CW,
I Do use the Serge in film/TV work, but mainly for FX
or as a specialty sound design job. Sometimes my
friends on the west coast will say "Here's the video
of the effect sequence. We are looking for a sound
like ... sort of like lightning, or sort of like a
phaser, or maybe like lightning combined with a
phaser." So I watch the video over and over while I
patch up the Serge. This seems to work fairly well,
although it Does take longer than a couple of hours. I
usually have at least three days to turn it around,
and I'll usually get two or three FX from the same
source, so it helps if I can get them all at once.
I've been renting a Tascam when it comes time to lay
back, as I too hate this format, and refuse to buy
one. It's better now that you can deliver 24bit, but
tape is still a pain for me (spent too long with 2inch
and half track). I look forward to a time in the
future when you can deliver 5:1 mixes on DVD Audio
format in 24bit. It's coming, but we'll have to wait.
I do find that the Serge is harder to use quickly when
it comes to scoring, although it is not out of the
question. As you point out, it is a matter of lead
time. Very often I will finish? a mix for delivery,
take it over as audio to Logic Audio, and do a sort of
"performance" track against it using the Serge. I will
send a second tape with a stereo mix of the score and
the tracks from the Serge on seperate tracks. As you
know, scores are very often recut using different
sounds or instruments, but there is no way to replace
or redo the Serge sounds. I do this work at no extra
charge, and it has gotten me a lot of other, really
interesting work, such as the FX stuff. I Do find that
certain patches are easily repeatable, and you Can get
them back fairly easily, although as you say, the more
complex the patch is, the harder this is in practice.
I have the graphic which I posted blown up and printed
out, so I always keep a stack of them handy for
documenting patches. My system is built around "shop"
panels, and the dual sequencer panel is one which I
definitely wanted. I had not originally intended to
include the TKB, but Rex is a persuasive guy, and he
really helped to guide me in the build of this system.
Some things he insisted I try, I did not fully
understand at the time. I trusted him though, and it
has proved out. Every module that he said I needed I
Have needed, and there are some which he suggested I
did Not need right away. He was right there too. I Do
use the sequencer modules in conjunction with the TKB.
One might think that the TKB is like a master
controller, but the real master for me is the clock. I
derive all the pulses for all the sequencers from one
master clock, dividing the pulses down in time with
the two pulse dividers in the system. I've got five
oscillators, so I don't divide down Audio frequencies
that often. Actually I keep one of the PCOs patched
w/comparator most of the time to serve as the master
VC clock, so I effectively use four audio sources,
although I usually end up only using the two NTOs.
Using the pulse dividers in this way you can
synchronise the firing of multiple sequencer, DTGs,
and DSGs, as well as the VCFQs "ring", in very
"musical" ways, so it's not just timing bedlam as it
well could be if you are not careful. I Do sometimes
cross patch the individual stages of the sequencers
through the boolean logic module to acquire
"events",again always based on subdivisions of the
master clock rate. I usually use the last row of the
TKB to VC the freq. of the master clock, so I get my
whole/half/quarter/16/32/64 variances that way.
As an aside, one of the main reasons I went ahead and
got the dual sequencer panel was not for the
sequencers per se, but for the concentration of other
"logic" modules on that panel. I use these with the
TKB even when I don't use all the sequencers. For the
kind of whacked out rhythms I tend to favor, I think
the odd-stage-number sequencers are the most
interesting. The old seven stage with built in
quantiser looks Very interesting. Hope I half-way
answered your very thought provoking questions.
BarryM
--- "C. Whitten" <chris@...> wrote:
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I Do use the Serge in film/TV work, but mainly for FX
or as a specialty sound design job. Sometimes my
friends on the west coast will say "Here's the video
of the effect sequence. We are looking for a sound
like ... sort of like lightning, or sort of like a
phaser, or maybe like lightning combined with a
phaser." So I watch the video over and over while I
patch up the Serge. This seems to work fairly well,
although it Does take longer than a couple of hours. I
usually have at least three days to turn it around,
and I'll usually get two or three FX from the same
source, so it helps if I can get them all at once.
I've been renting a Tascam when it comes time to lay
back, as I too hate this format, and refuse to buy
one. It's better now that you can deliver 24bit, but
tape is still a pain for me (spent too long with 2inch
and half track). I look forward to a time in the
future when you can deliver 5:1 mixes on DVD Audio
format in 24bit. It's coming, but we'll have to wait.
I do find that the Serge is harder to use quickly when
it comes to scoring, although it is not out of the
question. As you point out, it is a matter of lead
time. Very often I will finish? a mix for delivery,
take it over as audio to Logic Audio, and do a sort of
"performance" track against it using the Serge. I will
send a second tape with a stereo mix of the score and
the tracks from the Serge on seperate tracks. As you
know, scores are very often recut using different
sounds or instruments, but there is no way to replace
or redo the Serge sounds. I do this work at no extra
charge, and it has gotten me a lot of other, really
interesting work, such as the FX stuff. I Do find that
certain patches are easily repeatable, and you Can get
them back fairly easily, although as you say, the more
complex the patch is, the harder this is in practice.
I have the graphic which I posted blown up and printed
out, so I always keep a stack of them handy for
documenting patches. My system is built around "shop"
panels, and the dual sequencer panel is one which I
definitely wanted. I had not originally intended to
include the TKB, but Rex is a persuasive guy, and he
really helped to guide me in the build of this system.
Some things he insisted I try, I did not fully
understand at the time. I trusted him though, and it
has proved out. Every module that he said I needed I
Have needed, and there are some which he suggested I
did Not need right away. He was right there too. I Do
use the sequencer modules in conjunction with the TKB.
One might think that the TKB is like a master
controller, but the real master for me is the clock. I
derive all the pulses for all the sequencers from one
master clock, dividing the pulses down in time with
the two pulse dividers in the system. I've got five
oscillators, so I don't divide down Audio frequencies
that often. Actually I keep one of the PCOs patched
w/comparator most of the time to serve as the master
VC clock, so I effectively use four audio sources,
although I usually end up only using the two NTOs.
Using the pulse dividers in this way you can
synchronise the firing of multiple sequencer, DTGs,
and DSGs, as well as the VCFQs "ring", in very
"musical" ways, so it's not just timing bedlam as it
well could be if you are not careful. I Do sometimes
cross patch the individual stages of the sequencers
through the boolean logic module to acquire
"events",again always based on subdivisions of the
master clock rate. I usually use the last row of the
TKB to VC the freq. of the master clock, so I get my
whole/half/quarter/16/32/64 variances that way.
As an aside, one of the main reasons I went ahead and
got the dual sequencer panel was not for the
sequencers per se, but for the concentration of other
"logic" modules on that panel. I use these with the
TKB even when I don't use all the sequencers. For the
kind of whacked out rhythms I tend to favor, I think
the odd-stage-number sequencers are the most
interesting. The old seven stage with built in
quantiser looks Very interesting. Hope I half-way
answered your very thought provoking questions.
BarryM
--- "C. Whitten" <chris@...> wrote:
> Barry,__________________________________________________
> Thanks for all the interesting contributions of
> late. I have personally
> found some things thought provoking especially your
> photos.
> First off, the other day I was going to ask you if
> you used the Serge very
> much in your film work. I rarely use mine because
> the turnaround times are
> so short. It can take me a couple of hours to refine
> a patch and that is
> often about the time I have to get a whole piece
> into shape.
> After looking at your pictures I was wondering if
> you ended up with 3
> sequencers by default and whether you used them all.
> I have often thought
> that having a couple of the odd numbered sequencers
> working with the TKB
> would be amazing but in practice I often find that
> the more complex a Serge
> patch the harder it is to fit it into my music.
> CW
>
>
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