsals, so for me it was a waste of time, but I know not everyone else does that, so it was good for everyone to have each song fresh in their minds.  We got through eight songs in three hours.

I broke out the Prophet-5.  I love playing it, but it's a 40-pound beast and up until now, there hasn't been anything that required it.  I can split the keyboard on my Yamaha and do organ/piano, piano/strings, etc.  But one of the new songs was "Separate Ways" by Journey, and that tune demands real synth, so real synth it was.  Jeez, you'd think these guys had never seen a synthesizer before.  They were literally fawning all over it.  But I suppose you don't see a vintage 80's analog synth every day.  It sounded great, which was all I cared about.

Jerry was much, much better than at his audition.  He was actually tight, yet loose and groovin' in spots.  Jumped in on some background vocals, too.  I wish he'd played like this at his audition.  I was okay with him before, but some of the others weren't sure, and it also didn't make sense to just jump on the first guy we auditioned.  Tony was amazing, but Tony joined the band knowing full well that we rehearse Saturday mornings, and his Saturdays are all tied up.  So we basically wasted a couple of months there.

Anyway, great rehearsal, eight songs nailed down.  My back hurts.  It hurt when I got up this morning; I probably slept funny, but after three hours of jamming, it's kinda bad now.  These are the sacrifices we make for our art.

Calvin6s

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #696 on: April 25, 2015, 05:03:33 PM »
First, congrats on the new bass player.  Finding band members can be a pain.  They always seem to be great and unreliable or average and reliable.  Obviously that is because the better you are, the more options you have.

I broke out the Prophet-5. 
What other synths do you have? 

Offline BlobVanDam

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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #697 on: April 25, 2015, 08:07:19 PM »
Separate Ways on a legit synth? :metal (although the original uses a Jupiter 8, but I'm sure it still sounded amazing). One of the few songs I can play fully on keys too.

As for the chat thread, I think either line of discussion would merit its own thread, or is just fine in the chat thread too. Orbert's band saga alone certainly deserves a dedicated thread! :lol
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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #698 on: April 25, 2015, 08:20:41 PM »
I think Jerry might just be a poor auditioner, Orbert. It happens to people. But god, I'm jealous of you and your synth.
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Re: All musicians unite! - The Musicians Chat Thread
« Reply #699 on: April 25, 2015, 10:29:42 PM »
What other synths do you have? 

Just the Prophet.  For years, I didn't have any keyboards at all.  When the band broke up in '83, I got the piano, but the synth belonged to "the band", which actually meant it belonged to Pete the guitarist, who started the band and had sunk a bunch of his own money into it.  So he kept the Prophet, but let me take the Yamaha piano.  It was a weird, 80's electronic piano that was fun to mess around with, but I went back to school, got a real job, etc., and it was just taking up space, so eventually I sold it.  By then, my parents had retired and moved to a condo, so I had the acoustic piano I'd grown up with.  There was no reason to keep the Yamaha thing.

It was probably around 2005 that the Prophet that I play now showed up under the Christmas tree.  My wife found it on Ebay.  There's a company in Ohio that refurbishes and sells them.  It's a Mark III (there were three versions of the Prophet 5), exactly like the one I played back in the 80's, and because it came from Ohio and I'm from Michigan, there's even a chance that it's the same machine.  That would be wacky, but I have no way of knowing, since I lost track of Pete a while ago.

When I joined the church band in 2009, I needed something more practical, so I grabbed a cheapo Yamaha because it was all I could afford, but I made sure it had 88 keys, could split, had a bank of presets (standard Yamaha 500 voice library) and some other goodies.  Right now, that's all I have.



Separate Ways on a legit synth? :metal (although the original uses a Jupiter 8, but I'm sure it still sounded amazing). One of the few songs I can play fully on keys too.

It did sound pretty fucking great, if I do say so myself.  I know my way around the Prophet pretty well, and the patch I built, to my ears, sounds exactly like the Roland that Cain used on the album (actually I thought it was a Juno -- they look very similar).  The guys were going pretty nuts, asking me why I'd never brought it before.  Because we never needed it before, that's why.

All those knobs and switches... how do you know how to work it all?  I could explain it all, and I could even make you understand.  How much time do you have?  Just as guitarists can flip switches on their pickups and push foot switches on their pedals and make their guitar sound just like what we hear on the radio, I know my way around oscillators, envelope generators, and filters.  It's the same thing, just more nerdy.  Guitarists are cool; keyboard players are geek nerds.  It's something I resigned myself to a long time ago.

I think Jerry might just be a poor auditioner, Orbert. It happens to people. But god, I'm jealous of you and your synth.

Jerry said as much, but of course it seems that way now.  He was having trouble with his amp at the audition, and he told us that when he got it home that night and opened it up, something had fried on the main board.  So he was nervous, dealing with that, and hadn't really had a lot of time to prepare for the audition, due to some work obligations that popped up unexpectedly.  He started with some sheet music as a shortcut, but didn't have time to work up his parts properly.  He was easily twice as good today as he was at his audition, maybe three times as good.  A completely different player.

Someday, someone's gonna come to a gig I'm playing and see the Prophet and offer me a ridiculous amount of money for it.  And I'll have a hard decision to make.  I love it, and it sounds great, but I'm well aware that my attachment to it is purely sentimental.  It's far from practical, but it's the machine I played during what was easily the funnest time in my life.  Even if and when I graduate to a pair of Nords (ultimately, I want an 88 and a Lead), I'll always love the Prophet.