Prophet '08 Music

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #80 on: July 27, 2016, 09:44:47 PM »
A dreamy piece for an abandoned house:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z93pkyyz_zk

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #81 on: August 21, 2016, 03:24:06 PM »
This piece uses a new patch.

I'm passing on a story I wrote that was meant to be accompanied by the music and pictures below.  A little late summer fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCXDGjMjUoI


Who’s Playing the Piano?

My wife and I recently took a drive through the southern Berkshires.  It was an uncomfortably hot and humid afternoon, and our car windows were rolled down, since our air conditioning had long ago stopped working.  (You see, we’re both musicians.)  At some point late in the day, we came upon what seemed to be an old abandoned camp of some type.  The buildings were faded and dilapidated; doors were hanging and windows broken, and graffiti marred a wall or two.

Struck by the mystique of the lonely place, we decided to pull over and take a few pictures.  As we walked around one building – a reddish house that we imagined had belonged to the camp manager – we noted that a large field in the backyard had been over-taken by the woods.  We also found a small cluster of apple trees beside the house.  The trees were gnarly and obviously hadn’t been pruned for many years, yet we noticed they still bore a small crop of Macintoshes.
 
As we stood directly across the street from the house, discussing how best to balance the building and a nearby stonewall for the perfect picture, we noticed a soft cryptic sound that hadn’t been audible only a moment ago.  We froze for a moment at this new and unexpected accompaniment.  At first it seemed like wind chimes, and then perhaps the whimsical song of a Catbird.  Our minds searched for a calm rational explanation for the sound.  But as our ears adjusted to the faint and muffled tones, we realized that it was, without a doubt, music – piano music – coming from within the house.  I looked at my wife and nervously asked,
 
“Who’s playing the piano?”
 
Since it was by now late afternoon and long shadows had overtaken the homestead, my wife, pretending that all was normal, prepared to take the first pictures.  It seemed best to use a flash in this shadowy setting.  She squinted to center the house and wall in the tiny frame of her camera, and then snapped the first photo.  The purple flash lit up the face of the building to a far greater degree than we had expected.  Together with the yellow light of the setting sun behind us, it reflected in the windows and created an otherworldly blinding blend of natural and unnatural light.  It was almost alarming.  And at that instant, the piano music ceased.  The unexpected silence was even more unnerving than our first recognition that someone was making music inside this crumbling long-abandoned house.  For now we knew that whoever was inside was aware of our presence, and we had rudely interrupted their piano playing with our picture taking.

By now, the two of us were in a panic and feeling or imagining a stranger’s suspicious eye upon us.  Regardless, we still wanted to get a few more pictures of the place.  The several buildings across the street were irresistibly cryptic in their hard-wooded setting, and overgrown with decades or more of grasses and shrubs, as nature reclaimed her lumber.  We hurried up the road perhaps a hundred feet, and my wife snapped a few more pictures of the other structures – a small shack, the main cabin, and an immense barn.  The cabin, which resembled a plain dormitory type of structure, seemed to have once received a half-hearted renovation, including a turquoise coat of paint.  We noticed a few large windows and two doors that did not at all match the age of the building, but no more.  The renovation was begun and then quickly dropped, for some tantalizing reason.  Perhaps the renovator preferred instead to play the piano in the house across the street.

With the taking of the last picture, we exhaled our relief and quickly returned to our car.  I pulled out of the small grassy lot, turned the car around, and began to head home.  But my wife suddenly held out her left hand in front of me and whispered, “Wait.  Stop the car.  Turn it off.”  I stopped in the middle of the road, put it in park, turned off the engine, and listened.  I feared to hear what she heard.  Yes, it was piano music – the same piece, the same Alberti Bass and minor melody – only now it was coming from the turquoise cabin.  But how could that be?  There were no signs of life here, no worn paths or freshly cut grass, but only unkept acres and empty collapsing buildings.  My wife, looking straight ahead, with eyes wide open and lips hardly moving, asked the unwanted question:
 
“But who’s playing the piano?”
 
I started the engine again, frantically pressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor, and we slowly drove away.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2016, 09:05:19 PM by Sacred Synthesis »

dslsynth

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Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #82 on: August 21, 2016, 03:49:09 PM »
:o . o O ( ghostbusters )
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Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #83 on: August 24, 2016, 12:46:20 PM »
Well Sacred Synthesis,  judging from the boarded up windows in the pictures looks like you were hearing ghosts playing.   But are you sure your blue-tooth ear piece didn't somehow patch into your youtube page while you were exploring the grounds  ;)
Sequential/DSI Equipment: Poly Evolver Keyboard, Evolver desktop,   Pro-2, Pro-3, OB6, P-12,
 

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Sacred Synthesis

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #84 on: August 26, 2016, 08:45:32 PM »
Every detail of the story was true...except the piano music.   :P  I thought I'd add that just for fun.

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #85 on: August 29, 2016, 06:26:15 AM »
Very inspiring, Sacred Synthesis! I've been down the Prophet 6 road, drooling and fiddling, nervously checking my bank account. But, I soon realized that there's not much I need except my 08 and imagination, there's just so much you can do with it and listening to your youtube improvisations opened up a lot more, thanks! Here's an album I recorded in 2011 which features only my Prophet 08 except for some leads performed on a Moog Voyager Old School. It's pop and it's in Swedish but the Prophet is international.  ;)

https://open.spotify.com/album/139WfPoK83eutS01s9FFct

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #86 on: August 29, 2016, 07:16:52 AM »
Thanks, Aproduktion.  I'll give a listen to your music later. 

What I've come to appreciate in the Prophet '08 is its precision, the ability to get a sound tailored just right.  I don't know what is the case with other synthesists, but I design sounds, not at all by experimentation, but by a clear sonic idea I already have in my head.  Sound design is not like wondering around until you stumble across something you happen to like.  I'm at the opposite pole of that approach.   Rather, sound design is like searching for a place you know is out there because, in some sense, you've mentally seen it.  Therefore, I need precision in a synthesizer.  I don't like what I've heard others say about the P6 and OB-6, that the parameters move by larger and less exacting increments.  And then, there's the paucity of modulation.  And on and on.  I don't mean to criticize these other instruments that many folks love, because I have no doubt they're superb.  But the P'08 is unique in that, although it's relatively simple, it isn't simplistic.  And it does offer wonderful precision.  Hence, when I go a-searching with it, I always find what I'm looking for.  For me, and for many of us, it's just the right instrument.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2016, 11:05:11 PM by Sacred Synthesis »

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #87 on: November 19, 2016, 10:58:33 PM »
I purchased a Prophet 8 earlier this year. I had gotten tired of waiting for a back ordered Minilogue and changed my order to a MophoX4. I liked the MophoX4 so much that I decided that to upgrade to the Prophet.

In the track below I used my Prophet 8 for the panning chords (Wagnerian patch I think). The lead is a Moog Little Phatty.

https://soundcloud.com/brian-schiller-3/sept16drumjam

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #88 on: November 20, 2016, 07:08:18 PM »
Inspired by Sacred Synthesis' own Prophet '08 videos. I explored a similar route. Prophet '08 sounds x nature shots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKXGtslQXcM&t=56s

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #89 on: November 27, 2016, 04:26:52 PM »
I've been working on some other musical projects of the organ type, so I thought I'd post this example - an Advent Chorale set by Bach.  It uses a pipe organ "registration" with a reed "stop" that is produced by three Prophet '08s MIDI-ed together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOGl_-tEPpE

« Last Edit: November 28, 2016, 01:36:44 PM by Sacred Synthesis »

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #90 on: December 17, 2016, 09:11:46 PM »
This hymn uses a carillon patch I developed this week.  It's a classic example of the sort of additive synthesis on a subtractive synthesizer that I've mentioned on this forum.  It does not use Hard Sync, but is a careful combination of dissonant pitches, a bright filter, percussive envelopes, and a touch of the Prophet '08's envelope Delay.

By the way, this recording shows why I like the Lexicon MX300's reverb so much.  It's very natural sounding; it sounds as if it's meant to be.  Some of the reverbs that are very popular today sound sooooo gorgeous that, in my opinion, they get in the way of the music.  They have more attraction than the music itself.  The Lexicon, by contrast, is much more humble.  It adds beautiful reverb, but without drawing attention away from the music and to itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhfQf5KO10g
« Last Edit: December 17, 2016, 09:30:07 PM by Sacred Synthesis »

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #91 on: December 18, 2016, 08:35:02 PM »
That was a great patch and some beautiful playing. Thanks for creating it!

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #92 on: December 19, 2016, 06:48:24 AM »
Thank you and you're welcome.  That was my DX7 imitation!

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #93 on: December 19, 2016, 07:01:22 AM »
Prophet '08 killed the FM star. Very nice!

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #94 on: December 19, 2016, 08:16:35 AM »
Thanks, Paul.  So I've spent thousands of dollars on analog synthesizers to achieve a thin digital sound.  What's so strange about that?   ;D

« Last Edit: December 19, 2016, 09:08:50 AM by Sacred Synthesis »

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #95 on: December 19, 2016, 08:26:05 AM »
Thanks, Paul.  Now who said the Prophet '08 couldn't sound digital?  So I've spent thousands of dollars on analog synthesizers to achieve a thin digital sound.  What's so strange about that?  ;D

I wouldn't say that the sound you've created sounds thin. It's harmonically complex and just right for what it's supposed to be. As for emulating digital sounds on the Prophet '08: That was in fact one of my favorite exercises on it. LFOs at audio rates in conjunction with keytracking can be your friend in that regard. Pushing the modulation options beyond the usual applications while still maintaining musicality in terms of tonality, can make for lots of interesting sounds, which don't indicate immediately whether they've been created on a digital or analog synth. That has always been an aspect about the Prophet '08 I liked a lot.

Sacred Synthesis

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #96 on: December 19, 2016, 08:32:33 AM »
The nice thing about the patch is that all the tonal qualities are achieved by the tuning of oscillators.  That leaves the LFOs free for adding additional effects.  So, I added a little panning and a touch of vibrato to make it shiver just a tad.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2016, 08:36:17 AM by Sacred Synthesis »

dslsynth

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Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #97 on: December 19, 2016, 08:35:56 AM »
So the Prophet '08 have hereby been declared a Virtual Digital!? ;)

Nice track, Sacred Synthesis. Very impressive sound synthesis. Have to say though that I am on the second listen of Improvisation LXXIII today while writing this.
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Sacred Synthesis

Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #98 on: December 19, 2016, 08:40:21 AM »
Thanks a lot, Dslsynth.  That's the nice thing about owning an instrument for a long time - you continue to dig deep and further stretch its capacity.  As opposed to continuously buying the latest thing.  At this point, my Prophet '08 is like a faithful old dog - kind of slow and shabby, but also familiar and friendly.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2016, 08:41:52 AM by Sacred Synthesis »

dslsynth

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Re: Prophet '08 Music
« Reply #99 on: December 19, 2016, 08:45:32 AM »
Yeah you know its the advantage of longer term connections: familiarity! ;)
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