Words and Music by….
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention these beasts…basically,each module was a DX 7 without a programmer (which I did wind up with..it didn’t help,with the DX 7 synth programming conventions being only slightly less cryptic that the hieroglyphics in a pyramid).
Their total lack of flexibility gave them a very short shelf life in my already overstocked rack.
That being said,they did provide THAT FM 7 SOUND and were built like battleships.
How did I leave these guys out?!?
From Ensoniq, this was the sampler with a sequencer built in. If I remember correctly,I was running them in tandem via MIDI for 16 CHANNELS!! I had a nice library for this unit (on 3.5″ floppy discs) and internal memory maxed out at 26 seconds Mono. Editing the samples and the navigating the sequencer was pretty easy…but the limited number of tracks (plus having a bazillion floppies around) made the MPC pretty appealing.
The next generation of this keyboard was christened the ASR and hung in there for quite some time as the sampler of choice for many hip hop producers.
This was IT..the real deal……
Roger Linn started it with the Linn Drum and brought the concept to fruition with this beast.
I was in the middle of trying to rescue the production of “When The Radio Is On” for Paul Shaffer, a song that my partner Kevin and I had written for him. We didn’t get to produce it but everybody hated what the “big time producer” had done so it was up to us to reprogram the entire backing track,keeping only the vocals and raps (which included Will Smith,Carole King, Ellie Greenwich,Dion,Johnny Maestro,and more) When we got the 24 track 2″ tapes, the sequencers that we were using wouldn’t lock up correctly so we headed to Sam Ash in White Plains and rented the MPC-60. This machine was so intuitive that it was locking and we were rocking within an hour….we had to have one.
We did the entire backing track with this, the MKS-80,ESQ and EPS….the only thing they kept was a little sax part.
Paul promised me lifetime seats to Letterman but when I called him later (and after the song had tanked) for tickets, he told me that he couldn’t help me, as he “had no pull with the Letterman show”…I guess he really is “Mr. Show Biz”.
Anyway…I used the MPC-60 to death and was even a beta tester for the MPC-60 II (thanks to my buddy Andy Marvel) and got to speak with Roger himself as he sent updates…he is the nicest guy and a freaking genius in my book.
I upgraded as far as the MPC-3000..it had an HD interface, was 16 bit (instead of 12) and a bunch of other great features..but I eventually had to give it up for a Mac based sequencer, starting with MOTU’s Performer (nice but iffy on the timing) and moving over to Logic.
(side note: I did the entire “Jason’s Lyric” soundtrack’s midi-music sequencing using the MPC-60 slaved to a VHS machine that had audio on one channel and SMPTE on the other..talk about old school…)
..that about sums up my next purchase.
On the fat side was the Roland “Super Jupiter” (MKS-80) analog rack synth (with programmer).
This synth had an amazing sound but ironically,many of the presets were attempts to emulate “real” instruments like horns and strings. It was a killer for bass and actually fun to program,unlike the Yamaha “FM” synths that were out,like the DX-7.
The DX-7 WAS good at emulating real instruments..it did an amazing electric bass and rhodes piano,with a metallic crispness and attack that could not be matched by the analog Rolands.
I didn’t really want another full keyboard so I opted for the small rack version of “FM”..the “TX 81Z”.
This scaled down,single rack space synth was almost impossible to program but had some great presets..the “Lately Bass” one was used to death on many productions of this time period.
The last synth that I put in my rack at this time was Roland’s attempt to move ahead with their analog line by employing DCOs
(Digitally Controlled Oscillators) instead of the VCOs (Voltage Controlled Oscillators) of the previous generations of synths. These DCOs were supposed to give more stability to the waveforms and tunings and add some extra crispness..they were definitely feeling the heat from Yamaha. I got this with the programmer as well..this was yet another fantastic sounding synth from Roland.
So it was the early to mid 1980′s…synth fever was everywhere. I started to notice that NY studio control rooms were starting to resemble the keyboard section of Manny’s Music on 48th Street.
All of the major players (Moog,Oberheim,Sequential) were expanding their lines,making them smaller (Pro 1) and bigger (Prophet 10). There were contenders for “Top Drum Machine/Sequencer”..models by Alesis,EMU and Linn/Akai…and the last one standing is Roger Linn’s venerable MPC line (more on this later). The great thing was that it was possible to try out all of this cool stuff at the studios before actually buying any of it.
And of course,there was Roland……
I put these two together because they are both products on Ensoniq, an American company that flourished in the ’80′s but didn’t survive.
The Mirage was the first affordable sampler..8 bit with a cryptic 2 Digit interface that belied the complexity of what lay beneath the hood. It took 3.5 ” floppy discs and came with a pretty impressive (for its time) library.
We used this for horns,strings,orchestral hits,drums,vocal samples..anything. It made great use of release velocity, a sadly underused feature before and since in other synths.
The ESQ-1 came a year later in 1986…it was multi-timbral,had 120 sounds(!) and a built in,really usable sequencer. My partner Kevin and I each had one and we got a lot of mileage out of them.
He constructed the whole intro and basic part of “When The Radio Is On” for Paul Shaffer with it.
This was the secret weapon…..slightly larger than a Melodica with a power supply that weighed as much as the keyboard, this little beat rocked the high and low end. It was great for bells and chimey stuff but it really earned its stripes on the bottom end..it was a bass machine. Of course,you’d never know it from the presets.. the usual suspects of “demo” sounds that made you think..”oh,yeah, Casio..the digital watch makers..”. But with a little time programming,you could get really deep and amazingly percussive bass sounds (wicked fast pitch envelopes). The keys on the keyboard were only sightly larger than Chicklet gum so you had to use a MIDI connection to play it. Response time through MIDI was laser quick and it was a pretty roadworthy piece, considering that it was probably 100% plastic. I think that there were 16 user memory slots and you could save your own sounds via SYSEX (computer).
I’m not sure if the CZ-101 qualify as “vintage” (yet)..but I’m sure that it’s only a matter of time before eBay bidding goes through the roof.
I later “traded up” for the CZ1…same voice architecture but with full sized keys,velocity,more memory…but the “fun factor” was missing.
…so the age of modern (somewhat affordable) synths was upon us…and I had to have one. The choices in the early 80′s were pretty slim at the lower range..but after some research, I settled on the venerable Roland Juno-106. This was basically a Juno with Midi..I think that they left off some modulation (Pulse Width maybe) but it was otherwise pretty much the same..although purists would argue that it was “thinner” sounding (was this the start of the use of the word “warm” as a sonic description?). Anyway…it was easily programmable and you could save your own sounds to a data cassette tape. It lacked any velocity sensing (ie. every note was the same volume, no matter how hard you banged it) which was a major drawback for me. However, it interfaced nicely with the Roland MSQ-700 Midi Sequencer..8 tracks of Midi recording. The auto correcting of note timing (quantization) was so miserable on this unit that you had to manually enter each note into it..very tedious.
This set up was ideal for the heavily sequenced music of the time and Kevin and I churned out quite a few 12″ records for various NY Dance labels..you can see them on the “Discogs” website.
Coming next…the mini keyboard with the killer bass..the Casio CZ-101 (really).
..a move to New York spells the end of stringed instruments for a while..with one final trade (for the time being). Arriving in the Empire state with a Wurlitzer piano,the P Bass (and the $ 29.95 Gianini nylon string guitar from Joyce “The Guitar Lady” LaMotta, it was time to get a real electric guitar. Luckily, my buddy Kevin was looking to get a Wurly and offered me his white Fender Strat in trade. But this was clearly the “Dawn of The Synth”..and drum machine. I was recording demos in an 8 track studio on 38th street and 5th avenue with some of the most amazing musicians…Ray Gomez, Fernando Saunders,Andy Newmark, Steve Ferrone, Tinker Barfield,Steve Skinner,Chieli Minucci, Michael Shrieve,David Frank,Mic Murphy,Fred McFarland..to name just a few. So I got to see the cool new synths as they were coming out and hear some ridiculous players.The crew from “Change” and “The BBQ Band” left behind an Oberheim OBX at the studio and someone else let us use their Linn Drum..and I was hooked.
So why no post in so long? As you can see, I was waiting to get the PERFECT pic of my P Bass..and no, I wasn’t drunk when I took it. It turns out that the resolution on my digital camera was set on high, so all you would have been able to see was the neck.So…it’s back to the camera phone.
What you CAN see in the pic is that the original owner painted the pickguard white, put in a new bridge and got rid of the original knobs. What you CAN”T see are the various “Initial” signatures that he carved in a few places..and the huge hole that he drilled in the underside to accommodate an XLR jack.
The sad thing is that this bass sat in its case from 1965 until 1978 IN PERFECT CONDITION until this “creative” 15 year old decided to “customize” it….oh well..bottom line is that it plays and sounds great…just needs some new strings.
