[Schavuitje]

A cool topic came up today, started by our fabulous mispuntje  Dutchbeat 

Personally I think synths have never sounded so good as they do these days. Although never perfect

I think they seem to be sounding closer to the instruments they are supposed to be immitating. ( When useing strings, piano,

brass etc...)

Of course there are also an infinate number of sounds a synth can make and to me these also seem to be getting better. To the point

where synth music... i.e. dubstep, techno, dance and a hell of a lot of pop etc etc seems to be dominating.

Thankfully there are some people still like to listen to real musicians on guitars    Sorry DB I couldn't stop myself 

BUT it seems that synth players are not content with dominating the lions share of the market. They want everything to sound like it's coming out

of an old atari gamesystem.

How can you justify this DB? 

[Kafla]

I love synths - they were my first passion even before I learned guitar

I remember reading about Vince Clarke (one of my heroes) who moved from England to America. He broke up his studio and got the whole lot transported over bit by bit. It was a Dome shaped building the size of a factory (you should goggle it)

Whilst it was in the process of transportation he recorded an Erasure album on his Mac. He was astonished that he could produce everything on a little computer. But he still went back to his factory sized studio with lots of knobs and leads everywhere

There is a great deal of debate between hard and soft synths.

The funny thing is that I felt Ducthbeats last song was so fresher and rawer than anything produced before.

I agree with you Schavu(and you are a crook by the way - dont think a little bit of Dutch will get past a multi linguist like myself   )  I think VSTs are getting very good indeed.

I write 75% on guitar 25% on keyboards.

The main problem (or hang up !) I have with guitar or any real instrument is that you have to be really good to incorporate it into a song. I love the way I can move, rearrange and manipulate notes in a sequencer. Playing live instruments is so stressful to me as I am just not a good enough player to get it sounding good in a song - I admire those that can.

And then you have the feeling that playing an instrument brings, the little bendy notes on a guitar.

My view is if your good enough and have the instrument play it.

If not program it.

But a good song is a good song regardless of which approach you take

[Schavuitje]

Glad to see your useing 75% guitars Kaf. Maybe you could up that a bit? 

Come on DB... bite 

[Kafla]

Glad to see your useing 75% guitars Kaf. Maybe you could up that a bit? 

Come on DB... bite 

He's too busy playing with his knob(s) 

[Dutchbeat]

Haha, no i was too busy......working

i hate how work interferes with my hobby, but it needs to be done sometimes


now Schavuitje, (jij zeerover, oude dief, landloper, misbaksel...)

you have the wrong basic assumptions to begin with about synthesizers and there purpose....which most gitarists who listened to hippy music to long have 

you notice how synths start to sound much better and more real like brass instruments, piano, strings etc, but the synthesizer was actually made to sound like nothing that was already out there (look at some old films of Bob Moog introducing these weird machines....hilarious clips on Youtube, with large floppy discs, here is one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydxFc6o64WA
it had these knobs to make new sounds, it just happened to be that sounds of instruments that already existed could also be copied to a certain extent

it is the keyboards (which are not synthesizers if there is nothing to change....) that really have started this terrible: oh look we have copied 10 sorts of pianos, and horns etc. (which usually sounded like shit)

but i was talking about synthesizers made out of steel, with big knobs and wires...

[Schavuitje]

DB je kaas knabbelen kleine Schobbejak 

I thought I would give synths a fair go, so I watched the youtube video...

Iv'e just put mine on ebay 

[James Nighthawk]

I remember a great quote from Bjork. I was writing a paper on experimentalism in pop music. She had this to say about synthesiers:

Paraphrase, not quote; I don't have the book to hand

"Plastic is amazing. It can be shaped, moulded coloured and turned into anything you want. But when plastic pretends to be wood, it is horrible"

Nothing else has every explained my feeling towards synths so concisely 

[The Corsair]

I'm primarily a bassist now (well, instrumentally at least, I'm still a lyricist above all else) and frankly I stand firmly beside my bass.

I love playing it in songs because there's a real payoff in the form of a sense of achievement when you complete a song and eventually each song does become somewhat automatic and the worries about screwing up live disappear.
I hate electronically made bass sounds in a 'rock' song but only if it's somewhere a real bass could have been used. As far as techno music goes I have no issue because it's meant to be electronic, whereas in pop digitalised bass is a massive go-to.

Even then, a lot of very electronic sounds can be made with real instruments, even some dubstep-esque sounds (Enter Shikari do a great example of this in a section of 'Solidarity' where the sound is made using just guitar, bass and a drumkit) so at times I do question why electronics are used in place of instruments, though I do agree with Kafla that it all depends on skill really.

[Koolkat]

As a replacement for real instruments, no! To produce sounds that can't be produced by real instruments, I have no problem and believe the synth can be an important tool for musicians, if used properly. However, my favourite electronic keyboard must be the Mellotron. Originally designed, I believe, to "synthesize" real instruments by use of tape loops, it never sounded like a real instrument but had a magical sound all of its own. My introduction to the Mellotron came care of Rick Wakeman and Greenslade, although I was unaware that many records I already had featured the instrument.

[Schavuitje]

Now THAT is when Keyboards were ace. Rick Wakeman from the legendary YES and Tony Banks on the early Genesis stuff.

Brilliant

[Dutchbeat]

oh, my goodness, Schavuitje

you have such a long way to go 
on your newly adopted hobby, the synths and keys..

doesn't matter, but let's take small steps at the time, ok? 

[nfelockhart]

I remember a great quote from Bjork. I was writing a paper on experimentalism in pop music. She had this to say about synthesiers:

Paraphrase, not quote; I don't have the book to hand

"Plastic is amazing. It can be shaped, moulded coloured and turned into anything you want. But when plastic pretends to be wood, it is horrible"

Nothing else has every explained my feeling towards synths so concisely 

Good one there!
I think synths are cool as long as they are not trying to imitate some other instruments. It's covenient, but immitation could never be as real as the real deal.