To gear or not to gear...

[Deceit]

I'm gonna fly to Ottawa, Canada in August - I have two uncles there and they'll grant me a work there for a month - a month and a week. I'll see how much I can get - I hope enough to have some money to spend.
My actual gear is Triton Le 76 and Alesis QS 6.1, but I need both to buy a new mixer (mine must be returned to the school) and to refine my sound choices.
I'd like a "pro" setup, with "pro" sounds...actually my biggest problem is the piano. Piano patches are fucking horrible on both synths...
I'd like to be capable of KevMo's sound choices on I&W and Awake (no "just buy his setup!" answers thanks :P)...
Now, what should I do? Sell my Triton Le 76? I can't sell the Alesis here in Italy because it has both american power supply & converter and an annoying crumbled edge I fixed with some black-painted wood...
Should I point to any module, even if the velocity on Le is cheesy and I'd never *ever* use it as a controller? I thought more than once that selling Triton Le and buying the Rack version could be a good choice...but then I have no more 76 keys...
Now I'm thinking about these "vintage" synths - I think I can afford one after a month of work with no extra expenses:
JV1080
JD800
Any comment - help - ideas are appreciated!
Deceit.

[Over The Edge]

You can get that classic Kev Mo sound with both of those.
You get my approval for sure on both. :wink:



FL
www.franklucas.net

[Over The Edge]

You can get that classic Kev Mo sound with both of those.
You get my approval for sure on both. :wink:



FL
www.franklucas.net

[lighthouse]

How about the Nord electro, heard it has very cool hammond and electric pianos. But also remember: for pianos nothing like Roland
Good luck

[Scrap]

You're speaking as if the Le is the worst keyboard in the world.

Can't find anything within the presets that sounds like Kevin sounds? Learn how to program them. Kevin's sounds are simple to program and sound great, for the most part.

Not happy with the piano? The Le has an optional sampler for under $200. Buy that and a copy of a piano sample library. Boom. Instant new piano. Irish Acts makes a great sample/program CD for the Tritons called Sample Assault (http://www.irishacts.com/sample-assault/index.html). It's a good place to start if you're looking for fresh, inspiring sounds to work with.

If the Le keys bother you that much (they are kinda spongy), then consider a budget/affordable 88-key controller from Studiologic.

You can save a lot more money and still accomplish what you want by working with what you have right now instead of looking for the instant gratification buy, in my opinion. :)

[Deceit]

Hey, Scrap, I LOVE the Triton engine, I've never tried anything better! It's dreams to reality with the Triton series - but the Le is a bit limited compared to any other Triton...I'd like going for an used Triton Pro...but I think it'll cost me more than I can afford...however the idea of a Triton Rack + a nice controller still goes round and round my head...:D
Deceit.

[Scrap]

The only true limiting factor of the Le is its 1IFX (opposed to 5), 2MFX limitation, but hey, Roland keyboards, including their latest, like the Fantom X, have gotten away with this for ages, due to their superior quality sound ROM. I'm sure their 'Structures' architecture has something to do with their longevity as well, but in any case, you can augment this on the Triton variants somewhat by loading up your own custom samples.

It doesn't take that much work, really, and lots of people do this sort of thing all the time (Jordan loads up about 130MB of sample data for a typical DT show, at least during the 6DoIT tour, if I recall correctly).

In any case, tell me what KevMo sounds that you need, and I'll try to help you along with them. I've already posted his Pull Me Under lead in the Korg section of ProgSounds (http:///www.albertorizzoschettino.com/~progsounds/), so if you haven't gotten that yet, it's a good place to start. It's about 97% identical to Enigma's K2500 version (he helped me with some filter resonance settings), and it is Le compatible.

[Tusker]

I'm not sure how much more sound quality you are going to get out of a JD-800 or JV1080 than you currently do out of the LE. Yes the JD is butter smooth, yes the JV might have (marginally) warmer pianos. Don't waste your money on an incremental difference. After all you already have two romplers. Both of them are capable of professional sounds with the right outboard gear. However it is apparent to me that they fall short of your ideals.

Let me throw out some other ideas:

1) Sell the two keyboards you have, and get one workstation you will be happy with.

2) Invest in some outboard/soundwhere stuff to improve your core sound. (Try burning some new samples for the QS for example).

3) Try something different, a VA or a true analog to add a different voice. (BTW, I think you can get all of Kevmo's sound with an LE. It just takes some programming.)

4) Wait. Save your money. A brand new rompler with mind blowing features will show up just when your savings get to about $2000. At that point, you'll be glad you waited. Meanwhile, you can practise getting some of those nice round Kevmo leads out of your LE

Best,

Jerry

[Enigma™]

To partially agree with what has been said already - I think the lack of sound has less to do with the Triton and more to do with the programmer ;)
I have a Kurzweil 2500 and I'm FINALLY starting to get the sounds out of it that I wanted, and it took me 4 years of learning how to use the damn thing.
The LE is a lot simpler programming wise, and I don't see any reason why you can't sit down fo 20 minutes and start fiddling... Integrate Programming into your practice routine. Make sure you program just making the thing go whirr and whizz for 15-20 minutes a day and I PROMISE at some point you're going to say "wait a sec, how do I make this sound" and then boom - you'll know the answer.
And on a Korg, it's that easy.

Remember - keyboards are only as limited as the user... *In most cases... Look what's been done with a CASIO!!*

[Omega Monkey]

Learn the ins and outs of envelopes and modulation routings and you will be able to get a lot more out of any synth. I mean, if I was stuck with just the 32 presets on my JX-3P it would be a piece of shit! But since I can program it myself I can get almost any analog type sound out of it I need (to an extent, its only got one envelope after all). Experiment around wiht different envelope settings for the filter and amp sections especially (pitch envelpoes can be very useful to). You will find most of the tonal quality of your sounds comes from the envelopes.

I myself am just recently realizing how frickin powerful my D-50 really is. It took me a while to really grasp what everything was for and what I could do with it. I think I've only known for like 2 years that it had the "Camera Eye" sound and all I had to do was switch the filter lfo to random!

One other thing...do you really just want to be a KevMo soundalike? That seems kind of self defeating and theres not really much you can do with that, other than have fun in your room or maybe be in a DT tribute band. You should really think about what you want your OWN music to sound like, and what kinds of sounds you want. Listen to a lot of different keyboardists and pay close attention to the way they use different sounds. Just as an example, I would recommend listening to some guys like:

Edgar Froese
Chick Corea
Rick Wakeman
Patrick Moraz
Jan Hammer
Josh Silver
Rick Wright
Joe Zawinul
Herbie Hancock
Brian Eno
Bernie Worrell
etc...

Those guys all do a lot with different keyboard sounds and it should give you ideas of what is possible. And yeah, if you really do want to just sound like KevMo, just buy his rig and you will be all set. The JD-800 would be a good first setp towards that goal.

[Deceit]

Well, I've changed in a couple of days since I got some brand new VSTs into my gear - now I feel much more "sci-fi sounds" oriented. I started using a vocoder (Vokator, it's sooo great) and a bunch of virtual analogs...now, I play in a DT Tribute Band :D, but don't worry, I have my own ideas and I'm not copying Kev. I know very well all of the keyboard players you mentioned, and I'm a great fan of Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson - they're still the best!
Anyway, I know how to edit a synth :P I've been doing it with my Le for hours and hours, and I have my personal 10 to 15 complex combis and 27 programs.
I just wanted an idea to improve my gear with some new synths/modules.
Keep replying, thanks :D.
Deceit.

[ChrisMcCoy]

Another great place to sample sounds from the gear used by some of the folks mentioned in that previous post can be found here:

http://www.vintagesynth.org/