Cool People and Cool Stuff
Dan Snaith (aka Caribou) and his band visited the Cantos electronics gallery after playing the Republik here in Calgary at the beginning of June.
A celebrated eclectronics musician, Caribou’s 2007 album Andorra won the 2008 Polaris Music Prize – a prestigious Canadian music award.
Caribou usually performs with a live band when playing gigs, often assuming the role of percussionist. Currently, Snaith’s live band is made up of himself, Ryan Smith, Brad Weber, and John Schmersal.
He completed his Ph.D. in mathematics at Imperial College London in 2005 and currently resides in London, England.
Cantos Music Foundation is thrilled and flattered that you consider us Calgary’s Best Kept Secret. We have a loyal family of supporters and we love you dearly.
Now, we have a challenge for you.
As we continue to ramp up the National Music Centre project at the King Eddy, we would like your help in shedding the cloak of obscurity and winning Calgary’s Worst Kept Secret in 2011.
We know our supporters are the movers and the shakers in this city.
We know we’ve got friends in the coolest of places.
We know that when you talk people listen.
Talk about us! Talk about the National Music Centre. Talk about boutique recording studios, seven-days-a-week live music venue, artist-in-residence programs, music and wellness research, emerging artist programs and so on and so forth.
Talk to your friends. Talk to your mom. Talk to your boss and your co-workers. Talk to the hottie who gets the decaf single extra-hot, no-foam, non-fat latte every morning at 9:23 (you know you want to).
We’ll talk to FF/WD about adding a Worst Kept Secret category – or maybe Most Exciting Development…or Coolest Collection…or Most Talented and Charming Staff…Best Looking Board of Directors… Most Awesome Sponsors…
Moog Liberated that is. I give you a new addition to the family; the Moog Liberation. New to us that is, it’s actually from around 1981. This instrument was largely (but not solely) responsible for the “Keytar” craze of the 1980s. Most keytars are just MIDI controllers that you plug in to other gear, such as the Korg RK-100, the yamaha KX-5 and the Roland Axis. The Liberation, however, is a genuine analog synthesizer with the controls mounted so that the player can tweak them while they’re playing, with an umbilical cord-like cable that plugs into a rackmount unit containing the power supply and inputs and outputs, thus only having one cable to trip over instead of a tangled spaghetti mess. As for the sounds, it is in many ways very similar to the MG-1 (the cheap Moog built for Radio Shack ), the Opus 3, and the Prodigy (both of which were also Moog). Soundwise it is probably closest to the Prodigy, although it does contain a very basic polyphonic organ section like the Opus 3 and MG-1 both have. There are 2 VCOs, and the tone is pretty decent for lead solo sounds, but falls a little short in the bass department. Lets just say it’s no Minimoog. It actually looks a lot heavier than it is, and no doubt was used by keyboardists who wanted to swoon the ladies while melting their faces with synthesizer solos. Guitarists probably all had a good chuckle over it too I’m sure. The Liberation still can be seen in live use today, because it just looks so darn cool. (Or dorky depending on your opinion of keytars). I’m positive I’ve seen video of one used with Gwen Stefani live, and there are also confirmed sightings of The Human League using one live as recent as 2009. Since eghties trends seem to be coming back right now, Roland has just introduced a next-generation keytar in August 2009 that contains a built in synthesizer. I think I’ll stick to my good ol’ Korg RK-100 from 1984. Yes the liberation has the added sex-appeal of being a Moog, but the RK-100 is a tank. And because it’s made of wood, if the nice red finish gets too scuffed up, I can just re-paint it! Maybe sunburst this time. Hmmmmm.
Tell us why music is important to you. What has it meant throughout your life? What songs have been particularly impactful and why? What do you think of the fact that there is currently n…o home for Canadian music memorabilia and that some of our greatest treasures are going to the States for that reason? Tell us why MUSIC MATTERS!
There’s some new eye/ear candy in the electronics gallery. Among the new treasures are an Emulator (formerly owned by Brian Kehew of the Moog Cookbook) a Waldorf Wave and a Yamaha DX-7II Centennial Edition. Before I talk about the sounds I would like to point out that these things just LOOK really cool. Especially the Wave, which looks like the mutant spawn of a Minimoog and a Waldorf Q on steroids. The Emulator has a very cool industrial early 80s computer look, with a very solid steel enclosure and a handy lil’ pocket for the floppy disks. I’m told it was designed by the same guy that did the case for the Apple II. Last but certainly not least, the DX-7. Granted, there are TONS of DX 7 and DX 7IIs floating around, there are only 100 of these Centennial versions in the world. It was made in ‘88 for Yamaha’s 100th birthday and featured a silver paint job with gold buttons, slider and wheels. That alone seems pretty “bling” but the icing on the cake is the glow-in-the-dark keys! All three of these instruments were very expensive when they were new, and due to their rarity still are.
Now on to the sounds. The Wave is easily my favorite of the 3, because it’s a continuation of the wavetable-based PPG synths from the early 80s featured on lots of great synth pop, new wave and other recordings. It’s kind of slow to boot (from a floppy!) but it’s actually pretty intuitive to use. The DX-7II is nice too, but soundwise is no different than any other DX-7II out there. I’m not HUGE on FM synthesis, but it certainly does have it’s uses. There’s some neat patches in there right now which are mostly percussion stuff like tablas, gongs, etc. Then there’s the emulator. I’m not sure what my feelings are about vintage samplers. I’ve never drooled over them the same way that I do for other synths and drum-machines. As far as the sounds themselves go, you can easily load them into a software sampler, but a lot of the charm of these instruments is in their DACs (Digital Analog Converters). In lots of hip-hop and rap, beats that were made on a hardware sampler like an Akai MPC60 (DJ Shadow’s album “Endtroducing” was made entirely with one) or an Emu SP 1200 (which was used on lots of great music by De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Cypress Hill, the Beastie Boys and even Daft Punk) sound a lot more punchy and “phat” than a lot of stuff being produced nowadays on computers and workstations. The Emulator does indeed have a very warm sound for an 8 bit sampler. JL showed me the french horn disk he had, which sounded quite rich and beautiful. Of course it helps when there are real analog filters and envelopes at work.
I just snagged up the last copy of the Radioaktivox Optigan disc from the good folks at http://www.optigan.com/shoptigan/ . Besides having the coolest name EVER for an Optigan disc it will no doubt prove to be the most musically useful. The style is very Kraftwerk-esque although they only make veiled references to “that famous German synth band” on the video. I think it’s amazing that new Optigan discs are being made nearly 40 years after the Optigan’s introduction, which if I understand correctly, is only made slightly easier with modern digital recording and looping. The “Minimalism” disc is pretty cool too, complete with Philip Glass style ostenatos and Tara Busch singing. I can think of a couple of discs I would love to make. One that is just vintage drum breaks would be sweet. I also wouldn’t mind one with the “Vox Humana” preset from the Polymoog. We could call that one the Gary Numan disc! Here’s the YouTube demo from the site showing the Radioaktivox in action.
Well here’s something different. In a sea of Roland Junos and various polysynths from Korg and Yamaha there were some other lesser known contenders from Kawai, Crumar and various other European and Japanese companies with a lot of similarities and a few key differences. I must admit when I hear the name Kawai I think of either entry-level home keyboards or upright pianos. The company was started in 1927, and made guitars and pianos, sometimes under different brand names. In the 80s they started branching more into the “pro – level” market, introducing synthesizers both under the Teisco brand and their own name. I really should give Kawai props for actually making the classic “one knob for all the different functions” concept actually easy to use. You just hit the parameter you want to edit and twist the knob. (Much like the Moog Source) A lot of the others tried to do this, but you usually have to punch some stupid parameter number in and squint at a little chart. Personally I blame Yamaha’s DX 7, which after an industry changing debut in 1983 became the standard against which all other synthesizers were measured. (Actually the SX-210 came out the same year) People started looking at instruments like the Prophet – 5 and the Oberheim OBXa and saying “That thing’s got too many knobs! Why doesn’t it look futuristic like the DX-7?” Also, manufacturers like to save a buck whenever they can, and by eliminating as many knobs off of the front panel as possible they save money. Most people didn’t care anyways, because they would just use the pre – programmed patches. Lazy, lazy, LAZY! Another unique feature of the SX-210 is the large (by 80s standards) LED display. While some other synths just displayed numbers of patches, this is a full alphanumeric display so you can name your patches. So how does it actually sound? Pretty darn good I think. It’s actually a very warm sound; being a former Juno 106 owner I found this one to be darker and mellower sounding. They’re definitely two very different animals. It can’t touch my OB-8’s fatness, but nothing that has DCOs really can. Apparently there is also an SX-240, which is a similar deal but with another DCO, internal sequencer and MIDI. Now THAT would be the one to get! Here are some sound examples. The first is the “Strings 3” preset with the ensemble effect on, next the “Harp” preset while using the parameter dial to tweak the filter cutoff, then the patch named ”B-II-2” (not really sure what that means) and finally a patch called “what?”
And with a mighty THUD I might add! Many thanks to Doug Berquist who made this generous donation to us. The LM-1 is an important milestone in drum machine technology, being the first device of its kind to incorporate samples of real drums, rather than making close approximations using synthesizer techniques, as was the case for the now legendary Roland TR-808. Everyone has heard of the 808, it has even been mentioned in lyrics of pop songs, immortalized on album covers and in music videos, and the sounds are still used today either in the flesh or as samples. In fact the 808 and the LM-1 came out around the same time. Although the 808 had a unique and easy to use programming interface (commonly called XOX style programming), it didn’t really sound like real drums. Roger Linn was a guitar player in California in the late 70s when he decided to build a drum machine that in his words “did more than play preset samba patterns and didn’t sound like crickets” which admittedly most of them did at the time. The home computer boom was just around the corner, and the technology to make his vision of “sampled” drums possible was starting to become more widely available. The heart of the machine (and other machines made by Oberheim and Sequential Circuits in the early 80s) is the EPROM. (Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) These have since been rendered almost obsolete by newer technology, but in 1978 were cutting edge. Essentialy it’s a chip that can be semi-permanently programmed with data, in this case a drum sound, and if so desired erased and re-programmed with a different sound. (See the blog about the Prommer and Oberheim DX)
So why is this dinosaur of a drum machine still relevant in this age of massive multi-samples and seemingly unlimited memory? Well, for one thing this revolutionary device showed up on lots of famous recordings by Prince, Michael Jackson (Thriller!), Madonna, The Human League, Mtume and many others. Its sound embodies the early 80s. Personally, I think it has a really unique feel. I own an Oberheim DX, and it sounds very quantized and robotic compared to the “sloppy yet funky” sound the LM-1 has. The song “Juicy Fruit” by Mtume is a prime example of LM-1 at its finest. That beat has been sampled to death, most notably by Biggy Smalls for the song “Juicy”. I like Mtume’s version better though ; )
Executive Director Andrew Mosker makes the big announcement
What a night last night. Cantos celebrated a milestone on its journey to creating a national music centre at the King Eddy Hotel yesterday by announcing our choice of Brad Cloepfil’s Allied Works and local partner BKDI as our architects. We made the announcement to a full house of friends and supporters followed by a great party with Matt Masters, The Ramblin’ Ambassadors and the Cantos Blue Mondays All Ages Blues Jam Regulars. Good times! Thanks to Matt Palmer for these pictures! Watch for more as they come in.
CMLC's Chris Ollenberger talks about the new East Village
Friends of the King Eddy's Michelle Goshinnmon seems happy with the choice.
