Doepfer

Hi Sebastion

I'm a standard keyboard sort of person myself, and I like to use 
midi and the A191 for tweaking the patch, rather than turning knobs 
on the A100 modules. That way there isn't a lot of fuss about 
reaching through patch cables to manipulate small knobs while 
playing the keys at the same time.

I mostly use the joystick, velocity and pressure on my venerable Korg 
M1, along with a volume pedal. All of this stuffed can be patched 
to anything on the A100, but I tend to keep pb and ctrl 2 in their 
traditional roles for pitch bend and vibrato, use the pedal for 
filter cutoff, and ctrl 1 and pressure for more esoteric things 
like FM amount. Velocity is almost always patched to an A132 to 
control VCF envelope amount.

I used to have a small midi fader box on top of the keyboard also, but 
its now defunct. (I replaced it with a Regelwerk, but that's more for 
studio work).

The M1's audio outputs haven't been connected to anything for a long 
time, but I haven't found a good replacement keyboard yet. Maybe the 
Doepfer std kbd will eventually appear. I think that a Moog Voyager 
would be a wonderful keyboard controller for the A100, but expensive.

Glad your gig at Pathos went well. Did you record it? If so, we'd love 
to hear some of it.

Joe

--- In Doepfer_a100@yahoogroups.com, "Sebastian Schnitzenbaumer" 
<schnitz@m...> wrote:
> Hi Doepfer Community,
> 
> just wanted to report from my experience being on stage
> with my Doepfer A100 Mini System.
> 
> We performed at Pathos, Munich last Friday. The only 
> instrument I took was the Doepfer.
> 
> It worked. 
> 
> The machine didn't let me down.
> 
> I'm now thinking of using it at MayDay and Love Parade
> this year.
> 
> From that experience I will now open my Doepfer Module
> chapter again and gear my doepfer towards a mobile
> performance device.
> 
> Sound-wise, I have decided to leave the experimentation
> corner and move towards the classic keyboard setup.
> 
> This means that I will be thinking about Polyphony,
> what Keyboard to use with the Doepfer, and focus on
> warm analog sounds I primarily access thru a (standard)
> keyboard. So spend less time turning nobs, more time 
> keeping the fingers on the keys.
> 
> From all the things you can do with the Doepfer system,
> I'm therefore now looking into the "normal" synthesizer 
> operating mode. 
> 
> As I have been tortured thru a classic piano education
> in my youth, I feel comfortable expressing myself thru
> the keyboard itself. What the Doepfer System gives me 
> though, is an extremely fat and unprecedented warm sound. 
> This is what I'm looking for. Less rhythm-oriented or
> sound-design oriented patches or altenative user 
> interfaces. User Interface is exactly the point here. The 
> standard keyboard happens to be a really well-debugged
> user interface I came to value again on stage, whilst
> turning nobs is cool but gives me less overall 
> expressiveness, that is, while being on stage.
> 
> I have managed, however, to play a pretty fast bass line 
> with my left hand on the keyboard while slowly turning 
> one nob with my right hand on my Doepfer system
> on stage (took me a while to practise - accessing two 
> different user interfaces [keyboard, nob] with each hand 
> independently under stress conditions without any
> loss of timing). 
> 
> I think this essentially means that I will keep a certain
> patch going as-is and unchanged for a while, and try to 
> patch all "configuration" of that sound into one or 
> two nobs that are easily accessible on stage. What I
> mean is: on stage its dark, or lights flash - and if my
> Doepfer buries nobs under the cables from the patch,
> it is *really* hard to get to the right nob fast - also while 
> being only under half my brain capacity since my other 
> hand keeps a groove going on the keyboard - so chances 
> are high that you end up turning a different nob by mistake.
> 
> So I'm thinking of using blind plates next to that one 
> module in my new setup that is patched to be safe to 
> operate under live conditions.
> 
> Anyone with similar experiences and thoughts?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> - Sebastian