70s Rock Organ tone

[Deleted]

Hi guys,

so I got this TAS (tone acquisition syndrome) for 70s rock organ tone. Now what I want to sound like :



I like how the tone of the organ seems like its blowing , but has a very an effetc... i cannot express this in english , just hear at : 1:25 its like it has some effect... Sometimes it feel like it sounds like a wah wah played by mouth or smth....

Another example of killer tone :



I wanna nail this.... just listen at 0:25 ... We got a yamaha electrical piano with many sounds, but its in my daughter's room, you know right behind the crocodiles and the rest of defensive measures she has taken to keep parents ehmmm intruders out.

So, I am left again with a .... linux laptop... I installed vmpk , qsynth and got some pretty decent tones, yet nothing like the divine tones i described above.

PLEASE BROS OF THE 70s, give the man a hand... (I was born in 1969, I am entitled to know how to nail the tone of this era!!)

Just give me the name of the effect, instrument , technique anything in order to have smth to google against tomorrow in the brakes from work.

thanks bros!

[strat80hm]

Cool sounds indeed!

I m no John Lord but it sounds to me like part of the magic you pointed out is also from the Leslie Cab effect - besides dialing the right mix of harmonic/pipes/wind - cannot be that hard can it?

[sumgai]

gd,

1) M3 or B3, with the Leslie speeding up;

2) B3 (see notes below), again with the Leslie, but slowing down.

A couple of things to ponder.... in those days, simulating or synthesizing the famous Hammond sound was nearly impossible.  That's why roadies always came in packs of 4 or more, because hauling that M3 from town to town was a real backbreaker.  The portable version, the B3, took only half the people, thus doubling the savings on the band's beer money.

Moreover.... a genuine keyboardist of the old school knew how to slide the fingers down the keyboard (or up, but not in these cases), such that the 'wah' effect was that the volume was dropping at the same time as the frequency, thanks to a coordinated slide downwards and the foot decreasing the pedal.  Coupled with Hammond's patented (really!) tonal envelope (ADSR), this was a killer tonality, as you've noted.

How to get it now? I'm can't say for sure about any computer plug-ins, but the sliding part of your hands, that's dead simple.  I'd say, experiment with whatever comes close to the Leslie functionality.  Maybe it'll be called a Rotary-Vibe or some such, but you get the idea.  Speed it up at critical moments, or even slow it down.  I find that with my Roland gear (yeah, you were expecting that, weren't you?), I can set up the parameters of how fast or slow the "spin speed" will be, and how quickly it will change between slow and fast.  Perhaps your software can do that too, it might prove interesting.

HTH

sumgai

[Deleted]

strat, SG, thank you!!!
I will do some reading on the technology of this era, and try to understand some of the inner bits.
Also I have read smth about "stops". Indeed at times the organ seems like it's "stopping".

Googling/youtubing for M3, B3 and Leslie already!!

[sumgai]

gd,

Further reading in your research will lead you to the famous Hammond Tonewheel, the source of all sounds Hammond.  They had a patent on it, but it was expensive to make, which helped deter other companies from copying it.  Of course, the patent has long expired, but by that time, the tone could by synthesized pretty easily.  In fact, more than a few synthesizers come with a computer-based Patch Editor, and when you select the Organ patch for editing, you'll probably see a depiction of the famous Hammond drawbars, the method Hammond used to control the Tonewheel's output.  Child's play in terms of programming, but a strong tribute to Hammond's legacy.

Bring along a sack lunch and a towel, your research is gonna take more than a few minutes!

sumgai

[cynical1]

I used to have a .vst plugin that claimed to do a Leslie effect. The name escapes me...probably because it wasn't very convincing compared to the real thing. I read somewhere that Stevie Ray Vaughn used a Leslie cabinet. I guess if anyone could have afforded a pedal for this he'd qualify. If you want that Leslie sound, you need one of their big, heavy and highly unwieldy cabinets.

They're essentially just a big plywood box with mechanically manipulated loudspeakers\drivers inside



They look so much simpler in the diagram...



Just screams 1950's, don't it? Pictures are nice, but the video prevents me from becoming too verbose:



If you could find an original one in operational condition it'd two horses and a small boy to move it and probably look like it fled Stalingrad in the back of an ox cart. They still make these cabinets and you can find them for around a grand.

Or...you could always go MIDI, thereby eliminating all the pain and agony of trying to find an analog solution...

Happy Trails -

Cynical One

[gumbo]

" Or...you could always go MIDI, thereby eliminating all the pain and agony of trying to find an analog solution..."

Try having a read of


www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php


Lots of interesting stuff there..


(sorry about the On-Topic post everyone... )

g-f-b

[Deleted]

worth checking out Cyn1, will look at this tomorrow , in the meantime I made this :

soundcloud.com/greekdude888/testorgan

I used vmpk ( Yamaha Slow rotary organ) -> qsynth -> jack -> ardour -> Calf Rotary Speaker -> Tap Rotary Speaker (yes all of them), but unfortunately I only got the laptop keyboard (ouch). I also checked the Yamaha DGX 300 at the daughter's room, lots of features, MIDI Interface, its very good IMO. What I miss is a portable smallish MIDI keyboard, the yamaha is not that convenient for a minimalist setup.

As I listen, I need more of this "whistle" thing. Problem I haven't seen anything like that in vivo, so its hard to tweak smth I don't know.

[Deleted]

Mar 16, 2017 10:29:58 GMT -5 sumgai said:

gd,

Further reading in your research will lead you to the famous Hammond Tonewheel, the source of all sounds Hammond.  They had a patent on it, but it was expensive to make, which helped deter other companies from copying it.  Of course, the patent has long expired, but by that time, the tone could by synthesized pretty easily.  In fact, more than a few synthesizers come with a computer-based Patch Editor, and when you select the Organ patch for editing, you'll probably see a depiction of the famous Hammond drawbars, the method Hammond used to control the Tonewheel's output.  Child's play in terms of programming, but a strong tribute to Hammond's legacy.

Bring along a sack lunch and a towel, your research is gonna take more than a few minutes!

sumgai

aha so thats the "drwOrgan" I see... I also see percussion organ and CheezOrgan. Both sound good.

[sumgai]

gd,

Hammond was probably most famous for the fact that their tone was very percussive - it came on like a hurricane, I mean as instantly as a drumstick hitting a drum head.  I can't think of anyone else in the keyboard arena that could do that, seemingly so easily.

I am now (after many years) of the belief that this super-quick attack was actually causing some small amount of distortion in the tone generator (the Tonewheel), and that this caused a "ringing" effect - something that sort of self-amplfies, before it settles down to the sustaiin portion of the sound envelope.  I'm not 100% certain of course, but I'd bet that this contributed no small amount to what we heard, and still hear, from any moderatly priced Hammond organ.

Regardless of how or why, you've cottoned on to the fact that you would have to go to the Moon in order to find someone who hasn't heard it, and/or they don't like it - it's that ubiquitous and universal.

On the Leslie front.....

c1 showed us what looks to me like the innards of 122 cabinet, the first model built for Hammond by the Leslie company.  Check out this page for greater details:

Leslie speakers  [wikipedia.org]

For the first time in known history, c1 is in error - MIDI is not the answer.   MIDI is merely a method of controlling what other contraptions do, and that's it.  What he meant to say, if I may be so bold, is that synthesizers are now capable of nailing this tone, if you're willing to search around, and likely, spend a little more cash for the better product.  Before laying out any dough, it'd be nice if one could do a side-by-side comparison with a known good unit, the real thing or otherwise.

HTH

sumgai

[Deleted]

Mar 16, 2017 10:38:27 GMT -5 cynical1 said:

I used to have a .vst plugin that claimed to do a Leslie effect. The name escapes me...probably because it wasn't very convincing compared to the real thing. I read somewhere that Stevie Ray Vaughn used a Leslie cabinet. I guess if anyone could have afforded a pedal for this he'd qualify. If you want that Leslie sound, you need one of their big, heavy and highly unwieldy cabinets.

They're essentially just a big plywood box with mechanically manipulated loudspeakers\drivers inside



They look so much simpler in the diagram...



Just screams 1950's, don't it? Pictures are nice, but the video prevents me from becoming too verbose:



If you could find an original one in operational condition it'd two horses and a small boy to move it and probably look like it fled Stalingrad in the back of an ox cart. They still make these cabinets and you can find them for around a grand.

Or...you could always go MIDI, thereby eliminating all the pain and agony of trying to find an analog solution...

Happy Trails -

Cynical One

thanx,
it seems II semi-got the basics now. I used two Ladspa plugins :
Tap Rotary speaker : this has rotor frequency, horn frequency, mic distance and rotor/horn mix : I have set them to 22.4Hz, 5.1Hz, 20% and 0.76 respectively.
Calf Rotary Speaker " Basically all cabinet settings to max, controller : tremolo, treble motor : 217 rpm, bass motor : 190 rpm

[Deleted]

So guys, do you think I got it a little close?

So I got :
- tap_rotspeak : seems to work good
- mda.lv2/Leslie : also good
- Calf Rotary : does not do anything very fancy , sounds boring.

I have them all enabled , but I am puzzled why on earth doesn't it sound good with just one of the first 2, I had to put two different effects that supposedly do the same thing in series.

Next move I am going for a MIDI-USB adaptor.

[newey]

but I am puzzled why on earth doesn't it sound good with just one of the first 2,

My experience with .vst plug-ins is pretty limited, but from the first I noticed how much "more of everything" I found myself doing compared to what I was used to dialing in on an actual pedal or amp effect. I'd add a touch of reverb, say, an amount that would be reasonable in "real life", only to have to go back and add more. Same thing with stringing together multiple plug-ins; I'd think "that's going to be too much, it'll sound like crap", but I was usually wrong, it needed more, more, more . . .

BTW, that "CheezyOrgan" sim is undoubtedly a sim for the earlier '60s rock organ sound, obtained from (reasonably) cheap portable electronic organs. The major ones were the Vox Continental and the Italian Farfisa. These were really the antithesis of the Hammond B3, which didn't really start into use until later on, when bands already had a bunch of roadies to haul the Marshall stacks- "hey, guys, what's an extra B3, really, on top of all that?"

I don't think I've heard a sim that really nails that cheezy organ sound very well, which is surprising since it's not very complex a sound like a Hammond. And the actual organs of that type, in working order, are rarer than hen's teeth.

[Deleted]

Thnx Newey,

so guys did anyone hit the link? Does it sound any convincing ?

[sumgai]

gd,

I have to say, your sample sounded to me like an old Wurlitzer Theater Organ. Not that it was bad or anything, simply that it's instantly recognizable as 'not a Hammond'. For your plug-ins, I'll only say that the rotor speed for slow should be around 2.4 to 4 rpm, and for fast it should be somewhere in the vicinity of 12 to 16 rpm. Other descriptions might vary, but I'm going from memory here, as I recall the specs put out by Hammond back when I had a real repair shop, and occasionally had one of these things come through the doors. (Remember, by the time I got into the game, Hammond had already purchased the Leslie company.)

I'll go so far as to say that in newey's part of the country, portable (B3) organs may have started the "on-stage" performances revolution, but for us here in the Northwest, many combos (bands) were hauling M3s around like it was an everyday occurance, because it was... an everyday occurance.  Even before Rock 'n' Roll really entrained itself here, R&B groups were plying the "Northwest Chitlin Circuit" with an M3 in their menagerie.  Almost every night in some cases, for certain every weekend. The Wailers, Dave Lewis, The Viceroys, Don & The Goodtimes, a lot of them carried their studio sound right onto the live stage, no compromise allowed in their book(s).

And yes there were several groups even right here in my area that played the so-called 'cheezy' gear, Paul Revere & The Raiders being a premier proponent of that schtick.  I have to say, as often as not, these were side-effects of carrying around a portable piano of some sort, most of the time the little electronic marvels could do something piano-like and something organ-like, all in one package.  The Kingsmen's Give Me Money comes to mind, but that was before I brainfarted the Gold Standard of all Rock 'n' Roll.... Louie Louie.  Therein you will find a weird keyboard sound, sort of half-way between organ and piano.  I can't recall what company's unit they used, even though for some reason I can picture it in my mind.  Damn, I hate getting old and losing my marbles!   (But then again, I love being old enough to be judgmental! )

Oh, almost forgot, one other thing....  Most of the time, an organ's tonal output is not a pure simple sinewave, nor even close.  I do have an oscilloscope, a pretty nice one that's about 15 or 16 years old now, but even before that, all the way back to high school, I've had an o'scope of one brand or another - I can't get along without 'em.  So the point is, the wave output formation is composed of several components, and if set up correctly, a 'scope can see all of the details.  If I recall rightly, the Hammond had a second-order distortion that was about 70 or 75% as strong as the fundamental, and that was it.  Where as the Farfisa had 6th order distortion (meaning, as well as the lower orders) that was just as strong as the fundamental.  In other words, it was really noisy, in terms of waveform purity - none of the pure stuff for Farfisa!  But they were fun to work on, as well laid out as a repair tech might ask for.   Sad to say, I'm going from memory here, all of my logbooks & notebooks from that era of my life have gone by the wayside.  I hope that someone, whoever "borrowed" them, got some good use out of them.  (What I've got left goes back only to 1999.  Thank Gawd for computers (and near-instanat backups), paper notebooks are so hard to backup, and so easy to lose.)

Ah, greekdude, you have the knack of taking me down memory lane.  A 'plus 1' for you, even if ProBoards doesn't have Karma Points anymore.  Thanks.

HTH

sumgai

[cynical1]

Yeah, I agree with SG, there was something about the attack on a B3...in the right hands...that made an unmistakable sound. But a B3 isn't just a nostalgia toned instrument.



OK, so anytime I can get Dennis Chambers and Billy Sheehan in the same video I'll probably post it...but John Novello is no slouch on the B3.

While the inability to use .vst plugins has kept me off of Linux for years, the fact you can't use them now isn't really hurting you here. It's like reverb in a .vst...you can get it close, but it just misses the mark by enough to notice. You're really firmly treading into MIDILand here.

While MIDI can get expensive quick, it's not a college fund destroyer anymore either. Roland offers their addon hex pickup and external onboard controller and Graphtech has their Ghost saddles with internal circuit board to get the output to a sequencer or controller. You can buy the Axon or Roland units, or you can patch it directly to your computer. Rosegarden is a nice little MIDI sequencer designed for Linux. While it lacks some of the more advanced features of the pro stuff, it's designed for Linux and does what it says on the box.

SG and Gumbo are much more versed in MIDI than I am, so any questions you have on implementation they should be able to handle.

One point I will toss out is that just because your guitar or bass is MIDI capable and your sequencer can provide a realistic B3 tone, if you don't approach your attack and phrasing with the style of said instrument, it won't convince anyone that what they're hearing isn't some guy on a guitar trying to sound like an organ player. Pat Metheny was a very early adopter of synth guitar, but if you listen, his "virtual" instrument tones used are still very limited. I read an interview one time where he went into detail about being a guitar player trying to sound like a horn, keyboard or whatever instrument you like player. The thing I remember most about it was how he felt that until he could "think" like a horn player there was nothing but gimmick value to using the horn sound on his guitar.

To me, MIDI is the only way to go as a one man band. I can program drums, horns, keyboards....Hell, I even have a clever little voice plugin that does a damn good job of simulating a choir...I also found a bagpipe .vst...which I don't recommend for bass...

Ain't this crap fun?

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[Deleted]

Definitely is!

I decided to learn keaybords. I play the guitar since I don't remember when, time to move on. I got this Yamaha DGX-300 Portable Grand out (in the living room). It has a helluva tones, lessons, pretty neat, especially thinking we got that around 2002. It has great sounds. I was looking for pedals that simulate rotating speakers and saw this :


I agree with Pat Metheny , one cannot play an instrument when his muscles think of another instrument. If I learn to nail some basic rock'n'roll then the rest (tones) will follow.

SG, thanx for the intro and all the overview man, btw what happened to your notes? Some thieve got them?

Cyn1, I got a MIDI usb cable, maybe I'll try if I can use the Yamaha as a midi generator. I knew about rosegarden. I am think of using vmpk with the new MIDI USB to drive fluidsynth (the most known Linux real time synthesizer).

Will keep you guys updated!

[sumgai]

gd,

Yes, the notebooks and other stuff went missing during a move, about 26 years ago. For awhile I was bummed out, but I learned to get over it. (Although not my missing pool cue - that thing was a present from a very prominent cue maker, was built to my specs, and was personalized with some serious engraving, that last part without my knowing it ahead of time. Even though I don't own a pool table anymore, I still miss that thing, just for the sake of nostalgia. <sniff>)

All in all, I long ago learned that I could do synth stuff to imitate brass and woodwinds quite easily... after all, I started out on the clarinet when I was 10 years old, and moved around the wind instruments from there.  Keyboards are a different story for me.  I think that most (but certainly not all) keyboardists have a knack for thinking in terms of two parts, melody and accompanyment.  From there, they do chords or intricate bass patterns with their left hand, and knock out single- and double-stop riffs with their right hand like it's no big deal.  Hell, I can't even figure out how to do finger style on a guitar, let alone what they're doing on that keyboard!

I know I sound like a broken record, but there is a common problem with language.  Consider the case of the word "hacker".  It used to mean someone who could hack together a fix for a problem that was not easy to solve.  At the same time in computerdom, a "cracker" was a bozo who made a mess of other people's lives, simply because he could - consequences be damned.  But our darling media shucksters got ahold of these terms, and decided that they couldn't be bothered to waste the ink on the extra character, so they presumed that no one would know the difference, and started saying 'hacker' when they meant 'cracker'.  As they say, the rest is history.  No stuffing the Genie back in that particular bottle.  But...

Let's take that lesson to the word MIDI.  Searching around the web, I'm confident that one would find many references to MIDI that actually point to sound generation devices.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  MIDI is a communications protocol, and that's all it is.  Never was anything more, never will be anything more.  Done deal.

Where the confusion likely occurs is that back in 1985 or so, Roland and a bunch of other companies got together and agreed that in order for anybody's equipment to sell to the musician's market, they were gonna have to cooperate and make everything interoperable - every piece of gear could talke to every other piece of gear.  That was the goal, anyway.

And it worked, to a very successful degree.  But the thrust here is, a Yamaha keyboard without any tone generator on board (usually called a 'controller', back then), could be hooked up to a Moog synth, and control that Moog just as if the player were sitting at the unit's console.  Don't laugh, many an early adopter did exactly that, or some other mashup.  And as soon as we were given 'MIDI Thru', we could chain together several instruments at once.  Cue Roland and their early guitar synth, the GR-707, along side the ARP Avatar, and several others.  These units had tone generators on board, but the player often connected up to keyboards, or even dedicated sound modules (no standard input, just a MIDI In) that cranked out a very non-guitar-sounding analog tone. 

But here's something to consider.   Barely hinted at by c1 above, a computer-like device called a sequencer could store digital information, and what is MIDI?  That's right, it's all digital - no analog stuff going on here, which is why I seemingly rant about the proper use of the term MIDI.  And wouldn't you know it, these sequencers could store a MIDI sequence, and the play it back repeatedly, just like, oh, I don't know, howzabout Pete Townsend on Baba O Riley, hmmm?  An early and highly prominent example of a sequencer.  So, many early units could do both sequencing, and some of them had on-board tone generation capability, meaning that a player (of almost any instrument that could generate a MIDI 'note on' signal) could build a riff, and then accompany him/herself just dandy.  And thus was born the early trappings of the one-man-band.

I'm off on a tangent/rant, I know, but I'm thinking that Yamaha's DGX series has always had a good reputation for solid tones, and good controls.  I personally like some of Roland's organ sounds better, but for my money, nobody beats Yamaha's pianos, period.  Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that Yamaha has been building their own analog pianos for well over a century.... experience tells, amiright?

Over and somewhat out of it......

sumgai

[gumbo]

Wot he said..

(except he is probably a LOT older than he actually remembers)



..the fact that "MIDI" is an acronym for "Musical Instrument Digital Interface" is probably the best guide to what it really means...

[sumgai]

Mar 18, 2017 8:47:20 GMT -5 gumbo said:

(except he is probably a LOT older than he actually remembers)

Hey! Don't make me come down there, or I'll get all judgemental on you!

[cynical1]

Mar 18, 2017 8:47:20 GMT -5 gumbo said:

Wot he said..

(except he is probably a LOT older than he actually remembers)



..the fact that "MIDI" is an acronym for "Musical Instrument Digital Interface" is probably the best guide to what it really means...

Wow...two posts in the same thread...and they're both relevant... The proper authorities in Canberra have been notified and help is on the way. Please elevate your feet and remain calm.

But seriously, folks... It struck me this morning that this discussion may shed some light on why MIDI is so misunderstood and relatively under utilized. Stick with me, there is a point to this.

To use something a bit more mundane than MIDI, take a look at operating systems. Some of us remember the old DOS days...or OS2 if you were a masochist. With MAC and Windows things got easier to use so more people used them. Android is now the most used operating system in the world. How did it get so popular? Well, IMHO, they gave the user a machine that did what the buttons said and by limiting the same users direct access to the plumbing. Simple, stupid and functional to the point where only Luddites like me don't own a smart phone.

My point is that MIDI, as a musical tool, is as vague and obtuse now as it was back in the early 80's when it originated. It's like the Linux of musical tools. Functional, but not particularly useful unless you have a firm understanding of it, or are willing to accept a diminished utilization due to development shortcomings.  OK, so it was developed as a standard by synthisiser manufacturers over 30 years ago...but isn't about time it came down from the high mountain?

Seeing as how this thread started with something that screams "make my guitar MIDI enabled" it might be a clue to some clever soul out there that there is a market for this technology. It just has to be designed for the right brainers out there in order for it to proliferate and develop.

Just my two cents.

Happy Trails -

Cynical One

[sumgai]

c1,

Well, the problems for right-brainers are really not problems at all.  Beyond the matter of expense (don't have the volume purchasing power at the current level of market participation), MIDI really has been boosted by the advent of doing MIDI over USB.  This brought in a veritable raft of computer-capable users who could get on-line help with MIDI instructions pretty rapidly, and thus they adopted and adapted... and explored... and output a bunch of stuff, both in analog by way of recording for mass consumption, and by way of 'instructables' posted all over the web (not just YouTube).

The simple matter is this: MIDI encircled a two-pronged protocol - hardware and software.  At the time of it's rise, modems were still all the rage amongst computer users, hence the slow speed requirement of hardware.  Somebody didn't look into their crystal ball very hard, amiright?  When USB showed up on the scene, it wasn't very long before it got shanghi'ed into service as a carrier of the software portion of the MIDI spec.  Sadly, many (indeed, if not most) of the gear being made today is still not USB-MIDI cognizant, depending instead on the tried and true 5-pin DIN plug. (More recent Roland gear swings both ways.) The downside of no USB? Can't plug into a computer directly, need an adapter (or a game port, if you're still using an Atari 800!).  The obvious upside is that you can hook up to just about anything else in the MIDIverse, all right on stage.  (I have a Mark Of The Unicorn (often seen as MOTU) that has 8 ports In and 8 ports Out, and can be programmed for any cross connection I desire between those inputs and outputs.  Each of my units can talk to any other unit, given that I've plugged things in with no mistakes.)

On the software side, it started out simply enough with "note on", "note off", and "program change".   After that, things do get complicated for a non-musician, but there are many sources of information about how to lay out a MIDI pattern of notes and program changes, plus how to change instruments, etc.  Almost every conceivable parameter that can affect a musical note has been brought into the language, and depending on the instrument, can be used in a musical way (not necessarily just for an oddball effect).  Nowadays, programs like Sonar and/or Native Instruments can do all that for you, the job has become truly WIMP-simple*.

It's not a matter of being too costly to buy, nor too hard to learn, in my mind it's really the same matter as Tonewood - "it's not a real instrument, so it can't be right!!!"  Fer Pete's sake, people like that.... don't they realize that the biggest hit record of all time, bar none, used a synth for nearly everything?   I mean, Michael Jackson's Thriller didn't have an orchestra backing him up, did it?  Did it?   Noooooo, it was all synth, even the percussion stuff.  The question becomes, when the Fat Lady has sung, left the stage, gone home, showered and put her feet up - does it sound good?  Does it sound killer?  The final bottom line: Will people buy it?  If the question is Yes, then who in the world cares if it was done by a bunch of Union wage-slaves, or by a gifted synth programmer?  Do you care?

I thought not.

And so it goes....... No, it's not hard at all, it's merely time consuming at the front end, like anything else.  IOW, there's a learning curve, just like when you sad down to learn your first Beatles tune, and hopefully impress the girls in your school.  I wasn't born knowing this crap, I only got curious about it earlier than most other folks.  I'm willing to help someone get past the initial pitfalls in the learning curve, but like ChrisK, I'm not gonna hand you a completed chart and send you off with a pat on the back.  You're gonna learn the how's and why's along the way, so you can eventually surpass me in setting things up correctly, and making great music as though you were born to it.

In really other words, don't make get judgmental here.....

BTW.... greekdude, there's a pedal from Electro-Harmonix called the B9, that does what you want.  Not nearly as expensive as dedicated synth stuff, and road-ready right out of the box (no dragging along a computer).  You might give this a closer look.

HTH

sumgai

* Windows, Icons & Mouse Pointers

[strat80hm]

Mar 17, 2017 16:33:46 GMT -5 @pyrros said:

Definitely is!

I decided to learn keaybords. I play the guitar since I don't remember when, time to move on.

That is cool, you ll have a lot of fun!
I noticed you ve been looking for sustain for a while - keys are the key for eternal sustain (they even have a pedal ( (included) for that sole purpose, aint it heaven?)

[Deleted]

Thanx SG I looked at B9.

PPl, thank you for all your responses. I feel guilt for steering things up and never get back to deliver. I ended up doing what I know best : play rock/metal guitar. Besides Cyn1 nice comments on the vids, I got a fellow guitarist (12 yrs old .... emmm friend of my son) to subscribe to my youtube channel. I decided I will start playing with ppl, no matter if they are 12 yrs old or an experienced musician. Talking to computers is no fun anymore.
I got a (mid-age?) crisis : listening to all those songs from Pink Floyd and the Doors, those songs many of us connected their youth to, I think they deserve smth more than just playing around with linux plugins. Best thing to do is to find a band with a real keyboard player, or anything real in general.

[JFrankParnell]