10
QUESTIONS QU ESTIONS WITH WITH GREGG GR EGG ALLMAN ALLMAN Techniques & Technology for Today’s Player
®
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Grace Potter Te New Face of Rock Organ
PLAY BETTER B-3! 05.2011 A MUSIC PLAYER PUBLICATION PUBLICATION
• MA MATT TT ROLLING ROLLI NGS S on Using Space • SAM YAHEL on Harmony • SCOTT HEALY on Blues-Rock Cred
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CONTENTS COMMUNITY 10
Your pictures, anecdotes, questions, tips, gear, and feedback!
KEYNOTES Hot players, news, and reviews from the keyboard world. Organissimo: Jim Alfredson Keeps the B-3 Flame Burning 12 Mitchell Froom: Retro Revolutionary 13 The Editors’ Playlist 14 MAJORminor: Ethan Bortnick
LESSONS B-3 organ special! Matt Rollings on How To Use Space 18 Sam Yahel’s Hammond Concepts 22 Scott Healy on on Rock Organ Cred 26
COVER STORY 28
GRACE POTTER and the Deadly Hammond
From bar-band roots in Vermont to capacity crowds at the biggest music festivals, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals rock like Heart meets the Heartbreakers. At the center of it all is Grace’s pride and joy: her Hammond B-3 organ.
ARTISTS 36
10 Questions with GREGG ALLMAN
Get the skinny on the legendary blues rocker’s introduction to the Hammond B-3 and his acclaimed, T Bone Burnettproduced solo album Low Country Blues in Blues in this exclusive.
SOLUTIONS 38 40 42
DANCE Get the ’90s House Organ Sound in Theory and Practice HOW IT WORKS The Talkbox in PRODUCERS’ ROUNDTABLE Morgan Page, Jon
Margulies, Richard Dinsdale, Dan Kurtz, and Boom Jinx on Clean and Punchy Mixes
Roland Jupiter what ?
GEAR 16 44 48 52 54 58
Find out on page 17!
NEW GEAR Studiologic NUMA ORGAN Clavia NORD C2 Preview: Hammond SK1 Arturia ORIGIN KEYBOARD Native Instruments GEORGE DUKE SOUL TREASURES
TIME MACHINE 66
Jupiter and Juno in Roman mythology and Roland reality.
In Memoriam: Korg’s iconic chairman, Tsutomu Katoh.
Cover Photo by Adrien by Adrien Broom KEYBOARD (ISSN 0730-0158) is published monthly by NewBay Media, LLC 1111 Bayhill Drive, Suite 125, San Bruno, CA 94066. All material published in KEYBOARD is copyrighted © 2011 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 offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to KEYBOARD P.O. Box 9158, Lowell, MA 01853. Canada Post: Publications Mail Agreement #4061260 8. Canada Returns to be sent to Bleuchip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2.
More Online!
Video interview with Cassandra O’Neal of the New Power Generation.
keyboardmag.com/may2011 Surfing and synths with Switchfoot. S witchfoot. 05.2011
KEYBOARDMAG.C OM
7
Vol. 37, No. 5 #422 MAY MAY 2011 EDITOR: Stephen Fortner
[email protected] MANAGING EDITOR: Debbie Greenberg
[email protected] ASSISTANT EDITOR: Lori Kennedy
[email protected] EDITORS AT LARGE: Craig Anderton, Jon Regen SENIOR CORRESPONDENTS: Jim Aikin, Tom Brislin, Ed Coury, Michael Gallant, Robbie Gennet, Scott Healy, Peter Kirn, Mike McKnight, Dominic Milano, Franics Preve, Ernie Rideout, Mitchell Sigman ART DIR ECTOR: Patrick Wong
[email protected] MUSIC COPYIST: Matt Beck GROUP PUBLISHER: Joe Perry
[email protected], 770.343.997 770.343.9978 8 ADVERTISI NG DIR ECTOR, NORTHWEST, NORTHWEST, MIDWEST, & NEW BUSINESS DEV.: Greg Sutton
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05.2011
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COMMUNITY From the Editor It’s time to clean up our language. I’m not talking about profanity, as Keyboard has always tried to keep it PG-13, and besides, cussing is what staff meetings are for. What I mean is that enough things about these times dampen our creative fire that we shouldn’t let our very words amount to another bucket of ice water. First, we’re not “consumers” or “users,” we’re musicians. musicians. As such, we don’t buy “products,” but we can’t get enough of these things called instruments. instruments. Second, “workstation” “workstation” sounds like a cubi cubicle cle occupied by Dilbert. We’re talking about synths that emulate any sound and let us record full musical productions. Can’t we think of something more inspiring? I need help here, as “playstation” is taken, and for some reason, the industry shot down my suggestion of “fun universal creative keyboard.” Third, we’re as guilty of “flagship” and
“arsenal” as anyone: The former designates someone’s top-end product—I mean instrument—the latter, any set of musical tools. Aside from evoking war more than music, they’re just plain overused. Fourth, “best in class” should always be followed by a clear definition of what the the class in question encompasses. Without this context, it’s the gear review equivalent of the grade inflation that’s endemic to graduate school. Finally, music needs to reclaim the name of the original retro-mod singer of the ’60s and ’70s, Scott Walker. He was a hipster before it was hip. He revitalized the cabaret songs of Jacques Brel. He’s still touring and recording. And as far as we know, he never took away anyone’s collective bargaining rights. To avoid confusion, we’ll need to think of something else to call that other guy. I’ll leave that to you, because as I said, we try to keep it PG-13.
PARODY CONTEST WINNER I received the March 2011 issue of Keyboard about about 12 hours ago, and j ust now read your “From the Editor” guess-the-parody challenge. Your parody sounds exactly like Christopher Kimball’s musings from Cook’s Illustrated , which is one of my fa vorite mags for its scientific approach to perfecting cooking—not for the “letter from Vermont.” Joe Nitz, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, via email Joe, yours was the first correct answer, so your Korg Monotron is on the way! ConLambert-Nash of San Francisco. As a wannabe grats also to our second and third winners, Greg Kist of of Columbia, Maryland, and James Lambert-Nash chef, I love Cook’s Illustrated for Illustrated for the same reason you do. As a magazine editor, I’m in awe of the care that goes into their articles. As a Vermonter, though, I’d always wanted to spoof the editor’s letter. (Old Man MacBeth, by the w ay, was a shout out to Ke n MacBeth, who designs the fattest sounding analog synth modules on the planet.) If you’re reading, Mr. Kimball, know that Weird Al Yankovic meant his parodies as flattery, and so do I. Stephen Fortner
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SOAPBOX I recently relocated my offices and for years had a small cartoon I believe was originally published in Keyboard in Keyboard . The strip was lost in our move. It depicted a mouse surrounded by racks of keyboards. In the three or four panels, he rationalized the necessity of his equipment to his nagging wife. This was my wife’s favorite depiction of our early marriage, now 32 years. Chip Gremillion, Cathedral City, CA, via email
That’s no mouse, that’s the Packrat! Cartoonist and shredding synth player Dave Lovelace’s first stint ran from June 2005 to February 2006, and has been back since the August 2010 issue. You can catch up on all the Packrat’s past hijinks at umop.com/packrat.htm. Be warned— some of Dave’s other work, while hilarious, is very NSFW. —Ed.
KEYBOARD POLL
What rare, unattainable keyboard do you want most?
Vintage modular Moog
29%
FACEBOOK COURT OF OPINION Q: What music technology cliché words are you sick of hearing? hearing? John Hopkins: Game-changer.
Synclavier with all the options
22%
Rick Paul: Only limited by your imagination.
Yamaha GX-1
16%
James Maier: Fat, warm, detailed, innovative, and revolutionary.
Hammond Novachord Waldorf Wave
9%
Bob Gerhard: ROMpler, vintage, and classic.
14%
Jack Coleman: Monster. Really, [there are] just a few, but lotsa wannabes. Elka Synthex
6%
RSF PolyKobol E-mu Audity
3%
Joseph Edward Karstens: Prog.
1%
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KEYNOTES
ORGANISSIMO Jim Alfredson Keeps the B-3 Flame Burning Jim Alfredson, leader of acclaimed Lansing, Michigan jazz organ trio Organissimo, has spent the better part of three decades captivated by the Hammond organ. Luckily for him, his musical father could relate. “My dad was a gigging musician who stopped performing to pursue a career as a piano technician,” Alfredson says via phone during a tour stop in Seattle, Washington. “I grew up around pianos and a real Hammond B-3 in my house from the age of six, and my father was always supportive of me getting into music. He had a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer, which I also loved, but it was the organ that always intrigued me. When I hit my teens, I got heavily into progressive rock—bands like Yes, Genesis, ELP, and Pink Floyd. My dad found me a Hammond M-3 organ, and he also gave me an album by Jimmy Smith. That record blew my mind and got me pointed toward jazz.” Alfredson would study the organ religiously—not with a traditional teacher, but by absorbing albums by the instrument’s immortals. “I’ve been studying the B-3 since the age of 16,” Alfredson says. “I still consider myself a student of it. I’m always listening to records by the greats like Jimmy Smith, who’s the king in my world, as well as Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, Don Patterson, John Patton, and newer artists like Larry Goldings.” 12
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Alfredson met guitarist Joe Gloss and drummer Randy Marsh while enrolled at Michigan State University in 2000. “We started playing together, and everything just clicked,” he says. “So we started making records and touring, up the east coast of the U.S. and even overseas to Israel. We’ve put out four records, including our latest, Alive and Kickin’ , and we’re currently working on the next one.” [Read our review of Alive and Kickin’ in the August ’10 issue.—Ed.] issue.—Ed. ] Besides his acclaimed work with Organissimo, Alfredson currently can be heard accompanying blues singer Janiva Magness on tour dates across the U.S. and abroad. What gear is this hardcore Hammond aficionado using on the road these days? “I’m playing the Hammond XK-System with a Leslie 3300. I love it, and it’s much easier than hauling the 1958 Hammond B-3 that I used to drag around!” Jon Regen
Organissimo LIVE— “Jimmy Smith Goes to Washington”.
Connect with Jim and Organissimo online: www.organissimo.org.
More Online! keyboardmag.com/may2011
MITCHELL FROOM Retro Revolutionary “I’ve always liked sounds with character ,” ,” legendary keyboardist and producer Mitchell Froom tells me via phone from Los Angeles, California. The sonic spelunker, known for his work with iconic artists such as Randy Newman and Crowded House, has staked his storied reputation on sound design that is anything but pedestrian. From churning tonewheel organs and snarky electric pianos to quirky, homegrown synth patches, the pop producer avoids the factory preset at all costs. “The more colorful the sound, the better it seems to work in the music,” Froom explains. “I just started looking around for things, and I haven’t stopped.” A native of Northern California, Froom moved to Los Angeles in the early 1980s to try his luck in the music business. “When I first moved here after graduating from UC Berkeley, I actually got work as a synth programmer,” he says. “I had a bunch of analog synths, and an E-mu Emulator II sampler. Then MIDI came out, and I had everything hooked together. I think having those skills gave me an early advantage because while there were and are a ton of great players out there, in those days, people were really looking for someone who could program and arrange. So that’s how it all began.” Froom’s breakout success would come in the form of what some might call non-traditional cinema. “I did the soundtrack to a movie Flesh, which started out as an R-rated movie but ended up called Café Flesh, being X-rated,” Froom explains. “Strangely enough, that movie became
a sort of midnight cult sensation in Los Angeles. I had done the whole soundtrack on an eight-track tape machine with a couple of synths and a drummer. It was like Henry Mancini-inspired, synthesized bebop. Later, it found its way to a guy named Bob Biggs, who had a label called Slash Records. Bob loved the soundtrack and put it out as a record in its own right. That led to my gig producing the Del Fuegos and later to working with Crowded House. And the rest is history.” These days, Froom is busy playing on and producing a myriad of projects, from piano patriarch Randy Newman’s latest Songbook installment to the genre-smashing band Burlap to Cashmere, who Froom describes as “Simon and Garfunkel meets Greek music.” Rest assured, no matter what the musical style, Froom is still on the prowl for instruments and textures that depart from the beaten path. What are his latest acquisitions? “I’m always changing,” he says. “I just got a vintage Yamaha CP60 [electro-acoustic] upright piano, which I really like. I also bought a rare instrument called a dolceola, which is sort of like three mandolins with a keyboard on it.” Why are we not surprised? Jon Regen
Transcription of “Don’t Dream It’s Over” solo with Froom’s Commentary.
Learn all about the dolceola.
More Online! keyboardmag.com/may2011 05.2011
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KEYNOTES THE EDITORS’ PLAYLIST Stephen Fortner THE GO! TEAM Rolling Blackouts Blackouts Every hipster music blog I’ve seen says the Go! Team can’t be categorized, then proceeds to try to categorize them. I can see why. Tunes like “T.O.R.N.A.D.O.” and “Apollo Throwdown” layer female rap vocals with hip-hop and breakbeat rhythms under brassy samplecraft that recalls the best work of the Art of Noise. “Secretary Song” and “Ready To Go Steady,” on the other hand, fuse ’60s go-go and cutesy Japanese pop—imagine Phil Spector producing Pizzicato Five. Weird—in a very, very good way. (Memphis Industries, thegoteam.co.uk)
MAJORminor
ETHAN BORTNICK Most ten-year-olds are not playing the Oprah Winfrey Show or interviewing the likes of Quincy Jones and Ben Folds, but then, Ethan Bortnick is not most ten-year-olds. He has appeared with Elton John and Beyoncé, and has helped raise millions for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Miami Children’s Hospital, and other worthy causes. His PBS special Ethan Bortnick and His Musical Time Machine is Machine is out now on DVD, and his concert is coming to a theater near you. Find out more at ethanbortnick.com. Jon Regen
Jon Regen VARIOUS ARTISTS Disney Jazz Volume Volume I: Everybody Wants To Be a Cat There’s no shortage of pianistic power on Everybody Wants To Be a Cat , Disney’s all-star, jazzified salute to its storied songbook. For generations, Disney films have provided inspiring improvisation fodder to musicians of all jazz genres. On this updated romp through its sumptuous song archives, Disney taps keyboard masters like Dave Brubeck (“Some Day My Prince Will Come”) and the Bad Plus (“Gaston”) for a rollicking recorded ride. (Disney Pearl, disneypearl.com) KENNY WHITE Comfort in the Static Songsmith and keyboard journeyman Kenny White melds humor and humility on his latest release. With pianoand organ-laden tracks that hint at everyone from Duke Ellington to the Rolling Stones, and lyrics that both beckon (“of all the close calls/I can say love scared you the most”) and bite (“I don’t think she owns a hardcover book”), White once again proves that there’s contentment in our contradictions. Highly recommended. (Wildflower Records, wildflowerrecords.com) DAVID COOK Pathway David Cook has nabbed coveted keyboard gigs across the sonic stratosphere, from pop poster children like ’N Sync and Natasha Bedingfield to nu-jazz artists such as Lizz Wright and Donny McCaslin. Here he takes center stage with a jazz trio record that’s sure to surprise. Amidst effervescent ensemble interplay, Cook slyly shifts from funky, metric flair on his own “The Thing” to Gospel-tinged grace, as on Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday.” (Brooklyn Jazz Underground, davidcookmusic.com)
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How did you get started in music? I started playing when I was three, after asking my parents for piano lessons. Up to that point, I’d been mimicking everything I heard. Now I live in south Florida, and I love to play concerts around the world. I hope I can encourage others to play the piano or do anything they want. What has been your worst gig nightmare so far? I haven’t had one. I love to perform, and even if something goes wrong, like when all the electricity went out once, the acoustic piano still works! How important is traditional music training? It’s important, but you have to remember to enjoy what you do and always have fun! Read sheet music or play by ear? Both. Role technology plays in your music: I use Roland keyboards for my digital needs and Baldwin grand pianos for my concerts. Know a young keyboard wiz in your area? Let us know, and he or she might be our next MAJORminor!
NEW GEAR by Stephen Fortner
APHEX CHANNEL Concept: Full channel strip with tube mic pr eamp. Big deal: Compressor auto-adjusts settings based on program complexity and overall levels. Includes logic-assisted gate, de-esser, Big Bottom bass extender, Aphex’s trademark Aural Exciter, and parametric midrange EQ. We think: This is a lot of of features for the money, and you’ll hear a big difference in sound quality stepping up to this compared with strips in the $200–$500 r ange.
List: $1,299 | Approx. street: $1,000 | aphex.com
KORG PA-3x Concept: Korg’s new top-end arranger keyboard. Big deal: Improved sounds and effects, including some from the SV-1 Stage Vintage piano. Internal sound ROM and sample RAM of 256MB each. Color touch screen has motorized tilt on 76-key model. Optional PA-AS speaker piggybacks on keyboard with no cables or extra support. TC-Helicon vocal effects and Waves mastering effects. We think: Think Korg threw the arranger game? Think again. This thing is a beast.
61 keys list: $4,600 | Approx. street: $3,700 | 76 keys list: $5,000 | Approx. street: $4,000 | korg.com/pa3x
VIENNA DIMENSION DIMENSION BRASS BRASS Concept: Virtual brass instrument. Big deal: Seamless transitions from unison to divisi to harmony playing, depending on what your fingers are doing. Tons of articulation and humanizing options. We think: Quite possibly the most realistic and playable virtu vi rtu al bra ss we’ ve eve r heard he ard . Fin d our NAM M vid eo at keyboardmag.com/article/126283 and hear for yourself.
Direct or retail: $745 | vsl.co.at | ilio.com
ALESIS QX49 Concept: Full-featured MIDI controller at a budget price. Big deal: Eight knobs and eight faders. Four MPC-style velocity-sensitive drum pads. Transport controls. Five-pin MIDI as well as USB. Bus powered. Includes Ableton Live Lite. We think: How do those Volkswagen ads go? “Niiice” for the price of “nice.”
List: $199.99 | Approx street: $160 | alesis.com
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Special Preview
Roland Jupiter-80
At the NAMM show, the good folks from Roland sidled up to me and whispered, “We have something big to show you, but it’s in our hotel room and you can’t tell anyone.” My first thought was, “I’d “ I’d get pepper sprayed for using that line, but you guys pull it off.” My second was, “Hell, yeah!” Well, now I can tell you, so for all who’ve been wondering when and if Roland will bring back the Jupiter, feast your eyes. I played it, and better, heard it played by Roland’s Scott Tibbs and Lady Gaga’s keyboardist Brockett Parsons. Concept: It’s a live performance synth—there’s an arpeggiator, arpeggi ator, but no sequencing. Instead, the focus is on quick splits and layers, but much more importantly, on acoustic and electric sounds with realism that makes absolutely no compromises. Technology: You may be familiar with Roland’s term “SuperNatural.” It refers to a combination of exhaustive sampling (and depending on the type of sound, modeling) and realtime analysis of your playing. The goal is for you to think and play like a keyboardist but sound like the instrument you’re emulating, without any of the usual telltales that you’re playing (for example) brass, strings, or woodwinds on a synth. synth. This isn’t a new idea, as orchestral sample libraries have long made use of controllerswitched articulations. SuperNatural, though, really aims to make all the decisions about what samples are played (or what the model does) better and faster than you and I can. Where other Roland keyboards have used SuperNatural for featured sounds, every sound sound in the Jupiter-80 is SuperNatural.
Does it work? The demo units weren’t yet fully populated with sounds, but those that I did get to play—including pianos, saxes, guitars, strings, and synths—were simply uncanny. The upright bass was the most realistic I’ve ever heard. What really made the sounds pop was the finger connection. It was almost as if all I had to do to get a proper slur, trill, use of divisi, divisi, or other musical statement was simply to think about think about what I wanted and just let my hands go. Roland calls this “behavior modeling.” I call it artificial intelligence taking over the world. But does it do B-3s? Yes, as hinted at by the dedicated rotary buttons. The production model will contain Roland’s latest generation of clonewheel modeling with full drawbar control onscreen. What’s in in a name? Ask Roland founder Mr. Kakehashi, and he’ll tell you that “Jupiter” has always referred to Roland’s most forward-thinking synths. In fact, it wasn’t until now that he felt ready to put this name on an instrument again. For that very reason, “Jupiter” also has indelible analog connotations for many of us. Since the Jupiter-80 can make all those synth sounds wonderfully, but is short on the knob factor, I think it’d be a great move for Roland to make a new PG “programmer” to park atop that nice big space on the right. Then, they’d truly have an instrument that pleases everybody. Price TBD | rolandconnec rolandconnect.com t.com
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LESSONS SPACE IS THE PLA P LACE CE
by Matt Rollings
My approach to the Hammond organ is all about �nding space. I look for ways to play fewer notes, hopefully to greater effect. It’s amazing how, in the context of a song, the sound of a chord can actually get bigger when when a note or two is removed. Here are four examples of ways I use space on the B-3. Except for Example 3, which uses the organ’s C3 chorus setting, vibrato and harmonic percussion are turned off throughout.
1. Long Tones and Moving Lines This illustrates my frequent use of long tones and moving lines underneath them. The use of half-steps resolving to thirds and then fourths is a great tension and release vehicle. E
E
E /G
A
E /G
C min
B
B
A
B
(L.H.)
E
3
3
2. Heavenly Held Notes Here’s a Gospel-flavored passage that demonstrates just how much musical mileage can be gotten out of a few held notes. G min/B
A 2/C
A 2/C
B /D
F min7
A
E /G
A
3 B 7
E
6
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B
LESSONS
4. Counter-Melodies On the B-3, I often hold notes while creating counter-melodies beneath them. Now, I’m playing two-note parts that consist of held notes and moving lines. Once again, this “push/pull” effect creates tension and release. B
B /C
F
B /F
F
F /E
D min7
F /A
G min 3
B
F /B
C sus F /A
B
F /A
C
D min
B
F //A A
G min
4 3
C sus
C
F
8
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®
LESSONS
Sam Yahel’s
HAMMOND CONCEPTS
by Sam Yahel
In my touring and recording work on the Hammond organ, I’ve developed certain musical concepts that have served me well. Here are some tips and tricks for working with bass, melody, and harmony on the mighty Hammond B-3. As always, practice these slowly and deliberately, working them through all 12 keys—and don’t forget to keep practicing!
1. Organ Bass Lines I’ve always been fascinated by bass players, especially funky ones like James Jamerson, Rocco Prestia, and Jaco Pastorius. In Ex. 1, I pay homage to their styles, accentuating the off-beats in the bass line. I play this kind of vamp on the title track of my album Truth and Beauty .
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Audio examples recorded by Sam Yahel.
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Keyboard solo live with Joshua Redman.
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LESSONS
2. Triad Tricks: Chords Here’s a staple of organ playing: triads. I play over a ii-V-I progression progression in E b major, using mostly inversions of the IV (Ab ) and IV (Bb ) major triad chords. When playing triads on the organ, I often open them up in the “drop 2” position, which means that I take a “normal” triad and drop the middle note down an octave. Even though I’m using triads, the top note is still the melody. This allows for quick and convincing harmonization harmonization of a simple melodic phrase.
3. Triad Tricks: Solo Lines This time, we apply the triad approach to solo lines. I start each of the two phrases arepggiating an F minor triad, and finish them both with a scale-based melodic line at the end. I play two phrases back to back, and although they both start the same way, each ends slightly differently. This sets up a “call and answer” scenario that the listener can key into. F min7
B 7
F min7
B 7
E maj7
E maj7
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4. Harmony This neat harmonization trick works on most simple pentatonic melodies. The idea is to think of the chords in two sections. The top part plays the pentatonic melody, and the bottom two voices simply move down chromatically. I suggest playing the top voice with the right hand and the bottom two voices with the left hand. Notice how at the very end, I wrap up the harmony by playing a iv-I progression.
Sam Yahel has
toured and recorded with Norah Jones, Joshua Redman, Redman, and Madeleine Peyroux. His albums albums Truth and Beauty and Hometown Hometown are available now, and continue to win praise from listeners and critics alike. Find out more at samyahel.com. Jon Regen
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LESSONS 3 Steps To
ROCK ORGA OR GAN N CRED CRE D
by Scott Healy
As a working keyboardist, sooner or later you’ll be called to strut your stuff on the mighty Hammond B-3. Blues, R&B, and rock are where much of the Hammond organ’s history began, so here’s a quick B-3 primer on getting your drawbars, Leslie (or rotary simulation), and expression pedal into high gear.
1. Spin Class One note can go a long way on an organ, but you have to make it fit. In Ex. 1, we play a note starting with the expression pedal at minimum, then increase the pedal slowly. Use your ear to judge how the sound mixes with the other instruments in your band or track. In this example, we’re setting up movement to the IV chord, chord, so as your single note starts to build, pop your Leslie or rotary switch to fast, and depress the pedal. The spin of the Leslie adds volume and intensity to the crescendo. When you hit the IV , use a simple voicing and slide off with Fast Rock G7 C7 a quick glissando. This is an leslie slow leslie fast effective way to add musical drama without overplaying. (creep in)
2. Peppered Pads Ex. 2 is all
about laying down pads with motion and dynamics, while also staying out of the way. This works well on country or rock ballads. Hold down a note with your fifth f inger and play a simple figure under it, alternating between the second and third scale degrees. This technique can often be more effective than playing all three chord notes together, as it imparts clarity. Remember to vary the dynamics using the expression pedal, and be sure to play legato. Next, try holding two chord notes—start a crescendo and flip the Leslie to fast, then immediately flip it back to slow. Now, back off the pedal as the speaker slows down. This will make the sustained pads sparkle A2 Slow leslie slow and the chord overtones pop. 5
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G2 leslie fast
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leslie slow
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3. High Octave Octave Octane The high octave on a Hammond really cuts through a mix, especially when the Leslie is spinning fast. Use this move for funky riffs and rhythmic figures. In Ex. 3, we have a two-bar build into a funky E7 groove. Play the A7 chord (here with no third), and pull the expression pedal back suddenly for a sforzando effect. Then, speed up the Leslie and swell up to full volume. Next, play the groovy E7 riff, accentuating the articulation as long-short (or doo-dat ). ). Remember—an organ isn’t velocity-sensitive, so you need to telegraph your articulation. Finally, slow down the Leslie and play a blues riff over the E7 chord. R&B/Funk leslie slow
A7
E7#9
leslie fast
leslie slow
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subito 5 4
5 leslie slow
2-3
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5 2-3 1
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Audio examples recorded by Scott Healy.
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Yamaha All Access 360 interview with Scott.
05.2011
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Scott Healy is known for his on-air keyboard work with Conan O’Brien. Find out more at bluedogmusic.com. Jon Regen
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COVER STORY
by Bill Simmon
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Looking at Grace Potter, you’d never know that such enormous sound could come out of such a
tiny frame—a frame that packs the same ferocious vocal punch as the likes of Janis J anis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, and Heart’s Ann Wilson. As lead singer and songwriter for her band, the Nocturnals, her powerful voice forms the forefront of her music. However, she’s unique among rock’s femmes fatales in not just playing the living daylights out of Hammond B-3, but putting it front and center onstage. The Nocturnals’ star is rising fast, fas t, from winning a Jammy award in 2006 for “Best New Groove,” to routinely selling out large venues, to appearing on almost all the late-night talk shows, to the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, to recording a yet-to-be-released album with legendary producer T Bone Burnett. Potter took some time out before a sold-out show in her native Vermont to talk about her influences, her beloved B-3, songwriting, accidental onstage electrocutions, and that one time she manhandled Robert Plant. Was there a particular moment when a light bulb went on about keyboards—when keyboards—whe n you knew you wanted to play them? I’d say Dr. John was a light bulb for piano. As a kid wanting to become a pianist, it was really about whether it was going to be classical or this rock ’n’ roll thing, and I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know what rock ’n’ roll piano was. I just knew that I loved it. Even listening to a Black Crowes record—I think it was Southern Harmony and Musical Companion that Companion that had some great keyboards on it—it was a great recording and it was a great sound for the keyboard, from the B-3 to the piano. I don’t think there was one particular moment. If there was anything, it was probably a Billy Preston solo on a Rolling Stones tune that really got me into the B-3. But I was sold on the piano when I was six years old. What B-3 players influenced you? When the idea of the band first started, it was because we were playing a Little Feat record, so Billy Payne from Little Feat inspired me a lot. And Billy Preston. He’s more of a soloist, and I think he created a sound that I really loved and tried to emulate, but of course couldn’t. So I just did it my way with that inspiration behind me. Also, Aretha Franklin is a killer keyboardist, and every once in a while I caught some photos of her playing a B-3. It sort of gets lost in the mix, because she’s such an incredible vocalist that people sort of forget what a great keyboard player she is. Do you use other keyboards on tour, such s uch as a Wurly or a Rhodes? I used to tour with a Rhodes, and then it got thrashed. Then I toured with a Wurlitzer, and that got thrashed even faster because Wurlitzers
just can’t live on the road—they road—they just can’t deal. Then we had a Clav that sat on top of the B-3, but my problem was that I was turning into that geek with 65 keyboards, and it was turning into this sort of wall, and I couldn’t do my whole frontwoman thing behind the wall of keyboards. So I figured, if I pared it down and had one keyboard that could create a lot of the noises that a Wurlitzer, a Rhodes, and a Clav make . . . with percussion and with the right understanding of the intonation, you can make a B-3 sound like a lot of different instruments. So I decided I’d rather learn how to manipulate the B-3 and have fewer pieces of gear onstage than have it all and play each thing once a night. That’s how it used to be, you know? I’d bring out all these keyboards, and I’m playing, like, two notes on each one. So until the day comes when I’m just the keyboardist in a band—and I don’t sing and I don’t get out front and dance and shake it and play guitar and do my other stuff—I think I’ll just stick to the B-3. Tell us about your B-3 rig, then. I can geek out for hours about this. I’ve got this cherry 1961 Hammond B-3 that I procured from my organ guy, Keith, who I’ve been working with for almost ten years now. Keith is sort of my maestro. He rigged this thing specifically to have that grinding kind of Traffic vibe to it. So these are intentionally very old, dirty, cranky tubes, which need to be fussed with quite a bit. We really go for the growl with this organ. Obviously I’m a drawbar girl, so if I want to create a cleaner sound I can get one, but at the core of this organ, it’s meant m eant for nothing but growling. Do you have any drawbar settings you’d like to share? I always just manipulate the drawbars [in real time]. At the beginning
Continued
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N O S N I B L A N A I
of a song like “Oasis,” from the new record [ Grace Potter and the Nocturnals], Nocturnals ], I’ve got my percussion on, and it’s barely anything. It’s got that sort of tropical-reggae vibe to it. But over the course of a song, if you watch my hand, I’m moving the drawbars the whole time. I’m standing up, so to work the volume pedal is a lot harder than me just using my hand for most of the volume control. Can you talk about your Leslie? It says, “Custom for Grace Potter.” It is is custom. custom. It’s just very loud, and again, we wanted this grinding low end that really creates texture underneath. We’ve got two guitarists in the band plus a bass player, so what I’m doing is essentially a pad—almost a choir of sound. I don’t do organ solos per se, except maybe once or twice a show, so this thing is really set up for bottom end. It’s a really nice crunchy, gritty sound. Actually right now, as you can see, it’s not turned all the way up, and that’s potentially because you’re here, ’cause they didn’t want to blow your ears out. [Laughs [Laughs.] .] But by the end of the night, if we’re going for a big “Hey Jude” kind of ending, I’ll go right for the top end. I’ve had this [Leslie] for about two years, maybe three. Before that I had a model 770 that was mean, and it was loud, but it was just a little too clean for me, so we went smaller. The 122 just breaks up sooner, and I like that. What draws you to the B-3 aesthetically? Great question. When I first started playing keyboards it was always the piano, and I think there were so many singer-songwriters—especially female ones—at the piano that it felt really clichéd, and a nd it just didn’t feel like something that I wanted to be. I loved keyboards, and I’d sort of mastered the craft of writing a song on the keyboards, so I didn’t want to lose that, but actually it was the Nocturnals who pointed out that I’m a loud, powerful singer, and I should probably have a keyboard that complements that—you know, something that can back me up and actually put its money where my mouth mouth is on the keys. The B-3 is such an underappreciated instrument live. In the studio, it’s everywhere—I mean everybody has them, but it’s hard to find a good B-3 band—a band that can actually bring it out. 3 0
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You’ve got to lug them around. You gotta lug ’em around, I’ll tell ya! We have a crew now, but when push comes to shove, and it’s a question of needing one more hand, or of making the space, I’m always there to help lift this B-3. It’s worth it. When you write songs, is it lyrics or music that comes first? Are you playing keyboards or guitar? I get ideas from the keyboards especially. There’s this one thing I’ve been working on. [She [She begins playing.] playing.] I don’t know what it is yet. That’s the thing where if the idea comes, and then maybe something gets sung over it, we’ll be at sound check, and that will just be “the idea.” Then the band kind of pulls in around it. Sometimes a song comes from it. That was the most recent one we did at a sound check, where I was just playing that, and the band comes in around it, and the melody comes after that. But usually as a songwriter, I start with a lyric, which is weird. Most people start with music, and then write the lyrics over the top. That’s rarer for me. It’s harder for me to write a line of music and then feel like I can come up with a lyric that’s worth singing over it because usually the music is just better. [ Laughs Laughs.] .] So I try to get a great lyric first as a crutch. But I haven’t really hit on a formula. Whatever comes, comes. Songwriting is like having a baby crying in the other room. It doesn’t matter what time of night it is or when it hits you or how it hits you, or whether it’s music or lyrics. You just have to get up and go to it. Does the writing happen more on the road or at home? I wish I had an answer for that. At home, I do this Nick Cave thing where I treat it like a day at work, where I’ll sit at the piano, and it’s like going to the office. Nick Cave does that. He actually has an office space where he goes to write songs. He sits in his cubicle, and he has to treat it like a day job. Otherwise he won’t get anything done. So when I’m home I try to do that, but really, like I said, songs come at you. Songs don’t respect what you’re doing in the middle of the day. They’ve got no respect for f or that. They want to to get written! So I’ve been getting better at just letting the song come when its going to come and not trying to control the environment in which I’m writing. If I’m on the back of the bus and the engine’s running and people are screaming . . . listen, we’re loud when we are on the bus. So Benny and Scott can be fighting and having crazy times in the galley with the bunks, and then someone else is trying to sleep, and I’m in the back with a keyboard and a guitar, just going nuts. That’s when you’ve got to do it. It comes when it comes. Have you had any gear-related nightmares? Oh God, I have a million. I’ve been electrocuted a million times. That’s an “oh shit” moment, when you’re in front of an audience of 20,000 people at a music festival getting electrocuted, which seems to always happen. The bigger the crowd and the weirder the setting of the festival, the more likely you are to get electrocuted. So I’ve been electrocuted . . . 35 times? And it’s not just like you get it here [shows her fingers]; fingers]; it’s like, I’ll be holding my knee here because sometimes I’ll have to change the Leslie switch, and if I don’t have a foot switch, I do it with my knee a lot. Then I’ll have my hand here [ points points to the keys], keys], I’ll have my face on the microphone, and I’ll have a finger on the drawbars. And everything’s electrified. Everything . I’ve managed to make it look like I’m not getting shocked. I’ve watched video of myself, and I know I’m getting electrocuted but hopefully, the crowd doesn’t.
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COVER STORY Can you talk about your big-break moment? People ask me that a lot. There is no big-break moment. A lot of musicians get into this business waiting for their “a-ha!” moment, when they think, “This is happening. I’m really making it now.” I thought I was making it when I was at a bar in front of 15 people. There’s lots of little stepping-stones to a career. There’s so much more effort effor t that has to go into it than I can even explain. Sometimes those huge moments pass by so quickly that you don’t even realize that they happened. Playing The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
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was a big milestone, and just last week we played The Late Show with David Letterman. Letterman. Probably one of the bigger things was this past December [2010], when we played for the troops for VH1. It was this special called VH1 Divas Salute the Troops. Troops . It was alongside some huge pop stars, and I was the only rocker rocke r chick on the bill, with the band. So that was a really great opportunity for us, and it really garnered quite a bit more exposure than we’d ever had. But again, success is only defined by how much you’re enjoying yourself, and I’ve been enjoying myself all along.
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If you could assemble a dream band of famous musicians you’ve never played with before, who would they be? Oh, shit! I feel bad because the Nocturnals are my dream band. John Bonham would be on drums. I think I’d have Billy Preston on the organ, because . . . he’s Billy Preston. I’ll be out front doing my thing. No one I’ve played with before? Okay, that’s that’s tricky. John Stirratt from Wilco will play bass. Yeah, because John Stirratt and Bonham would really lock in nice— that’d be good. So, we’ll have Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead playing the crazy pedals and guitar. Aretha Franklin and I would sing a duet together. Yeah. That’s how it would be. What was touring with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings like? Oh my God, those guys are great. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings have been sort of in our trajectory mainly because we keep passing each other at festivals. We’ve been digging on each other for years, and it was only this last year that we actually had a chance to get on the road together. It was perfect. It was a nice conglomeration of rock ’n’ roll and soul because they rock—they really do. The DapKings are very soul-oriented, and they’re very well trained and traditional in their approach to soul music. Then when they let it rip, they really go there, go there, and they’re not afraid. But my favorite thing that they do is the dancing. Because every single one of the horn guys, everybody out onstage, nobody stops—they’re dancing the whole time. And Sharon—she’s such a spitfire. She’s amazing. She’s an inspiration to me. What’s the status of the record you recorded with T Bone Burnett? It’s in purgatory, but that project is certainly one of my favorite experiences of my life. Working with T Bone is like a master class, you know? You can’t learn the things that he does. You can’t even watch him and know what he’s doing. He’s a magician. All I can say is that I absorbed so much experience from him, and I take it with me. I can’t wait for that record to hit, because it’s going to be really special. The world hasn’t seen the last of Grace Potter and T Bone Burnett collaborations if I have anything to do with it. [Laughs [ Laughs.] .] Knowing what you know now, what are the top three dos and don’ts that you’d tell a younger, greener version of yourself? I’ll do the don’ts first. Don’t get drunk backstage the first night that you’re playing with a band that you’re really excited to meet, and then go talk to them. Don’t do that.
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It’s the sound.
COVER STORY Is there a story there? Yeah. [Laughs. [Laughs.]] Don’t manhandle Robert Plant when you meet him. I don’t know what part of his body I touched, but I just couldn’t stop touching him, so that was bad. I just turned into a groupie . What are you gonna do when you meet Robert Plant? You gotta just . . . yeah, anyway. Don’t lose hope. Don’t spend all your own money. You’ve got to pool it together a little bit. You’ll only end up resenting the people you’re playing with if you lose your shirt, so you have to find a way to support yourself and continue doing what you love without completely destroying yourself. Do find Do find a great booking agent. You have to play. You can’t just sit in a room wondering, “When is my day going to come?” You can’t just post your videos on MySpace and expect someone to discover you and change your life. You have to go out and change your own life. So playing shows—playing live—is a major “do.” You just have to. Do pace Do pace yourself. Set your expectations at a reasonable level, so if you are at a good point in your career, even if it’s not where you want to end up, you can enjoy it. Every step of the way is magic, and you have to appreciate what you’re doing because there are so many people in the audience who don’t get to do what you do. You have to value that and have respect for this amazing thing called music.
S E N A L L H P E S O J
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Full video interview and look at Grace’s B-3!
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Official website.
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ARTISTS 10 Questions with
GREGG ALLM AL LMAN AN
by Elliot Stephen Cohen
After 14 years since his last solo release, legendary blues singer and keyboardist Gregg Allman is back with perhaps his finest solo work ever, Low Country Blues, Blues, which debuted at number 5 on the Billboard Top 200 chart. Allman recorded with producer T Bone Burnett, who has revitalized the mojo of artists such as Elton John, Leon Russell, El vis Costello, John Mellencamp, and Robert Plant. Allman says he loves the way Burnett gave the album a “spooky, swampy feeling.” Allman sat down with Keyboard to to discuss this latest album, his influences, and his Hammond B-3. D I N
O
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Low Country Blues Blues is your first recording without your longtime producer and friend, Tom Dowd, who passed away in 2002. How did you decide to work with T Bone Burnett? He knew Tommy real well, and that was important to me. After I met T Bone, we talked about a lot of different recording techniques, and I realized that his techniques matched up with mine. What really cinched things was that when I originally met him in Memphis, I said, “What are you doing here?” He said, “Well, I’m here with two builders, and we’re measuring the old Sun Records studio board-for-board. [Sun [ Sun Records is the recording birthplace of Elvis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis —Ed.] —Ed.] We’re going to build one exactly like it on this land I own.” I thought, “Man, that’s gotta be the hippest thing I’ve ever heard!” The band that T Bone Burnett put together included your old friend Dr. John. What was it like playing with him again? He’s playing better now than he ever has. Back when we recorded my album Playin’ Up a Storm in Storm in 1976, we were both kind of seeing each other through the fog, but we’ve both been clean and sober for a long time now. It was such a pleasure seeing him again. The communication between members of the whole band was just off the charts. I mean, I’d packed enough clothes for three weeks. I didn’t even stay two. We just knocked [the songs] down. What was the first exposure you and your brother Duane had to the blues? We used to listen to this radio station called WLAC, which broadcasted from Gallatin, Tennessee. There was this DJ called “Big John R.” He’d play Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Lightnin’ Hopkins, all of ’em. That was really our first taste of the blues. We listened to that show religiously. Of course, I’d already been exposed to R&B people like Bobby Bland, Little Milton, Ray Charles, and Otis Redding. When we started playing clubs–doing the “chitlin’ circuit”– we remembered all of that music. Was your first keyboard a Hammond B-3? No. Originally I had one of those old Wurlitzer pianos. I only knew a few songs, so after we started playing clubs, I would get off of the guitar and sit down at the keyboard. People used to come up to me and say, “What’s the matter with your regular keyboard player? Is he out sick or something?” [Laughs. [Laughs.]] What originally attracted you to the sound of the B-3? Well, on that same radio station, this DJ named Herman Grizzard would take over the late show, which was a jazz show, and that’s where I first heard Jimmy Smith. At the time I didn’t even know what instrument he was playing. All I knew was that it sho’ sounded sounded good. When you finally saw Jimmy Smith perform live, what did you think? Oh, his left hand was kickin’ ass. He had some, like, three-note chords that just blew me away, and his foot–whoa! foot– whoa! I I mean, he could’ve just brought his foot and a drummer. He was smokin’ on on those bass pedals. I got to meet him after the show, and he was real nice. When did you begin playing the B-3? I had gone out to California, and I had a friend who was with the group Sanford and Townsend, who’d had a hit record called “Smoke From a Extended interview with Gregg Allman.
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Gregg talks about Low Counrty Blues on Video
GREGG’S GEAR “Gregg plays the Hammond B-3 at a very clean volume, seeking clarity and emotion of tone rather than overdrive,” explains his longtime keyboard tech Daved Kohls. “He prefers to paint sonic colors through the unique voicings inherent in the B-3.” According to Kohls, Allman always uses an original B-3 console on the road and in the studio– never any other model, and never a modified or cut-down version. “Gregg has owned many B-3s over the years and currently has at least four that we take on the road: two with the Allman Brothers Band and two with the Gregg Allman and Friends band,” Kohls says. “They’re all well-maintained stock 1960s models, one of each pair being a primary instrument and the other being for backup. We carry a separate Leslie 122 for each.” With the Allman Brothers Band shows, Gregg plays piano onstage, using a Kurzweil SP2X. He uses only three presets: grand and upright acoustic pianos, and a Wurly. The Kurzweil is run in stereo through Avalon U5 direct boxes. “Gregg usually has the Leslie at slow speed,” Kohls says, “occasionally switching to fast briefly for effect only, not as a fullblown sound preference.”
Distant Fire.” When he’d go out on the road, he’d just play piano because he couldn’t take his Hammond along. So I asked him if I could watch his place while he was away, and the first time I sat behind the Hammond, I was just fascinated by it. I wrote “Dreams” and “It’s Not My Cross To Bear” on it. When did you get your own B-3? Just around the time that the Brothers were first starting, [bassist Berry] Oakley had this old Victorian home, and one day I was blindfolded and led into this big room. When they took the blindfold off, I was amazed to see this brand new 1969 B-3 with Leslie 122RV cabinets. There were about eight rolled joints on the keyboard, and they said, “Have fun. We’ll see you in about a week or so.” That day is still one of the happiest days of my life. While they were gone, I wrote “Whipping Post” and most of the songs that wound up on the first Allman Brothers album. I was really on a roll. At Fillmore East is still considered one of the greatest live rock albums ever. What are your memories of that gig? It was the closing of the Fillmore East, which was a temple of rock ’n’ roll, run by Uncle Bill [legendary promoter Bill Graham]. I mean, how could you not play play good that night? It was a very prestigious gig, and of course at one time we were going back and forth between the East and West coasts, playing both Fillmores. Robert Johnson sang that there was a hell-hound on his trail that he couldn’t shake. Is your talent for the blues rooted in a similar feeling? On the contrary, I feel like I’ve had many, many really good guardian angels because, man, I could’ve bought death many times. Thank God I’ve managed to elude it so far. 05.2011
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SOLUTIONS Dance
THE ’90S HOUSE ORGAN In the March issue, we recreated classic house pianos using modern soft synths. This time around, we’ll take a deeper look at the house organ bass sound that launched countless ’90s hits, like Robin S.’ “Show Me Love” and Nightcrawlers’ “Push the Feeling On.” Let’s start with the basics. The source of that bass sound was the legendary Korg M1, which is now available as a downloadable soft synth from the Korg website for the astonishingly low price of $49. So if you want to skip right to the real thing, stop reading here, buy the synth, and fire up patch number 17, “Organ2.” If you’re feeling adventurous, here are a few ways to get the sound using different synths. Francis Preve
The Real Deal Thanks to Jack Hotop, Korg’s resident Merlin of sound design, here’s the inside scoop: If you have a hardware or software clonewheel—or, clonewheel—or, gasp, a real Hammond organ—then the basic sound is created as follows: The 16' drawbar set to 8, the 5-1/3' drawbar set to 6 or 7, and the 2-2/3' drawbar set to 2 or 3, with third harmonic percussion toggled to normal (not soft) volume and fast decay. From there, slap on a chorus using medium rate and depth and a 50/50 wet/dry mix. After the chorus, add a hall reverb with a two- or three-second decay and a 20/80 wet/dry mix. Feel free to tinker with these settings until the sound sits correctly in your mix.
Apple GarageBand
Ableton Live
If you’re using a Mac, you can fire up GarageBand’s Tonewheel Organ instrument and use the following settings: the Drawbars slider set fully to the left in the “More” position, percussion level fully to the right (“3rd”), percussion time at 50 percent, click at 10 percent, and a tiny bit of distortion. After that, add chorus and reverb as described above.
Ableton’s Operator can deliver a serviceable approximation of the sound by setting the algorithm to all carriers, then turning oscillator 1’s coarse tuning to 1 at 0dB (max), oscillator 3’s coarse tuning to 3 at –7.3 dB, and oscillator 4’s coarse tuning to 6 at –1.9dB. In this example, we have oscillator 2’s coarse tuning set at 2 with that oscillator turned off, as its use is optional. Slap the chorus and reverb on and you’re ready to roll.
w
Original audio examples.
Download the Korg M1 plug-in.
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Work. The Wasted Time Tim e Between Bet ween Gigs. G igs.
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SOLUTIONS How It Works
TALKBOX 101 Love ’em or hate ’em, vocals that are processed or Auto-Tuned until it sounds like a machine is doing the singing are a staple of funk, hip-hop, and electronic dance music. Before the vocoder was in widespread use, and long before Auto-Tune existed, artists like Roger Troutman and Peter Frampton were getting this sound using a synth or guitar with a talkbox. Like the vocoder, the talkbox talkbox is often mistaken mistaken for an effect that processes your voice. On the contrary, it lets your voice be the processor. Stephen Fortner
In Theory Any sound boils down to two things: the frequency (pitch) and amplitude (volume) of its fundamental tone and of each harmonic. Then there’s the way each of these elements changes over time—their envelopes, by a familiar name. That so much changes at once is what makes human speech so tricky to imitate. Vocoders tackle this by using a number of envelope-following bandpass filters, which your voice, the “modulator” signal, controls. The “carrier” signal (e.g., your synth) gets filtered and comes out with a harmonics-over-time profile that resembles your voice. The more filters a vocoder has to divide up the frequency spectrum, the closer the resemblance. A talkbox achieves a similar result using far less electronic plumbing. See, you are a synthesizer. Your vocal cords are the oscillators, and your mouth is an incredibly flexible filter. The talkbox lets you use that filter on external audio. In fact, it’s just a tiny powered speaker that amplifies your synth. The Rocktron Banshee, for example, uses a compression driver similar to many tweeters, but with fuller range. A vinyl tube fits snugly into the speaker recess. Put the other end in your mouth, play your synth, mouth some words, and you get syllables imposed on the sound. All the action happens in the acoustic domain between your choppers.
In Practice Master talkboxer P-Thugg of Chromeo once told me, “The talkbox is very physical and easier to personalize [than a vocoder]. . . . If you don’t know how to use it, it’ll sound Given how you shape the sound of the vibrating bar with your mouth, the venerable jaw harp is really the world’s first talkbox.
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The Rocktron Banshee 2 is the gold standard of talkboxes.
like a wah-wah at best, but when you practice pronunciation, you create another voice out of your own.” Here are some ways to find that voice. Use a mic. Unlike a vocoder or an audio effect, a talkbox doesn’t take your voice as an audio input. For practice, you can hear the result without a mic, but for performance or recording, you’ll need one to capture the results. Simple synth sounds are best. Start with patches that are fairly bright and have an immediate attack. A monophonic lead with no portamento gets that Auto-Tuned “T-Pain” sound. Resist the urge to sing or speak. Playing your synth is what provides the musical pitch. With a vocoder, you say words into the mic to give the filters a control signal to work with. With a talkbox, the shape of your mouth does all the work. Speaking only adds your dry voice to the mix. Exaggerate vowels. Pretend you’re mouthing at someone who just learned to read lips but who also has bad eyesight. Long “o” and “u” sounds are easy, but long “e” sounds stretched the corners of my mouth into a Jack Skellington grin. Consonants help. An exception to the “don’t speak” rule is that saying an initial consonant into the mic often helps the synth’s “voice” sound like the desired word. That’s because the human ear identifies sounds mainly by their attacks.
Stevie Wonder sings “Close to You” on the talkbox.
Zapp and Roger Troutman’s Tr outman’s “More Bouce to the Ounce.”
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Nail That First Chord
6 6 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 9 5 8 9 . g n i t n i r p f o e
m i t e h t t a t c e r r o c s i n i e r e h d e n i a t n o c n o i t a m r o f n i e h T . e c i t o n t u o h t i w e g n a h c o t t c e j b u s e r a e c n a r a e p p a d n a s n o i t a c fi i c e p s l a c i n h c e T . d t L P I p u o r G C I S U M 1 1 0 2 ©
BEHRINGER ULTRATONE K-Series Keyboard/PA Amps ULTRATONE keyboard/PA amps are designed to put you where you belong—center stage. Leading the 4-pack is the K3000FX with 300 Watts of ultra-clean and massive power. With 4 channels, a mic input, Feedback Detection and 100 studio-grade effects, the K 3000FX is ready for anything. Its super-tight 15" woofer and high-resolution tweeter bring out every subtle nuance of your playing and give you the power to rock the crowd. ULTRATONE – The lights come up, all eyes are on you—and you nail it!
K3000FX
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SOLUTIONS Producers’ Roundtable
MIXDOWN HYGIENE This month, we asked our panel of top pop and electronica producers how they keep their mixes clean and punchy. Got a question for our experts? Email me at
[email protected]. Francis Preve
Morgan Page (morgan-page.com) Put a highpass filter set at around 30Hz on your tracks to get rid of that rumble. When you cut, don’t forget to compensate for the change in level. Brick-wall limiters are your friend; use them for quick percussive transients. Avoid digital clipping whenever possible, except in the front end of limiting plug-ins.
Jon Margulies (heatercore.net) It’s all about cleaning up the low end. It’s counter-intuitive, but if you want the bass in your tracks to sound huge, you need to focus on making it really clean. Filter out overlapping frequencies in layered bass lines and kicks, and remove low end from anything that doesn’t really need it. A lot of problems with clarity in the mids and dullness in the highs actually come from muddy low end eating up your headroom and overwhelming the mix.
Richard Dinsdale (facebook.com/richarddinsdale1) When I have all the sounds I need to progress to the mixdown stage, I’ll have a look at the percussion (hi-hats, snares, and so on) and see if there are any troublesome frequencies in the drum hits. Using Logic’s Channel EQ, I’ll strip low frequencies out that shouldn’t be there, letting the bass line and kick drum breathe.
Z E I N A L N I V R E H S
Dan Kurtz (Dragonette | dragonette.com) Put less crap in your track. It’s really hard to do when there are so many fun, cool sounds out there, and increasingly, when you can get all the horsepower you need from your computer to create endless tracks.
Boom Jinx (boomjinx.com) First and foremost, it’s important to train yourself to remove any frequencies that don’t have to be there, even if you can’t hear them. When you’re doing this to individual sounds and instruments, it may not seem like a big deal, but when you do this consistently throughout, it can have a big impact on your mix. A lot of samples and instruments output low frequencies that serve no useful purpose in the grand scheme. I’ve pulled up drum samples with low-frequency rumble that does really nasty things when played back on a sub or big system. The same can be said for synthesizers. On the opposite side of the scale, some instruments will have frequencies that extend too high, giving them that digital brittleness. Unless you’re layering, it also doesn’t hurt to consciously avoid using sounds and instruments that overlap each other in terms of frequencies. You have three “d imensions” to work with to give everything its own place in the mix: the frequency spectrum, amplitude, and stereo width. Last but not least, compressors are invaluable tools to even out dynamics and inconsistencies in amplitude but after years of producing, I’ve finally joined the ranks of those who wholeheartedly claim that less is more.
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Studiologic NUMA ORGAN If you’re bringing a new hardware drawbar organ to market, it had better be good. “Clonewheels”—keyboards that emulate a Hammond B-3 organ and rotating Leslie speaker—have improved so much over the past decade that questions like, “Do I want other sounds or just organ?” and “Will I stand and play rock or sit and play jazz?” are now more relevant to choosing one than “Which one sounds more real?” This is precisely why if Joey DeFrancesco’s name is printed on the panel of a new clone, we get very interested. Since Joey could endorse any manufacturer he pleases and they’d do somersaults, why did he pick Studiologic, a name more associated with MIDI controllers? As we found out, it’s because, in addition to being extremely portable and easy to use, the Numa Organ sounds absolutely awesome. Overview and Controls Essentially, the Numa Organ is a distillation of the DLQ KeyB (find out more at keyborgan.com), the organ Joey D. plays on tour, into a more affordable, portable package. The tech is modeling, top to bottom, and you get nearly full polyphony. By that, I mean that no actual playing—even ugly, dense playing—hit any note ceiling, but laying both forearms across the keyboard robbed a few voices. The “half-moon” pitch and rotary wheels and big, clicky vibrato/ chorus knob evoke the controls on a real B-3. Backlit buttons give ata-glance feedback on vibrato/chorus (you can toggle it for upper and 44
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lower/pedal parts separately), split status, transposition, harmonic percussion, and whether the drawbars are controlling the upper, lower, or pedal part. With the exception of saving presets, this is a manual instrument— no edit button, no LCD. So, read the manual to avoid head-scratchers like “How do I set the split point?” (You hold the Split On/Off button until it flashes, then hit the top key you want for the lower part.) Speaking of splits, a thoughtful Octave Up button for the lower part lets you play mid-register without having to adjust the drawbars. A pedal-to-lower coupler is for kicking bass in the left hand. Drawbars You don’t want drawbars to be too clicky. In fact, transplanting in later-model drawbars is a popular modification for early Hammonds whose drawbars moved quite stiffly. However, you’re probably used to feeling that little bit of click that even “smooth” drawbars have. In a departure from the norm, the Numa Organ’s drawbars are completely smooth, like faders on a mixer, and each is anchored in a slot to reduce side-to-side wiggle. As on some older Hammonds, pipe footages aren’t printed on the drawbar caps or anywhere on the panel. For the pedal part, the two brown drawbars control the 16' and 8' pitches, and are the only ones active. When I turned the volume up, I heard subtle zipper noise if I moved drawbars rapidly, but not if I
did it slowly. You get similar noise on vintage Hammonds and most other clonewheels, and it’s not musically intrusive. Under the hood, each drawbar is sweeping the full MIDI volume range from 0 to 127, not chopping it into eight steps.
Keyboard and Preset Keys The Numa Organ uses Fatar’s latest-generation waterfall action. For quietness and being easy on the hands when playing palm smears or thumb glisses, I’d rate it neck-and-neck with my Hammond XK-3C and a bit better than the Nord C2 reviewed on page 48. The Numa Organ’s keyboard transmits velocity for playing external sounds, but doesn’t sense aftertouch. You switch presets like on a real B-3, using the bottom octave of reverse-color keys. To save what you’ve done, hold the Preset button until it flashes, then hit any preset key (except for B, which reverts to manual settings). What gets stored? Drawbar settings, plus everything to do with rotary simulation, vibrato/chorus, harmonic percussion, and splits. What’s global and doesn’t get stored? Transposition, reverb, overdrive, key click, leakage, bass, treble, and master volume. Part of the fun of having preset keys instead of buttons or a dial to change sounds is that you can “play” them while holding notes with the other hand. Creating dramatic drawbar jumps in this way isn’t an everyday technique, but more than a few jazzers use it. On the Numa
Organ, sometimes the held notes would persist and jump to the new preset’s saved drawbar settings (the desired effect), but sometimes the notes simply cut off. I tried to find some pattern, such as the order in which I pressed preset keys, but the behavior seems random. My XK3C, by contrast, gets it right all the time. This seems like something Studiologic could easily fix in a firmware update, and it won’t otherwise affect your playing in the slightest.
Sound With readers roasting gear-review clichés on page 11, I hate to say the Numa Organ is “fat, warm, and detailed,” but it is. And huge. And open. And transparent. And lots of other good things that overwhelm my writer’s aversion to beginning a sentence with “and.” This is a tonewheel-only axe—no pipe or transistor organs, no electric pianos, Clavs, or strings. The drawbar tones themselves are neither too clean nor too dirty, but just right. Proper harmonic percussion shouldn’t sound like an analog oscillator with a quick decay, but like a spoon tapping on a half-full Coke bottle (the green glass kind you can still get in Mexico), and the Numa gets this right. Key click, that static pop a real B-3 owes to the live AC current under its key contacts, is nice and spitty, and can go loud —though —though I’d like to hear more randomness from one note to the next. You can also trash up the sound with the Leakage knob, 05.2011
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GEAR which simulates the background cacophony of a beat-up tonewheel generator. Overdrive sounds tube-like up to about two o’clock, but gets a bit fizzy if you turn the knob higher. Overall, the Numa Organ sounds like a cared-for B-3, skewing towards the clean, breathy tone preferred by gospel and j azz organists. You can dial in enough grit and grind for that Traffic and Santanawith-Gregg-Rolie sound, but for unbridled Deep Purple grunge, I’d ditch the internal overdrive in favor of outboard tube distortion.
Simulated and Real Rotary There are two standards for Leslie simulation. The tougher one asks, “Will I believe a real Leslie is in the room?” The slightly easier one is how close the simulation comes to a stereo recording (or live P.A. amplification) of a properly miked Leslie. I used to make hay out of this distinction in order to give clonewheels the benefit of the doubt. With the Numa Organ, I don’t have to. It easily surpasses the “miked” standard and comes closer to a perfect “in the room” illusion than any clonewheel I’ve yet played. Reflected sound uncannily seemed to be circling behind my studio monitors, then behind my head, and even the sense of the treble and bass rotors turning in opposite directions was pronounced. The Neo Ventilator (reviewed May ’10), a $450 rotary pedal, may be a little better, but only a little. An 11-pin connector lets you play through modern Leslie or Motion Sound speakers and control their speed with the wheel or a sustain pedal. Got a six-pin Leslie? Run the separate 1/4" mono out into your preamp pedal. Like on my XK-3C, the Numa’s highest frequencies spoke clearly through a real Leslie; on my Nord Electro 2 and Roland VK-7 and VK-8, the top two drawbars tend to get lost inside the big wooden box. Back to the simulation, the only thing we can fault is that you can’t adjust anything like ramp-up and down times, rotor speeds, or rotor balance—you get what you get. What you get, though, is so good that you’d have to be really hardcore to lug even the most portable rotary cabinet to a gig and deal with miking it. More hardcore than Joey D., at least, who ran straight out of his KeyB (which has essentially the same rotary effect) into the mixing board when I heard him and David Sanborn blow the roof off Yoshi’s. Had I not known about this in advance, my ears would have insisted that a Leslie or two was miked offstage.
For sequencing the Numa from your DAW, upper, lower, and pedal parts send and receive MIDI on channels 1, 2, and 3, respectively. This also lets you use a MIDI controller as a second manual, or plug in a MIDI pedalboard. To connect both at the same time, you either need a MIDI merge box, or a MIDI input on either your pedalboard
First look at the Numa Organ at NAM M 2011. 2011.
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Conclusions The Numa Organ is the best sounding single-manual clone I’ve yet played. (Fair warning: We haven’t yet obtained the new Hammond SK1 previewed on page 52, but its existence suggests that Hammond isn’t taking this lying down.) Tonally, the Numa is the perfect balance of hi-fi detail, big but natural stereo spread, and balls when you want ’em. The rotary simulation simply kills. If you’re a sonic customizer, you may care about the lack of things like alternate tonewheel sets and programmable rotary parameters. If, though, you want to fill that space above your stage piano with something that makes the initiated ask “Where’d you hide the Leslie?” and the rest of the audience ask for one more song, then there’s a new clone in town—and it means business.
Speci�cations Huge, warm, utterly realistic drawbar and tonewheel sound. Spot-on harmonic percussion and vibrato/chorus. Fabulous rotary s imulation. Ultra-portable. Rotary simulation parameters are not adjustable. Sometimes, changing presets doesn’t cut off held notes, but sometimes it does.
MIDI Control
Joey DeFrancesco shows us the Numa’s big brother, the KeyB.
or second manual so you can connect things serially. It would be better to make the Thru port a second input for pedals, as some other clones do. In my studio, Logic Pro initially couldn’t see MIDI from the Numa Organ, even though it showed up in my Mac’s Audio/MIDI Setup window the instant I plugged in a USB cable. I then discovered that the Dynamic Touch button on the far right is really a MIDI mode selector: If it’s dark, you’re playing internal sounds only. If it’s lit, you’re playing external sounds only. If it’s flashing, you’re playing both. In external-only mode, hitting the Preset button so that it’s unlit turns the reverse-color keys into an extra octave of notes—nice! In other modes, it disengages the preset keys, which safeguards against changing sounds if you overshoot low C with with an energetic downward wipe. I was pleasantly surprised at the dynamics I could get out of Synthogy Ivory pianos on the Numa’s waterfall keyboard. For controlling synths, the rotary wheel does modulation and the drawbars are on CC numbers 12 through 20. Being drawbars, pulling them towards you always makes the onscreen value go up.
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CONCEPT Single-manual drawbar drawbar organ with rotary effect and basic MIDI controller functions. SYNTHESIS TYPE Modeling. MULTITIMBRAL PARTS Upper, lower, and pedal. WEIGHT 21.5 lbs.
List: $2,499 Approx. street: $2,000 studiologic.net
GEAR
Clavia NORD NOR D C2 C2 For some organ players, less than two manuals just won’t do. You know who you are, and you know that even portable two-manual clones are usually bulky. A lighter but messier route is to go modular, with a single-manual clone, a controller as your lower keyboard, and MIDI pedals if you kick bass. When Clavia released the Nord C1 (reviewed May ’07), they had a hunch that a lot of musicians would jump at an integrated two-manual two-manual organ that’s as easy to carry, and in the same price league, as the average synth workstation. Tat hunch proved correct, and now, the C2 ups the sound quality, features, and tweakability even more. Overview and Controls If you’re unfamiliar with Nords, your �rst encounter with the C2 will feel kind of like driving a Prius for the �rst time—or since Clavia is Swedish, maybe like trying to �nd a Saab’s ignition (it’s on the �oor between the seats). Once you’re hugging the corners in either of those cars, your initial confusion quickly gives way to appreciation of the elegant logic of the driver interface. Te same goes for Nord keyboards. Some organ purists will always feel alienated by the LED strips and 48
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“drawbuttons” Nord uses in lieu of real drawbars, but you might be surprised at who doesn’t . Booker . Jones had my C2 for a couple of months, and reported, “Tose “ Tose buttons really aren’t aren’t that hard to get used to. Given how good this organ sounds overall, and how easy it is for me to carry, they’re more than an acceptable trade-off.” Rather than rewrite the instruction manual (it’s only 24 pages and you can download it yourself), I’ll showcase a few examples of the thought that Clavia obviously put into this control panel. As on the C1, you get separate drawbutton sets for the upper, lower, and pedal parts. Above the LED strips for the upper and lower sections are three Drawbar Preset buttons. hese change drawbar settings while leaving everything else about the current program—such as rotary speed, amp model, and effects—unchanged. Best of all, switching between them doesn’t cut off any held notes. (Changing programs does, programs does, however.) If you hold the adjacent Preview button and hit a Drawbar Preset, the LED strips will change to reflect the new sound, but the s ound itself won’t won’t change until you hit the Preset tutti when you just button again. So there’s no danger of getting tutti wanted f lutey lutey..
Nord’s optional PedalKeys (approx. $2,300 street price) includes a beefy expression pedal and plugs into a dedicated MIDI input on the C2.
You can decide which of the C2’s organ models go to the main stereo outs, and which go to the dedicated 11-pin and 1/4" rotary outs. Among other options, this lets you play B-3 sounds through a real Leslie but pipe organ through a stereo P.A.
Up to 126 Program slots store the entire state o the C2 (except or system settings and certain sonic details that are global—more on this later), and in addition, two “Live Mode” buttons remember every control move you made beore changing programs, even i you turn the power off.
Keyboard While I didn’t have a C1 on hand or comparison, the C2’s keyboard seems smoother or palm wipes than my recollection o the C1. I still have my Electro 2, however, and the C2’s keyboard eels much better in all respects. It’s It’s also lighting-ast or solos and “machine gun” gun” trills, owing to Clavia putting the note-on point airly high in the keys’ travel. Te closeness o the two manuals also acilitates the classical technique o “bridging” both manuals with one hand. Since the nine contacts under each key o a real B-3 hit at slightly different times when you press a key, there’s an almost subliminal randomness to when the various harmonics that make up a note kick in. Tis is probably the the hardest hardest thing or a digital instrument to model, but Clavia has made some progress here. You won’t hear drawbars come in one by one i you press a key slowly, as that would require duplicating the original mechanics—which the Hammond New B-3 does or a �ve-�gure price. But when I listened careully, especially at
ull drawbars, I could indeed discern some randomness in what I’ll call the Nord’s “harmonic attack pro�le.” Nice work!
Drawbar Organ and Rotary Remember the �rst time you played an Electro, and how blown away you were by the B-3 sound and rotary simulation? It made those “drawbuttons” almost entirely orgivable, didn’t it? Te Electro 2 improved improv ed on things, particularly par ticularly with a less phasey rotary effect. Ten the dual-manual C1 took a big leap leap orward in terms o s ounding more organic and less boxy. Te organ section o the Electro 3 (reviewed Apr. ’09) is based on the C1, but “breathes” more reely to my ears. Te C2 is better still. In particular, the drawbar tones are more evenly balanced in relation to one another. I reviewed both the Electro 2 (afer which I was impressed enough to buy my review unit) and the C1 in Keyboard , and in both cases, I elt there was a bit too much rolloff o the higher requencies when the rotary simulation was on. Tis was even more noticeable through a real Leslie. In this regard, the C2 ares much better. Tere’s not much else to say about the drawbars, vibrato/chorus, or harmonic percussion—all o it sounds like everything you want and nothing you don’t. As o OS version 1.2, a new rotary speaker model (“A” in the Sound menu) has more o the round, woody character that I like to hear rom a 05.2011
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GEAR Leslie. Option “B” has the rock ’n’ roll scream you want when soloing in the high octaves. Fast speed with high drawbars is where a mediocre rotary effect will begin to sound two-dimensional and squirrely, but when so tested, the C2 admirably preserved the sense o sound moving through real space. Tere’s no question that this is an excellent Leslie simulation, and will easily convince anyone listening to your live show or recorded mix that you used the real thing. I can’t deny, though, that the rotary effect in the Studiologic Numa Numa Organ (see page 44) is a bit
better still, but we’re arguing over increments above the 90th percentile i we belabor this. Te C2’s Sound menu offers a lot o tweaking that the Numa doesn’t. You can set separate speeds and acceleration times or the virtual treble and bass rotors. Te options or all these are just “low,” “normal,” and “high,” but that’s what you get on a vintage Leslie—three sizes o motor pulley to wrap the drive belts around. Except or normal (medium) acceleration on the treble horn, everything set at the lowest speed sounded most like the real thing to my ears. You get a similar three levels or all o
the ollowing: decay times or ast and slow harmonic percussion, volumes or normal and sof percussion, and key click. Four tonewheel sets range rom clean sine waves to a mildly leaky generator, but neither leakage nor key click can be dialed to the rude extremes the Numa Organ allows. You can also decide whether turning on harmonic percussion mutes the 1' drawbar (as it does on a real B-3) or not. Anyone accustomed to how clonewheels “think” would expect sonic details like the above to be saved per program, and that i anything were global, it’d be effects-related—whether the EQ or reverb is turned on, or example. On the C2, it’s the opposite. Pick a tonewheel set, key click level, or anything else in the Sound menu, and that’s what every B-3 program in the C2 will use. Settings or the tap delay, overdrive, are e saved per program, however. EQ, and reverb ar
Transistor and Pipe Organs Te Vox and Far�sa models are much the same as on the C1, and they’re a blast, with ull control over the stop tabs on a Far�sa or the drawbars on a Vox. I compared the C2 to the real Vox Super Continental that resides in the lobby o San Francisco’s Crescent Hotel. Te emulation sounded perect. Clavia have really outdone themselves with the pipe organ, which is new to the C2. Te samples are clean, interacting with each other without any bad artiacts. Te drawbuttons become stops or various �ute and reed pipes, and the rotary and percussion buttons act as couplers that let you layer one manual’s part with another’s, or double the principal pipe o your registration with a duplicate o itsel an octave higher or lower. Tis makes or some positively huge low end—especially i you bring the pedal part up to the lower manual—that you really need a subwooer to appreciate. urn up the reverb, and you’re the Phantom o the Opera. All levity aside, this makes the C2 a clonewheel that a classical organist can take seriously.. I spent much more time playing the seriously C2’s pipe organ than I thought I would, and it inspired me to reboot my long-neglected Bach studies. One more thing: You can put the Vox and Far�sa organs, but not the pipe organ, through the rotary effect i you want.
Effects he C2’s overdrive interacts convincingly with the various amp simulations that you
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access by pressing the Speaker Model button. he Rotary model breaks up the way a real Leslie does, with just the right harmonics and a bit of compression kicking in as you turn the knob up. Only in the top 25 percent or so of the knob’s travel do things begin to sound buzzy and un-tube-like, and with the “win” and “JC” (my ears say that refers to a Marshall, not a Roland Jazz Chorus) models cranked way up, your lows totally overwhelm your highs— but that’s what the real amps do. I only wish that you could pump the non-rotary amp models through the rotating effect. A tap delay provides guilty psychedelic fun—“Fly Like an Eagle,” anyone? You can decide whether it affects both manuals, or just the upper one. Tough there’s no way to sync the delay to MIDI clock, a ap empo button suffi su ffices for getting g etting in step with your DAW DAW or bandmates. band mates. Last but not least, the three-band EQ is handy for tuning to different rooms, and the reverb types sound lush and not at all brittle.
Conclusions Te Nord C2 is to dual-manual clones as Studiologic’s Numa Organ is to single-manual ones. Which is to say, it’s the current king of sound and portability. Where the Numa excels at being a no-frills, stand-upand-shred B-3 machine, the C2’s variety of organ and amp models, deeper editing options, and effects make it �t a wider range of musical applications. It can grind, scream, and spin with the best of ’em, but it can do a lot more. If you need two manuals and extreme portability, the C2 marks the return of the all-purpose organ—the real organist’s organ—for the modern gigging era.
Speci�cations Excellent tonewheel and rotary simulation. New pipe organ sounds gorgeous and adds versatility. Realistic tube amp models and overdrive. Great feeling, lightning-fast action. No heavier than the average 61-key workstation. No MIDI MI DI over USB. U SB. Parameters in Sound menu, including key click, rotary details, and percussion decay times, are global and not savable per preset. CONCEPT Dual-manual drawbar organ with integrated rotary effect plus Vox, Farfisa, and pipe organ. SYNTHESIS TYPE Modeling; pipe organ is sampled. sampled. MUL MU LTITIM TITIMBRA BRAL L PARTS PARTS Upper, lower, and pedal. WEIGHT 34 lbs.
List: $3,599 Approx. street: $3,000 nordkeyboards.com
Original audio examples.
Booker T reviews the Nord C2!
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GEAR Breaking News from Musikmesse!
HAMMOND SK1 As the reviews in this issue show, clonewheels are getting ever more light and compact, and the company that started it all isn’t sitting on the sidelines. Though demo units weren’t available in time for a full review in this issue, we’d be remiss not to give you a peek at the Hammond SK1, which debuted at the 2011 Musikmesse gear show in Frankfurt, Germany.
“Think of an XK-3C in a 15-pound package,” says Hammond’s Scott May—who also happens to play B-3 in the Ides of March, “only with extra sounds like acoustic and electric pianos, Clavs, pipe and combo organs, and even a vintage string machine. It also has our latestgeneration and best Leslie simulator.” Obviously, we can’t wait to get our hands on one. Hammond is also making a dualmanual version, the SK2. Prices are yet to be set, but we’d guess the SK1 will street for somewhere around the $1,500 mark. Find out more at hammondorganco.com.
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Arturia ORIGI OR IGIN N KEYBOARD KEYBOARD The Arturia Origin is a grand technical achievement, a true virtual modular synth cast in hardware. Its sound quality and deep programmability bowled us over when we reviewed the desktop module in June 2009. With its flip-up control panel, the Origin Keyboard aims to be a more integrated and inspiring instrument.
Overview This review focuses on new features of the OS (version 1.3.23 as of this writing) and on things only the keyboard version can do. If you’re new to the Origin, read our original review first at keyboardmag.com/article/96559. keyboardmag.com/article/96559. Drawing on the modeling developed in Arturia’s soft synths, the Origin emulates the distinct characters of the oscillators, filters, and other components of four famous analog synths: the ARP 2600, Minimoog, Roland Jupiter-8, and Yamaha CS-80. There are also generic oscillators (and other modules) that sound great but use less DSP, and wavetable oscillators to provide digital waveforms. You can freely arrange and connect these elements in an onscreen rack, creating frankensynths that would otherwise require a lot of
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by Stephen Fortner
time, money, and soldering. You can tweak the results (and the factory sounds) with a geek’s garden of knobs during your performance. Rounding it all out is a three-track, 32-step sequencer. Axel Hartmann, who’s pretty much the Ferdinand Porsche of the synth world, penned the physical design. Beyond being aesthetically striking, the substantial flip-up panel of the Origin Keyboard puts all the controls right in your face. You don’t have to look down at them or bend your neck, even slightly. This makes prolonged work much less fatiguing. I do wish Arturia had included a panel latch for transport. If you carry the unit with the bottom against your hip and the key lips pointing up, the panel tends to flip open unless you press a forearm against it, which is somewhat awkward. Also, you can’t put this sexy beast on the bottom of a two-tier stand, but who would want to?
Keyboard and Aftertouch The action is quiet and fast, with textured black keys and a good amount of weight for a synth action. Octave shift buttons, which the desktop version lacks, are a welcome addition here.
Seeing stars? You can now mark favorite patches, which then show up in a dedicated dedicated list.
Almost nothing these days has true polyphonic aftertouch (the Infinite Response Vax-77 is a notable exception), but Arturia has added significant expressiveness with “duophonic” aftertouch, a feature exclusive to the Origin Keyboard. At the global level, you can decide whether only the highest, lowest, or last note played is affected when you apply pressure to any key. I found last-note priority to be the most musically useful, as I could build chords a note at a time, adding aftertouch (or not) to each note as I went along. A perennial complaint about aftertouch is that as you press down, the effect on the sound goes from nothing to full blast too quickly. The Origin Keyboard solves this with adjustable response. Using the joystick, you drag three breakpoints around a graph to create a curve— the X-axis is physical pressure and the Y-axis spans MIDI values 0 to 127. Velocity response is set in the same manner, and it has five breakpoints. Like the duophonic aftertouch, these nifty graphs are only in the Origin Keyboard, not in any OS version of the desktop synth.
Ribbon Controller The 14-inch strip on the Origin Keyboard can do a lot more than bend the pitch. On a new Performance page dedicated to physical controllers (all settings here can be saved per patch), you can set the ribbon to modulate any eligible parameter in the synth, or choose “self-trigger” to play notes
You can also set ranges for splits and layers by pressing keys right on the keyboard.
on the ribbon. Its range is adjustable up to four octaves in each direction, but you can’t set asymmetrical up and down ranges. The same goes for the pitch wheel, which bends up to two octaves. Does nobody but me want to play subtle whole-step bends up but octave dive-bombs down? At either end, there’s a space three eighths of an inch wide between where the ribbon stops sensing touch and where you physically run out of ribbon. The active area does have a white line around it, but if you’re not looking right at this, it’s easy to overshoot the mark and hear your note snap back to its unaffected state. Fortunately, the ribbon settings include four “return to zero” speeds: instant, fast, slow, or none. (These are fixed times and unrelated to the Origin’s tempo sync features, which are otherwise quite extensive.) “None” is a latch mode, so your finger can slide off either end while the pitch stays put. Still, I’d prefer a simple latch button next to the ribbon. To put my nitpicking in perspective, most synths give you either no ribbon at all or a much shorter one, so Arturia’s glass is 90 percent full here.
Jupiter-8 Template Template On both the keyboard and desktop Origins, OS version 1.3 adds a readymade template for Roland’s most famous polysynth. To be clear, templates don’t add any new modules; they just select certain ones and patch them together for you, saving a lot of futzing with the rack when all you want is 05.2011
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GEAR an instant classic synth. Everything about the Jupiter-8 is recreated, down to the unison and poly assign modes, arpeggiator, and of course, the highpass filter that helped distinguish the Jupiter’s sound from the Moogs, Prophets, and Oberheims of its day. As with the Minimoog template before it, it’s a snap to initialize a new Jupiter patch, and to search the patch browser for Jupiter-based sounds. Arturia absolutely nailed the lush sonic character that causes the real Jupiter-8 to be hunted to extinction on the used market. It’s just beautiful.
Tonewheel Organ Since OS version 1.1, the Origin has included a serviceable drawbar model that you can drop into its virtual rack and patch just like any other module. In addition to the usual nine drawbars, you get octave, coarse, and fine frequency control over the drawbar group as a whole. Key click is adjustable. You can select second or third harmonic percussion, adjust the volume, and choose slow or fast decay. The “ping” triggers correctly (it won’t re-trigger if any notes are held down), but its sound waxes synthetic— more ’90s house than ’60s soul. The drawbar tones themselves are quite good, though, and you can assign the eight screenside knobs to control individual drawbars. Nothing in the tonewheel module emulates Hammond’s signature vibrato/chorus. Likewise, Leslie simulation is handled in the effects section, and the effect itself is basic, with just a slow/fast speed toggle and bass/treble rotor balance knob. All in all, this won’t send any dedicated clonewheels running, but it’s not meant to. It’s more about the sound design possibilities. Think of it this way: If you had a huge modular synth and could drop an entire tonewheel generator from a B-3 into one of the rack spaces, your main objective probably isn’t perfect organ sound for Santana covers.
knob to adjust whatever has the focus. The knobs and joystick now transmit MIDI, making it far easier to record and automate the Origin with your DAW. Not only that, but you can save and recall complete MIDI maps for all the Origin’s controls on a new “Live” page. The planned audio over USB hasn’t yet materialized, though. Another addition in OS 1.3 is a sample-and-hold module for producing those burbling, “computer brain” type modulations. DSP muscle, and hence polyphony, is the same as on the first Origin. That’s a theoretical 32 voices, but you will feel the ceiling with a complex patch or a multi. I got three more notes out of the factory patch “Opening” by turning off the effects, indicating that the Origin’s DSP is allocated fluidly. Though we now view polyphony the way 1950s Americans viewed gasoline, many of the Origin’s sounds are so huge that you don’t need a ton of voices. You should also remember that the Origin really is a modular synth, and to get 32 or even eight multi-oscillator voices out of a real analog modular, you’re talking a roomful of gear, thousands of dollars, and probably a divorce.
Conclusions Nothing you can prop on a keyboard stand offers the monstrous sound and absolute patching flexibility of this latest Origin. Even in software, its peers are few: Arturia’s own V Collection for the analog emulations, Spectrasonics Omnisphere for the huge sound, and Native Instruments Reaktor for the modular approach. Just don’t forget the price of the computer to run them when considering the Origin’s value. To key or not to key? That is the question. Currently, the difference in street price between the Origin Keyboard and its desktop forerunner is a cool grand. That buys you 61 very nice keys, the duophonic aftertouch, the ribbon, the graphical velocity and aftertouch curves, and a work of modern sculpture that would fit in at the Guggenheim. If you have a keyboard controller you like, the desktop is certainly the better value. If you want a stand-alone instrument that makes you the most envied synth-slingin’ mofo in six counties, get the keyboard.
Speci�cations The best sounding hardware virtual analog synth out there. Oscillators and filters really sound like the classic synths they’re modeled on. Striking design. Unique duophonic aftertouch. Tons of inspiring factory sounds.
Further Improvements In his June 2009 review of the desktop Origin, Jim Aikin noted that editing was a bit fiddly due to the main data dial being used both to scroll around the screen and to change settings. A big improvement here is that when the knob is in “value” mode, as indicated by a red outline around whatever you’re changing, the cursor buttons now remain active. Plus, if you press the knob once, it stays in value mode, letting you cursor that red outline around the screen while twirling the
Timeline of Origin updates.
Audio examples.
Tutorial videos.
KEYBOARDM AG.COM
CONCEPT Virtual modular synth with emulations of famous-name oscillators, filters, and other components, plus multitrack step sequencer. modeling, and SYNTHESIS TYPE Analog modeling, tonewheel modeling, wavetable. POLYPHONY 32 voices maximum. MULTITIMBRAL PARTS 4. WEIGHT 40 lbs.
List: $3,499 Approx. street: $3,000
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Polyphony ceiling still feels a tad low. Can be awkward to carry. Still easy to load a new patch while editing and lose your work.
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Yamaha’s MSR-Series powered loudspeakers, to be exact…
MSR100
MSR100, MSR250, and and MSR400. Subtle, professional professional
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8" long-throw woofer / 1" titanium-diaphragm titanium-diaphragm compression compression driver driver 100W Class H amplifi amplifier er 2 input input mixer mixer with two-ba two-band nd EQ Light, polypropylene polypropylene enclosure…unde enclosure…underr 24 lbs.
are shared by all. See each model’s model’s specifics detailed to the right. So, regardless of how critical your application, application, there’s there’s definitely an MSR model to more than meet the challenge. Stop by your favorite Yamaha Live Sound dealer for a wallet-openingdemonstration.
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10" long-throw woofer / 1" titanium-dome compression compression driver 250W Class Class D amplifi amplifier er (max power) power) Dual inputs, each each with its own own two-band EQ and and level controls controls Light, polypropylene polypropylene enclosure…unde enclosure…underr 30 lbs.
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12" long-throw woofer woofer / 1.75" high-frequency high-frequency horn driver 400W Class AB bi-amplified system (max (max power) Single Singl e input channel channel with with two-band two-band EQ Light, polypropylene polypropylene enclosure…unde enclosure…underr 50 lbs.
MSR800W • 15" 800W (max (max power) subwoofer subwoofer can be added added to any of the above • For mo more re details details,, go to www.4wrd.it/msrkey
©2011 Yamaha Yamaha Corporation of America. All rights reserved. usa.yamaha.com
GEAR
Native Instruments GEOR GE DUKE GEORGE SOUL TREASUR TREASURES ES Some of us love the idea of diving into a stack of vinyl from years past, in search of funky riffs and vintage sounds ripe for sampling, slicing, and adding to our projects. We love the idea, but many of us haven’t touched a vinyl album in years. Fear not. Native Instruments presents a powerful new bag of tricks in the form of George Duke Soul Treasures, a software instrument comprised of a plethora of phrases performed by the keyboard legend himself, on his favorite vintage gear. More than just a bank of loops, it’s truly an instrument, built to inspire. Let’s find out how. The instrument has 503 total presets, each containing a sample of George Duke playing a unique phrase one on of his keyboards: acoustic piano, Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos, and Clavinet. Each phrase is represented by a waveform display, and visually divided into its various “slices” such as chord changes, melodic bits, and so on. Specific MIDI notes are assigned to trigger the various slices of a given phrase. What this means is that you can either play the whole phrase through, or rearrange the parts of the phrase to create an entirely new phrase. You can also cause any slice of a phrase to play in reverse when triggered, not to mention define how each slice will respond to a MIDI note: loop, one-shot, polyphonic, or monophonic. Essentially, what we have here is a realtime remixing and reconstructing environment, in which you can attain phrases ranging from retro and realistic to more hypnotic, Daft Punk-esque cutting and repetition—all with the trademark George Duke funk. Each preset has an arbitrary name that includes the tempo at which it was recorded. I would have preferred more practical information still, like the phrase’s original key, as opposed to song title-like names such as “Listen Close.” That said, the “pick a card, any card” approach to presets made things fun and unpredictable. It’s indicative of the instrument’s focus: This is more of an instrument that helps you generate new ideas based on Mr. Duke’s phrases, rather than a quick stock library of material to plug in to your existing tracks—though that is of course possible.
When it comes time to put phrases into your own work, it’s important to understand that you’re dealing with MIDI tracks, not audio. Unlike Apple Jam Packs or other loop libraries you’d dragand-drop into an audio track, Soul Treasures’ phrases are always “played” like on any software synth. You can drag a phrase into a MIDI track, which simply pastes the proper MIDI notes into the proper spots. The phrases can be time-stretched to different MIDI tempos, but you’ll get the best feel and groove when you stick close to the original tempos. At first, I was skeptical: “Everybody who gets Soul Treasures will have the same stuff,” I reasoned, reasoned , “so how useful could it be?” It took only minutes to dispel any doubts. George Duke Soul Treasures far exceeded my expectations of just how musical, original, and inspired you can get with ready-made phrases. It doesn’t hurt that they were played by George Duke himself, but there truly is plenty of room for your own “collaboration” with the maestro.
Speci�cations Fantastic and useable musical phrases with trademark George Duke sound and feel. Inspiring interface turns loops into a genuine musical instrument. Preset names give no specifics other than tempo.
Funk, R&B, and soul MIDI MID I loops played by George Duke. FORMATS Included Kontakt 4 Player runs standalone or as AU, RTAS, or VST plug-in. Also works as library for full Kontakt soft sampler. CONCEPT
Direct: $1 $119 19 Audio examples.
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PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
Special Advertising Section
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Featuring the same award-winning piano engine found in Ivory II Grand Pianos, the Ivory II Italian Grand boasts a spectacular 10 foot piano with incredible tonal range. Enhanced with their exclusive Harmonic Resonance Modeling, the largest of Synthogy’s virtual pianos, (wth up to 18 velocity layers) rewards your touch with a sublime wash of color and nuance you must play to believe.
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To advertise in this section contact: Contessa Abono at 650-238-0296 or
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CLASSIFIEDS Categories Pianos & Organs Talent and Employement Sounds, Sequences, & Software Education & Tutorial
Education & Tutorial
Mixing and Mastering
Learn Piano Tuning, Repairing, And Regulating, Regulating, 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 Technology, Technology, 61592 Orion Dr., Bend, OR 97702. (541) 382-5411.
Acoustic Products & Services Mixing and Mastering Studio Furnishings
Learn jazz piano on the internet at www.JazzPianoOnline.com www.JazzPi anoOnline.com
Buying or selling instruments through our Classified Ads offers you conve nience, a big marketp lace, and a wide range of instruments and prices. However, buying mail-order does have its drawbacks, too. Keyboard Magazine suggests Magazine suggests the following following guidelines guidelines to help the buyer an d the seller in these transactions: 1) Get a written description of the instrument, which should include the se rial nu mber. 2 ) Get front an d back photos of the the instrument. instrument. 3) Get a written 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.
Pianos & Organs www.b3hammond.com. Buy/Sell MINT www.b3hammond.com. Hammonds, Leslies. Wordwide sales. (701) 400-2933, b3hammond.com@bis.
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05.2011
KEYBOARDMAG.COM
65
TIME MACHINE OF GODS AND SYNTHS
by Stephen Fortner
In Roman myth, Jupiter and Juno were king and queen of the gods, Zeus and Hera being the ancient Greek equivalents. Among now-mythic synths, both names are now synonymous with “retro” and “analog.” Unlike today, though, keyboardists in the heyday of analog weren’t concerned with how analog any any synth sounded. It was about how closely synths could emulate real instruments, plus their ability to create as-yet-unimagined sounds. With Jupiter ascendant again (preview the new Jupiter-80 on page 17), let’s revisit what these names really meant—and still do.
Roland’s Vince LaDuca says, “The Jupiter-8 was built to create the most realistic acoustic sounds possible using the latest technology Roland had developed at the time of its release. Of course, artists took to the Jupiter and were excited about the nonacoustic possibilities as well. The new Jupiter-80 follows in the footsteps of the Jupiter-8 as Roland originally intended: It aims to create the most realistic and expressive acoustic sounds possible.”
The Junos brought as much of the Jupiter sound as possible to a lower price—one that weekend warriors and teenagers with summer jobs could realistically afford. Whereas the Jupiter-8 listed for $5,295 (in 1981 dollars!) a Juno-6 could be had under $1,500. You gave up the Jupiter’s second oscillator and split keyboard, but the Juno6 compensated with a chorus and suboscillator that fattened things up nicely. Later, the Juno-60 would add patch memory. “Juno” plays much the same role today: If a Fantom-G, V-Synth GT, or Jupiter-80 is a pipe dream, you can grab a Juno-Gi—a 128-voice ROM-based synth with an eight-track audio recorder—for an approachable thousand bucks. Download full scans of original Jupiter-8 and Juno-6 brochures.
More Online! keyboardmag.com/may2011 66
KEYBOARDMAG.CO M
05.2011
UltraNova is a ‘ Nova’ series analogue-modeling synthesizer with a powerful effects processor. It is a single-part synth taking the legendary Supernova II synth engine as a starting point and packing it with the latest technology including wavetable synthesis, a software editor and a revolutionary new touch-sense performance mode. www.novationmusic.com/ultranova
For more information: (310) 322-5500
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