Thx for your friendly responses.
Tony,- in general, it is a good idea creating a wiki or database on the web.
Steven,- because of some over years growing health issues, I�m actually not able to demonstrate any programming tricks by creating records of examples, looking for the desired patches and doing uploads.
All my programming skills and general knowledge of gear is coming from working w/ synths since the late 70th and that means,- I started w/ much easier to program synths than the Xpander.
In fact, I knew all the basics of subtractive synthesis already when I buyed the Xpander at the time it was released in the past.
In other words, I just only had to learn the user interface and the additional functions to come up w/ satisfying results relatively fast,- but I needed 6 weeks of programming the Xpander side by side w/ all my other machines of that time as w/ the manuals on my knees as well.
As a pro, I worked in the times w/ no samplers, romplers, drummachines and sequencers existing in countless recording sessions and several times a week as also performed live w/ many synths on stage, this under time pressure all the time because of the demands of producers, artists and managers and w/ tight budgets of these,- so I had to be fast all the time and to realize their imaginations of sound from scratch.
All this was a good training and leaded to knowledge about many electronic instruments, not only the Xpander and it was also a good training in reading music and playing/creating lines and arranging parts w/ the resulting patches.
But I never collected all these patches and records,- if the work was done and I got my money, the job was finished for me.
You have to imagine, I never had to repeat something in the past, the adjusted patches resided in the edit buffer, the tape started rollin� and I played my parts by hand,- finished,- next one ... and so on.
In addition, every track recorded was a mix of several pathes from several synths/instruments. In the pre-midi times, we recorded several single tracks and did a submix which went to the final track, when midi appeared, we midied up the gear, adjusted the desired levels for each component of the sound needed and printed directly to tape and there was never time to store and archivate all these single-parts and patches as also there was no interest in doing this because no one wanted to listen to the same sound in another tune.
In addition, you would be eventually disappointed if you�d listen to any single patch of a layered patches combo because it was not created to listen to it solo but had to work in the layer.
All these tracks were unique at this time and that was the reason to be in the biz as a, in these times somewhat rare, specialist and making my life w/ it for more than 25 years.
So, all was/is just learning by doing and I work this way up to now.
I don�t need too much presets, it�s much faster to grab one of �em and to edit or starting from scratch.
With thousands of collected patches in a library, you lose overview or you end up being a procurist, spending your time organising you librarys of all the machines instead of making music.
Today, in my home studio, I have 2 different "work-spaces",- the modern DAW-stuff incl. all the virtual instruments and FX plugs as well as my "nostalgic" hardware studio, including a old tape MTR, pure midi sequencers ( hardeware and software), bankmanager/bankloader/editor-software running on old computers and a bunch of old keys and synths from the past,- and it�s hard and time consuming to keep all this alive and in working condition because I simply love it.
Because of the request of total recall, the hardware instruments, even they are good or better sounding than the virtual stuff, are rearly in action. I prefer to play my real instruments but in recording work w/ a DAW, I use the Sonicprojects OPX-Pro for many Oberheim parts, - I also try to preserve my Xpander now.
Now, unfortunally, I suffer from sitting at keyboards, synths and machines w/ a bended back and neck as also standing in large keyboard rigs in countless tour-rehearsals for sometimes more than 10hrs a day as well as performing live w/ large rigs, standing on one leg and operating pedals w/ the other in hundreds of shows over the decades.
I have so much issues w/ the disks, spin column, hip joints and a shoulder now, I have to start a nitemare of therapy this year beginning from yesterday and I hope, I�ll see a stage again maybe in 2010 if possible.
Maybe I have to think about to design my workspace more ergonmic to do long-time work ( if available) just only at home and probably I have to cut down my gear a bit to reduce the schlepp factor which also appears at home if you want to clean the studio room, not only for gigging ( there were roadies anyway all the time).
In any way, I cannot do work anymore if I have to transport and setup my gear myself which means reduction in work and income.
I�d like to see this group alive as long as possible as some kind of knowledge base and meeting point of synth geeks.
I found many useful tech tips here to keep my gear alive and working and I hadn�t found Karl without this group existing.
I�ll read all the mails I recieve here on my machine and chime in if I can, but there�s no chance to put more energy in as neccessary or possible,- this for a unknown period of time.
Best is, some others start w/a wiki or knowledge base and I come up w/ comments if I�ve read it here or wherever and if I have the time.
go ahead ...
PeWe
John Pallister schrieb:
This is the sort of thing I had in mind for my Xpander Geek site
(http://xpander.geek.nz). Unfortunately I haven't had much time to
play with my Xpander, let alone work on the site.
But if the amount of traffic on this list is anything to go by,
there's still plenty of interest in the Xpander and therefore a
potential user base for a wiki. So I will try and get something set
up and report back to the list. But don't hold your breath...
Cheers,
John :^P
Tony Cappellini wrote:
> Thanks PeWe
>
> Actually all of this is quite useful and I' want to try these myself.
>
> It would be great If we could consolidate snippets like into a wiki or
> simple database on the web.
> Does anyone have enough experience / time to look into this?
--
John Pallister
john@synchromesh.com