Eric J. Sawyer aka EJ2 is another well known member of the OASYS network and 3rd-party sound designer for Karma, OASYS, M3 and V-Synth. His last collection was ECLECTRIC v1, a fully KARMA-fied set of 32 combis for Korg’s flagship. Let’s see if Eric is working on new sounds for the OASYS…
blogasys: Eric, you know what is coming now as intro – please be so kind and tell us a little bit of yourself.
EJ2: First, thank you, Peter, for the opportunity to share some details about myself and my work. I have really enjoyed reading the interviews published on your blogasys, so I hope my contribution adds more insight and information for our OASYS community.
blogasys: I am sure about that and thanks, Eric!
EJ2: .. compared with most users on KLF or KF, I’m an old fart – 63 years and counting. I’m a Canadian Boomer, eh! I grew up with two other brothers (one older, one younger) in a working class family in the north end of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. We didn’t have a lot of money back then, but my parents made sure we had what was needed to develop into well rounded citizens. One of those supports included music lessons. My dad was an excellent piano player (mostly self taught) and it appears my older brother and I inherited some of his talent. He had an amazing gift to be able to hear a song for the first time, sit down at the piano and crank out his version of it, which was pretty darn good too. I often wish I had half of his ability to play by ear. Unfortunately for my older brother and me, he passed away before he could teach us his techniques and secrets, especially his left hand comping. He was one of the best piano players around. Just the same, as the saying goes, “blood is thicker than water”, so I did acquire a passion for music, especially keyboards and a knack for improvisation and playing by ear.
Now, my older brother was a good piano student. He progressed with a natural affinity and did well in recitals and exams. Later into his young adult years he kept his piano acumen as an avocation while his main livelihood took him elsewhere. This is basically what my dad did as well. Neither dedicated 100 % to a professional career, even though they were more than capable. That’s not to say they didn’t make a few bucks here and there. At 67, my brother is still in demand and he does a solo gig now and then. Now, when he’s visiting me, he seldom ventures into my studio. One time I sat him down at the Karma and within one bar he threw off the headphones declaring, “I can’t handle all that. It’s too much. I’m completely lost with all that shit!” We had a good laugh appreciating where each of our talents shone.
When I first started piano lessons, I did not show a smidgen of disciplined diligence. I hated to practice. I refused to follow proper technique (fingering etc.). And my reading was atrocious. My piano teacher in her frustration with me would scratch deep red pencil marks all over my music books. I was more interested in just farting around experimenting with sounds. Needless to say, my parents took notice and eventually told me that I should quit my lessons because I was making good progress going nowhere. I agreed and, at 10 years old, packed in formal piano lessons – but not music altogether.
A few years later, my innate talents hit a different direction. A buddy across the street received a brand new accordion for his 12th birthday and invited me over to see and hear it. Well, I desperately wanted to strap it on and have a go. At first he was reluctant, but when I reminded him that I had taken a few years of piano lessons, he (and his dad) agreed to let me try to play it. Needless to say, I could; and I fell in love with this instrument. However, my parents were quite unwilling to let me restart my music education. Yet, with much pleading, and only after I showed them I could play my buddy’s accordion, albeit by ear, they conceded. A year later, after fruitful lessons with a rented “Stomach Steinway”, I had my own lovely 128 bass pearlized Scandalli. That was the first beginning of my love relationship with keyboard instruments. For the next three years I built up a decent repertoire of accordion and popular standard songs. One of the latter, in particular was my mom’s favorite – the “Theme from Mr. Lucky”. In addition, my inherited talent for playing by ear kicked in, especially when I was messing around pumping out blues, boogie, and zydeco styles on my “squeeze box”.
To tie in a little more about my musical background, I should mention that during my high school years, I played drums in our school’s jazz band – by ear, no reading nor training whatsoever. I just picked it up by listening and playing along to LP records of standard big band jazz tunes – Woodchoppers Ball, for example. All the other band members were enrolled in the school’s music classes, except for me. However, I fit in perfectly. Now, back in the 60’s, when school stage bands were rare, we were in high demand for private and public shows. We got to be quite good. Believe it or not Eugene Levy (American Pie fame) was one of the saxophonists in the group. This stint definitely had an impact on my grasp of rhythm and how it fit in with melody.
There’s more, however. In addition to “playing the traps” in high school, I was also, the lead trumpeter in a marching band for our local Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron. Again, I was self-taught and played by ear. Nevertheless, my success in Air Cadets went beyond the band. One of my honors resulted in an International Exchange to Great Britain when I was 18 years of age. So, why should I mention this? Well, having a natural “itch” to play music and without my trusty accordion along, all those pianos readily available in many of the pubs and mess halls that we visited, lured me back to those 88s with a new perspective and a new desire to really connect with keyboards. When I returned home, I followed my “old man’s” steps and started playing by ear - mostly the rock ‘n’ roll crap of the era in a few local groups.
It wasn’t long after my return, my father died. I met a girl, got married and started a family. Since then, I made sure of one thing - I always had musical instruments in the house, especially a piano, an accordion and, eventually other keyboards.
blogasys: How did you start making music and which electronic instrument was the first you played?
EJ2: This question segues nicely into what happened next. During the early years of my first marriage, I had a host of different jobs – grocery clerk, steel worker, insurance salesman, butcher, railroad trainman/conductor, and military drill instructor, believe it or not. I finally decided, with my then wife’s support, that I had enough of jumping from one job to another and that it would be best to return to school to commence degree studies and establish a real career in education. We knew that this decision would put a strain on family finances. So, she started full time work, while I worked shifts after classes; but to help pay the bills and university fees, we took in boarders. Before I explain how this led to my beginnings in electronic music. I should explain a few more interesting facts.
Having a penchant for playing around with sounds had me trying all kinds of experiments with my music instruments and found material. Before I even knew what the technique was called, I was investigating the “prepared keyboard”. I fooled around with thumb tacks in the hammers of my piano. It was an old Nordheimer, so I wasn’t worried about ruining it. Another trick (amongst my many experiments) was to put wax paper or aluminum foil behind the dampers. I even used drum sticks, guitar picks, large rubber bands, railway spikes – you name it - on detuned strings while depressing the sustain pedal. All the while, I was recording the results on an old “wire” recorder (http://www.videointerchange.com/wire_recorder1.htm). My next stunt was to play back my experiments from the wire recorder, improvise on whatever instruments or found sounds I wanted to integrated, and then recorded all that on another tape recorder. I even learned how to press on the outside of the wire recorders transports without realizing that I was engaged in what came to be known as “flanging”. I tried other techniques for distorting and modifying the sounds. Primitive yes! But, even by today’s standards, I had some really interesting “stuff” happening. Sadly, all that material has been long lost. Yet, little did I know that a decade or so later, the world of electronic music would explode for me with the advent of synthesizers, drum machines and multi track recorders.
Now, the reason I mentioned the renters in the previous paragraph was because they were decent musicians who discovered I could play keyboards. They introduced me to my very first electronic organ. To be precise, it was a beat up Vox Continental they had rented and brought back to the house to see if I could play it. I could and I did, so I decided to buy my own Yamaha YC-10.
That was tons of fun trying to play Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” (amongst other material) with that thing. We named ourselves “The Propellers” after the old one I had from my air cadet days hanging in the basement practice area. That chewed up prop accompanied us on all our gigs. Eventually, the band broke up and the musician boarders departed in their own directions. Nevertheless, my “Propellers” encounters made electronic keyboards a major part of my life forever.
blogasys: Why did you decide to use synthesizers for making music? What do you like about them?
EJ2: Well, it wasn’t long after my first wife and I divorced that I and two of my sons went on our own, and to keep busy with “healthy” distractions, I started frequenting music stores in some of my spare time. Basically, I was on the hunt for a cheap portable Hammond – a tough order indeed. At that time, I was desperately lusting for the sounds of the likes of Rod Argent (Argent), Tony Banks (Genesis), Jerry Corbetta (Sugar Loaf), Keith Emerson (ELP), Matthew Fischer (Whiter Shade of Pale), Jimmy Greenspoon (Three Dog Night), Jon Lord (Deep Purple), Gregg Rolie (Santana), Jimmy Smith (Jimmy Smith fame), Thjis van Leer (Focus), Rick Wakeman (Yes), Rick Wright (Pink Floyd), Steve Winwood (Traffic), et al. Be that as ambitious as it may, I came to concentrate my excursions at one store in particular - Lakeshore Music in Mississauga, Ontario (an up and coming urban area outside of Toronto). It wasn’t long before a very productive collegial relationship was established with the owner (Wally) and staff (John). They were in my age class (early 30’s then), held similar musical propensities, and they were very accomplished musicians who were eager to share their knowledge and the latest equipment around or soon to be around. They knew what they were talking about and they shared it freely in a friendly and helpful manner without the hype or misinformed bullshit you get today. [Just as an aside, I find it shameful that most current music store keyboard departments (and I’ve been to a few across North America) are staffed with idiots who haven’t a clue.]
blogasys: Yes, the days when you could have a good discussion are over….
Now, back to the store that introduced me to the synthesizer: One Saturday morning, I came across a keyboard that looked like a small chord organ (not what I was in the market for). It had knobs and wheels and it bore a strange name – Moog. “Turn it on and give it a whirl.” Wally insisted. After three notes, that was it. I was hooked. Though I did complain, “I can’t seem to play any chords on this thing.” He laughed and suggested I was a bit ahead of my time with that comment. “It’s a synthesizer!” he explained, “But, take a look at these.” He then showed me a Roland, a Yamaha, and a Korg - all (but Yamaha) new names to me as well, and yes, all monophonic. When I questioned why these companies couldn’t put out a keyboard that could play chords, we bantered around the concept of “polyphony”. He then told me to wait a few months because he was bringing in something from Roland that just might be up my alley. Each week passed by while I explored the mono-creatures now sucking me into the world of electronic music. Finally, that fine day and the beast arrived. It was a Juno 6 and, with the exception of 6 voice limitation, I was soon in sonic heaven. Without a blink of the eye, I wrote out a cheque, took this baby home, and the rest is history, as the saying goes.
I absolutely loved messing around with this synth because it augmented my penchant for sonic experimentation. I didn’t just restrict myself to the suggested settings from the diagrams and schemes in the manual. I went whole hog and before long, I had a brand new vocabulary - cut-off frequency, modulation, LFOs (low frequency oscillators), VCFs (voltage controlled filters), VCOs (voltage controlled oscillators), Arpeggiator, ENV (envelopes), ADSR (attack, decay, sustain, release), effects etc. The Juno 6 was a great synthesizer to cut my teeth on. Without a doubt, this was the genesis of EJ2. To be sure, though, it’s been a long evolutionary progression to where I am today.
blogasys: Who are your favorite musicians, groups, or sound designers you think influenced you?
EJ2: Well, it’s a long list that includes those already mentioned above and giants from the past as well as more contemporary artists and sound designers, but I’ll limit it to the following. J.S. Bach, G. F. Handel, D. Scarlatti, Palestrina, Paganini, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Salieri, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Weber, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokefiev, Mussorsky, Liszt, Wagner, Dvorák, Sibilieus, Satie, Debussy, Camille Saint Saens, Bizet, Berlioz, Bartok, Ravel, Scriabin, Gustaf Holtz, Edvard Grieg, Pucinni, Elgar, Benjamin Britten, Paul Dukas, Mahler, Copeland, Gershwin, Ives, Stravinsky, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, Leonard Bernstein, John Williams, Andrew Lloyd Weber, Burt Bacharach, Stephen Sondheim, Frank Loesser, Steely Dan, Spyro Gyra, Weather Report, Miles Davis, Dave Brubek, Joni Mitchel, Kate Bush, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Yes, Focus, Keith Emerson, Jam n Lewis, Steppenwolf, Tod Rundgren, Gordon Lightfoot, Loverboy, Red Rider, Gino & Joe Vanelli, Jeff Healy, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, W.C. Handy, Bo Diddly, Fats Waller, Fats Domino, John Lee Hooker, BB King, Taj Mahal, Muddy Waters, Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Ravi Shankar, J. L. Ponty, J.M. Jarre, John Cage, Philip Glass, Morton Subotnick, Wendy Carlos, Glenn Gould, Samuel Barber, Larry Fast, Andre Previn, Thomas Dolby, S. Ciani, Vangelis, Brian Eno, Enya, S. Vega, Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze, Kitaro, Tomito, Mike Oldfield, Alan Parsons, Tangerine Dream, the Beatles, the Who, the Guess Who, Supertramp, Mahavishnu, Rush, Kim Mitchell, Jethro Tull, Saga, Ray Manzarek (Doors), Billy Preston, Deep Purple, Tears for Fears, Moody Blues, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Jan Hammer, Dream Theatre, Crystal Method, Paul Oakenfold, William Orbit, BT (Brian Transeau), Rob Papen, Tim Conrady, Ned Bouhalassa, Eric Persing, Paul Haslinger, Maarten Spruijt, Marc Schlaile, Zon Vern Pyles, Dan Lind, Jordan Rudess, John Bowen, Steve McNally, John “Skippy” Lehmkuhl, Peter “Ski” Schwartz, Dan Phillips, Jack Hotop, Paul Osborn, Stephen Kay …
I guess I got a bit carried away…..
blogasys: … and I guess this is a prove that you really love music!
EJ2: … man, there are so many more who have had an impact on where I am today. I know I’ve left out a few. As you can see, those influences range from medieval to baroque to classical, from impressionist, to post modern, from blues to experimental, from contemporary to ancient patterns/scales, from middle eastern, oriental, aboriginal music to cinematic sound tracks. I’m all over the music map.
In Part II of Eric’s interview he will tell us more about his music, the equipment he is using and focus on OASYS and the sounds he has designed. Eric will mention one or two words about KARMA and give an insight in his sound design work - so watch this space!
You want to listen to some audio demos already?
Ok. Then please click here to listen to some Combinations of Eric’s ECLECTRIC v1 Collection.
James Tubbritt known as Sharp to the Korg user community, together with Daz owns http://www.korgforums.com/.
A very helpful platform for OASYANs and those on the way to become one.
blogasys: Sharp, please be so kind and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Sharp: I’m 31 years old, Irish and married to a beautiful girl called Christine. I’m also a proud Dad to two little angels aged 7 months and 4 years, (Lana & Faye). I live just outside Waterford City here in Ireland, also known as the sunny south east which is kind of funny really since it rains here all the time. My hobbies are music (obviously), photography, 3D Art, and I love a good movie. I went to School here in Waterford at Mount Sion Christian bothers. I’m a qualified Sheet Metal engineer, with C&C Programming, Radian & CAD. Which I’ve used in places like the Aerospace Industry where I made Jet Engines and also worked as a Lab Technician. So if you ever need your car pimped, I can slap a Jet Engine on the back :-).
Now days I’m living sort of a double life I guess due to the fact that I found it difficult to keep IA-Studio open in the day and support a family. So for the moment I decided to hold off on the full time studio work until I build up a bigger client base. So I run IA-Studio recording bands at night, while also sequecning music for clients, and designing sounds. Also not forgetting KORG Forums as I obviously spend a lot of time online. During the day, I’m a Quality Manager in a soft drinks company where I manage the quality control department. It’s an interesting job as I get to do a lot of data base design, and I also get to use my programming to automate a lot of processes as well as deal with my Staff and keep them busy.
blogasys: How did you start making music and have you been muscilly educated?
Sharp: It’s actually kind of strange really because I clearly remember the day I got started. I was 4 years old and in my first year of school. It was sports day and the team I was on won the tug-of-war game. The prize was a plastic whistle full of chewing gum. Certainly not something you would give a 4 year old now days, but back then it wasn’t a bad thing. Anyway, after eating all the gum, I realised that I could play anything I wanted to on the whistle. Didn’t have to try, I could just do it. So that’s how I got started. My Parents where kind of freaked out by it because I would play along with the Radio or TV in real-time.
When I reached 7 years old, I guess that’s when my music training started as the school I was in had a brass band. I joined up and they thought me how to read and write music there, as well as play all the different instruments. I started off on Cornet, and over the years worked my way up to Bass Trombone where I stayed on that until I left School.
blogasys: Which musician influenced you most and who are you favourite musicians?
Sharp: I’d say that Enya has influenced me the most by far. She just has such an amazing sound, and her minimal approach to musical perfection is a lesson in itself. There is so much to be learned from her, especially in songs like Storms in Africa and Watermark. Watermark easily being my favourite song by her.
As for who would be my favourite musicians.
Enya, Jarre, and Neil from the Pet Shop Boys. The songs “Left to my own devices” and “I’m not scared” are both an education in music themselves. Extremely complex.
blogasys: What kind of music are you listening these days and why?
Sharp: Madonna, the live confessions tour. Christine purchased the Audio CD/ DVD pack for me and after watching the concert. I just can’t stop listening to the audio CD lately. Come to think of it, that’s all I’ve been listening to for the last 4 weeks. She did a version of “Music” with a 70’s style disco feel to it which was really great.
I also like Modonna as I feel there is a lot you can learn from her bass lines, and chord sequences. The song “Sorry” being a good example.
blogasys: Now lets talk about your music, are there any projects you have been working on?
Sharp: There’s actually quite a lot on at the moment. I currently have 2 original bands booked in, 3 solo singers that I will have to sequence backing tracks for, and I’m working on a musical. Not to mention my own projects. I’m in the final stages of finishing my own CD.
blogasys: what inspired you to make your own CD?
Sharp: What inspired me to start writing music for this CD was a mixture of things. The most important to me was the fact that I had spent so much of my life working on music for someone else, I had little to show of my true self. When working for others, I try create what they describe, so I never really look upon anything I write for clients as “me”.
I also had an idea of “One Song A Month” in mind by where I would get a number of people on KORG Forums to sign up to a year long contract, by where we would all agreed to write a one song a month (find the link at the end of this interview). The idea being, we could give each other the support to actually make it to the end, and give advice as we went through the process.
A year is a long time, and 12 songs for many is an almost uninamaginable tasks. So as a groupe, things where easier, and overall it brought somthing very good to the KORG comunity.
The title track of my CD “Leanbh Mo Chroi” was written for KORG. I was one of the sound designer who worked for KORG on the Triton Extreme, so I used the Prototype Triton Extreme to write this song as a demo tune for KORG. The orignal version can still be found on www.korg.com. The rest of the tracks where basically just inspired by how I felt at the time of writing the tracks. So it’s all me.
Find a link to Sharp’s website “irishacts” at the end of this interview or under “links” “OASYS user websites”. All tracks of his CD “Leanbh Mo Chroi” can be heard and downloaded for free. For now two examples of his work:
Aoibhinn
Leanbh Mo Chroi - Child of my Heart
blogasys: What is your current musical project?
Sharp: Right now I’m running out of time, so I’ve had to focus all my attention on a musical I have been working on. This has been an ongoing project that has started to get very serious now as my client has received full financial backing from a company. I’m afraid I can’t go into all the details, but basically it’s very likely that the act will reach the stage in England, and I will get to hear a full orchestra play what I sequenced. So I’m looking forward to that. I’m also enjoying the fact that I get to use my roots from my background in the Brass band world I grew up with to score sheet music for my client.
blogasys: what kind of equipment are you using and why did you decide for it?
Sharp: It took me a long time to realise this, but less is more. So I’ve spent a lot of time downsizing my studio setup to 100% usable gear. So basically the following items where chosen because each one brings something different to the mix. Each in their own right unique and very flexible.
KORG OASYS 88
KORG Triton Studio fully loaded.
KORG Wavestation SR
AKAI S50000
KORG Pa1Xpro
Yamaha Tyros 2
Yamaha QY700
Yamaha VL70m
Yamaha WX-5
Sequential Circuits Pro One
A real Trumpet and Guitar.
2 Computers.
Tascam SX-1
Yamaha 01V
TC Helicon Voice Prism Plus.
4 Behringer 9024’s
2X Behringer 2032
2X Mackie HD824
4X Celestion 15″ Road Series
2X Celestion SR1
2X Celestion SR3
I have 1 Rode NT2-A Mic, and this is the main Mic that gets the most use. Excellent value for money, but truthfully, that’s not why I bought it. The day I was shopping, I had 1500 Euro in my pocket to lay down on a single Mic. The music store I went to had a fantastic selection too, but no matter what I tried, I found myself comparing everything to the NT2. In the end I just bought it.
Not being one who cares what “name” is on a Mic or anything for that matter. I also bought 2 T.BONE SCT1100 mics, and 4 T.BONE SC600. Dirty cheap, but holy molly do they sound expensive. I was extremly happy with that purchase, and I’m not ashamed to even mention the fact that I like them considering how little they do cost.
I also have 10 SM-58, and 2 EV Mics (can’t remember the model number), for general usage like drums, and so on. Nothing special here, just good old reliable Mics you can hop off a wall and they will work like new. Vocal are processed through the TC-Helicon Voice Prism Plus, and powered by the Pre-Amps in my Tascam SX-1.
blogasys: what was the reason for you to purchase OASYS?
Sharp: I could make a long list of things, but basically I was starting to become very unhappy with my Triton Studio as I was driving every system flat out, and still not getting the results I wanted. I would quickly run out of effects, and since my sounds are based around my own samples. I found myself waiting a lot of the time for the Triton to load sounds.
Where now, the OASYS loads hundreds of MB in seconds, I have 16 HDR tracks and a huge IFX engine. Karma v2 is also seriously impressive. It’s only when you sit down and really dig in do you get a good feel for what can be achieved with your own music.
blogasys: are there any things you would like to see in OASYS in the near future?
Sharp: Probably the most important one for me would be streaming of samples direct form the hard disk, just like Gigastudio, and with full support of Giga file formats. With so many wonderful sample libraries becoming available, and the almost death of AKAI S3000 format. It seems a shame that such a state of the art workstaiton like OASYS does not support any modern day formats.
After that, I’d like to see the Sequencer getting that well overdue makeover. For someone like me who has since the days of the M1 being sequencing on nothing other than KORG sequencers. I work extremely quickly with the on-board sequencer, however, because of this, I’m also left well out of the loop on what software sequencers have to offer. Which is a lot. It would be nice to see some of those advanced features finding their way into OASYS.
blogasys: you are programming sounds which are available online - can you tell us a little bit about forthcoming OASYS sounds?
Sharp: Yeah, I’m deep in development of a new sample library that when finished will be many times the size of anything I’ve previously released before. With so much sample memory now being available compared to a Triton Series workstation, I now have the opportunity to take a title like Vocal Assault much further and greatly expand on the number of human voice sounds, as well as expanding all this into many new area’s where Vocal Assault could not go.
So, while Vocal Assault was primarily a library based around the human voice. This new library will go much further. This is something I’m very excited about. My heart is in the right place too for this project because I’m not worried about the development costs, which so far have been great. I’m doing this to prove to myself at this point that I can. So when completed, this will be “ME” and my best work. I want it to be like this because due to the limited compatibility of KORG’s PCG file format with their other workstation coming out as this could very well be the last large scale project I complete. It just makes more sense to develop sounds on a much smaller scale and sell them individually rather than developing expensive complete libraries.
blogasys: What was the reason for you to start with korgforums.com and are there any things that are exceeding your positive and negative expectations?
Sharp: Ok, this is going to be a long one. An interesting one, and no doubt a trip down memory lane for all of our Advanced members. The people who have been with us from the beginning.
There is a LOT of history here, so lets go back to the very beginning. A time when I didn’t even know Daz, and there was no real on-line home for a KORG community.
Like any good story starts. A long long time ago in a galaxy far away, whoops I mean server, not galaxy, started a low-tech forum called Tritonica where many of the advanced members of the KORG Forums of today first meet and became friends. This little community was popular and eventually as the number grew, so did the need for a proper forum. Two guys got together and setup a place called Triton Central (TC). Which was very successful in it’s day and eventually grew into a large community.
Like all good stories, you have your good and your bad. And in this case there where a few members of the TC forum who would argue with anyone, and pretty much just spend all their time stirring up as much trouble as possible. Eventually this started spill out all over the forum and sadly the quality of the content greatly dropped due to the advanced members being put off actually helping people. Unbelievably, due to what seemed to be forum policy, this was allowed to continue.
I was probably one of the most active members on the forum, and even I started to lose all faith and less inclined in supporting the community.
In the real world, I was getting ready to build a recording studio here in Ireland, and I had a lot of plans, so I setup a website called Irish Acts Recording Studio www.irishacts.com . I used this portal to host a very large download section, and even back in the day, it was the largest KORG related download section there was. This coexisted along side TC, and was at the time never in conflict.
But then, I wanted to get a very basic forum working, if that’s what you would even call it by today’s standards because I was getting annoyed by the argunig on TC, and I had my own ideas on how things should be run. But there where CGI Script problems I couldn’t figure out (not my thing) at the time as so I posted a message into a KORG Yahoo group looking for help.
And a guy called Daz “the one and only, now my partner in crime :-)” replied and offered to help. So, we got talking and hit it off straight away. We had so much in coming it was scary, and so I handed over access to IA (Irish Acts) to him to take a look at the problem. Daz then just blinked (the wizard that he is with this kind of thing) and sorted everything out. And so the first basic forum was operational.
While the download section was a roaring success and doing well, the forum was so basic that Daz made a few suggestions, and eventually installed our first proper forum. YaBB !!.
The timing couldn’t have been better either.
This is technically the start of it all, the big bang, the beginning, the birth of IA’s KORG community. Because of how well Daz and I hit it off, and our idea’s on how things should be run, added to the fact that there was serious unrest over on TC. IA started to grow quickly and get a name as a forum where people could find respect as well as advanced technical support. Because of the respect and the way things where run, the community has always been very close, and at this time of it’s development, it grew at an unbelievable rate as word spread.
Still, it wasn’t plain sailing. Success = demands on resources, and considering the limited resources of a community that is run free from advertisements, and I was just paying the bill for out of my own pocket. It wasn’t too long before IA outgrew it’s home. This was to happen twice more before one of the most threatening incidents would come along that would threaten the existence of our community.
Which was our HOST who pretty much took all the hosting fees, pulled the plug and did a runner with over 1 million USD in fees from all it’s clients.
Not to let something as detrimental as this get us down, we decided to turn this around and make a good thing out of this. The IA community was huge, but for the future development of the forum, we felt that the name IA was preventing it from being all it could. Bearing in mind that IA is my Stuido’s name, and the KORG community was created more out of a need of the people and the way we ran things. We decided that it was now time to make the move an take the KORG community out from the protection of the IA name and give it it’s own name. Sort of bring it all to the next level so to speak. And so we agreed on a name and KORG Forums was born.
As always, Daz is the technical admin. He’s the one that keeps the entire community on-line and deals with all the technical issues, which is an insane amount of work. Popularity of a community brings unwanted attention from spam bots for starters. But someone does have to pay the bills. This is kind of my area since I’ve been the one doing this out of my pocket up untill now, as well as having a backseat and been a public face to IA / KF where Daz does all the real work
As so because of the new costs, and the size of the comunity, this is where the true spirit of the community comes in. It’s with great pleasure I can say that KF is still advertisement free, and now supported entirely by the members of the forum through a donation button we added for a few weeks upon the launch of the KORG Forums name. A button that only needs to return once every few years, and I’m sure will be supported long into the future as we continue grow as a community.
Was it all worth it ?
Yeah baby. KF has a life of it’s own and will continue to grow no matter what the future holds. Unless the earth is hit by a big asteroid that is
blogasys: Arend, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself?
AG: I was born in 1963 and living in a small village in the Netherlands. From when I was 15 I lived three years in a boarding school, the International School Beverweerd. After that I had plans to make my living as a musician, a drummer, but my education on the conservatory as a drummer didn´t work out. So I started working as professional caregiver at the Amerberg, a home for youngsters with behavioral problems and victims of child abuse and neglect. Since then I worked in the child care and professional child custody. At the moment I am working in the Psycho trauma centre for children and their parents at the university medical centre of Utrecht. I am also teaching students.
Music has always be my number one hobby. I was raised in a musical family, family members are classical schooled, no pop, rock or jazz at my parents place. My brother is one of the directors working as a professional balance engineer for classical productions at Polyhymnia http://www.polyhymnia.com/. My sister is a classical pianist and she is a music teacher and a singer. My father was a film director. I had a will of my own and …and started to play drums when I was about 12.
blogasys: You are a member of musicalgroup “De Amerberg” - what kind of music are you playing and can you tell us a bit about the group?
AG: We, started the group with the chief of the Amerberg, Jan van Dijkhuizen (find link at the end of this interview). We did music and theatre productions with members of the staff and the boys and girls who lived there. We did a project for Christmas called the Christmas Story in the early ninties. The music I wrote was entirely done with the 01/Wfd using the internal sequencer.
Later on, about ten years ago more people from outside joined the group. We started with rearranging the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar in 1994 and performed it in several theatres in 1996. I recorded everything again in the sequencer of the 01/W, it was a hell of a job. I choose that way of working because I could carry my instrument with me to different places. Later we arranged “Hair” and performed it in 2002. I used again the 01 and the Roland jv 2080, all in the internal sequencer.
Hair performed in 2002
In 2003 we started with musical Joseph and the Amazing Colour Dreamcoat also from Loyd and Webber. We performed it in 2005 and 2006. It was an old dream because I firstly performed that musical at Beverweerd on the drums. I had changed the 01/w for the Karma music workstation. And the red beast was fantastic. Although I was arranging existed music I could still use Karma GEs. What a wonderful experience. And I did the whole project again in the internal sequencer together with the Roland 2080.
It was a success and the art director, Jan wanted to make a so called “musical all in” night with songs from all kind of musicals, the ones we played and a lot more. We decided that he uses orchestral tapes for this project, because doing about 40 songs arranging in the sequencer would have cost me at least another two or three years.
Working the way I did the past years was like taken music lessons. I had to listen carefully what happened in all those different musicals and tracks. I didn´t use writing music sheets, I found everything out listening by ear. It forced me to study music I would never play myself when I am playing for fun. And off course I learned a lot about using the different synthesizers.
The group is still rehearsing and is giving some small concerts. Planning to perform with this project in 2008 in the theatre. I am not involved in this latest project. Times for rearranging existed stuff is over…. I felt like composing and writing my own peaces of music again.
blogasys: Is there any project you are currently working on?
AG: As I mentioned, I am composing for a new music project which lies far ahead of us. There is a story and a script but it is all in an early stadium. The story is about a old Dutch legend with all the elements from early fairytales. The struggle between good and bad, betrayal, love and evil, wizards, kings and knights etc. The musicalgroup is rehearsing the “musical all in” and I am writing and exploring the oasys, editing sounds etc. Writing the music is my department, lyrics, singing and the art direction etc is mainly taken care off by others. Composing the music is what I am concentrated on. The starting point differs. Sometimes I start with a combi with karma running. At the end I change sounds and arrangements. But I quite often start with playing the piano sound. That´s why I am glad I bought the 88. I am also exploring the Oasys and practicing. I am not a good piano player, I teaches it myself. And I had to get used to the weighted keys of the Oasys 88 after playing years with light synth keys and light touch of the digital Roland piano HP2000. But I am learning and making progress. Here are some audio examples, rough ideas…
Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3
Scene 4
Scene 5
After I have created enough rough material, we will start polishing, editing and mastering. But maybe some of my songs will go their own way, film scoring is also a thing I am dreaming of.
Making music for me can be a form of total relaxing, sometimes a kind of meditation. Totally gone from my daily life with all the traumas and painful situations.
Joseph and the Amazing Colour Dreamcoat performed in 2005 and 2006
blogasys: How did you start making music and are keyboards you main instruments?
AG: My older sister was playing classical piano from early childhood. I didn´t like playing the piano back then. There was always classical music at my home. Lots of Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. I couldn´t appreciate it at that time, although I love it right now. I started playing the drums after a few years hitting with pens and pencils at the tables playing along with records. Started with the beatles and all kind of rock and roll. Then my parents gave me a drum set and I took drum lessons. My drum teacher learned me all kind of jazz and jazz rock techniques. I took about 7 years of lessons. At the boarding school I started playing guitar, took some lessons and I also started playing a bit of piano. Later on after I failed at the conservatory (jazz) with the drums, (to little playing experience in different bands),I stopped playing when I moved to a apartment, it was to noisy. As an alternative I bought a Fender Rhodes piano, a mark 1, 76 keys. Although I loved the Rhodes sound, the piano didn´t sound as nice as the older suitcase version of my drum teacher. Later on, in 1986, I sold the Rhodes piano and bought the Roland HP 2000, the one with the SA synthese. I was impressed by the (famous) electric piano 1 and piano 3 which you can hear on many (Elton John) records. I never heard such a electric piano again. Then I bought a Roland MKS-50 which I sold not long after buying. Didn´t like it that much.
My true encounter with synths was with the Korg T3. What a beauty that was. Later I sold it and bought the korg 01/W, which I really liked because of its warm sounds, especially the string sounds. I used it with the HP2000. I didn´t like the feeling of the key bed of the Roland. I expanded my little setup with the Roland JV2080 with 8 boards in it. I had mixed feelings about it. It had lots of beautiful sounds and a user friendly layout, but I always felt the sounds were a bit thin and cold compared to the Korg sounds. Pure subjective I am aware of. And then I purchased the Korg KARMA and I was overwhelmed by the innovations since the 01/W. I loved the KARMA function. The sounds were fantastic too, although I missed some of my sounds of the 01/W. And then the Oasys came out……
blogasys: Which music and musicians did influence you most and why?
AG: I think listening to a lot of classical music in my childhood which had influenced me. When I was about 11 or 12 I discovered the Beatles. Later on I became a big fan of Queen. It started with Bohemian Rhapsody. I went to concerts of them and I loved there shows. Back then they wrote on their albums, they didn´t use synthesizers! Later on I liked some great bands and artists of the seventies and eighties, like Pink Floyd, Supertramp, Billy Joel, Genesis and Peter Gabriel, Alan Parsons, the Police and Gino Vanelli, Santana, Stevie Wonder, Randy Newman. As a rock band I loved Styx and Boston. And lots of Jazz music. I am not complete.
blogasys: What kind of music do you here today?
AG: I am still hanging in the early ages…. I am a big fan of Sting. I also listen to Radiohead, Muse, Norah Jones, Diana Krall, the Brian Setzer Orchestra. Lots of Jazz. I never had much with the house, techno and dance scene. But I discovered Bjork, Goldfrapp, and Boards of Canada I think they are very good. And nowadays I listen a lot to classical music. Especially Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Brahms and I am really into all the symphonies of Mahler, they are fantastic.
Joseph and the Amazing Colour Dreamcoat performed in 2005 and 2006
blogasys: Can you give us some insight about the equipment you are using and why you decided for it?
AG: Compared to a lot of guys and girls on the forums I am a minimalist… Well, I sold the JV 2080, the korg KARMA, my HP2000 and 01/W, and I am using just the Oasys. I am aware of that I own a minimal setup, but it works for me. I only sometimes miss the Roland SA synthesis, so I will look after the module of that one, the Roland MKS 20. I have always liked hardware. I experimented with a computer bases system, but it didn´t satisfy me enough. I am not a purist but it just feels good to lay down my hands on real instruments. And with Windows there were lots of technical problems there had to be solved and it kept me away from making music. But I realize that you can, for example by using a software sequencer with soft synths make a lot of beautiful music. But I was still searching an instrument with midi and audio integration, quality sounds and instruments and then I saw those videos from Stephen Kay at Karma-Lab with the Oasys. I was blown away….
blogasys: what was the reason for you to purchase OASYS?
AG: There was no good reason from my point of view not go for it, except the money…! It had all the right sounds in a fantastic HD-1 engine and EXinstruments. I finally had my warm strings again, the ones I missed since the good old 01/W. Even my waveshaper is back (as a insert effect). The KARMA 2 engine was another reason for wanting the instrument. What can I say about it, it is such a musical system. Very misunderstood. All the sounds you can create, lots of freedom and possibilities. if you take your time. And that´s with other parts of the Oasys too. Like all the things you can accomplish with the wave sequences for example. I just started exploring that department.
The integration of all the different parts, EXis, effects, karma, the sampling and midi and audio sequencing on a high end level makes it the ideal instrument for me. And you can tweak almost everything to your own needs, so I have years ahead of making music and exploring.
And those ex instruments are fantastic. I don´t read a lot about those ones, but they are quit unique. I love especially the AL-1, CX3, and the mouth watering STR-1, you can create some really weird stuff with that one. Sounds I never heard before. The LAC-1 is also great but I must admit I am a bit stuck with programming the MS20. It´s not an easy one, but that´s ok with me… some day I will master that one too. But some tutorials would be most helpful….
And no shit with drivers and messing up computer systems. Turn the power on, find some sounds and start playing. And when I have some inspiration I just put the Enter and Record knobs on and I am in record mode… All the knobs and sliders, the huge touch screen is giving you a large amount of control over this complex instrument.
I knew, when I first saw the videos and the specs of course, that I wanted one. And I thought I could never afford it, but I put all my senses to it and with a some luck I managed to get one in September 2005, some lucky bastard I am. To bad I need a job to make a living, this thing needs more of my spare time. Besides the other family and a jealous wife. Life is not always easy owning the big O, just be warned.
At this place I should mention the two forums, Karma Lab and the Korg Forums with input from lots of people including Dan and Jerry from Korg USA.. At karma lab Stephen Kay and many others doing a hell of good job by supporting every member having questions, from beginner to more experienced. His job and efforts, with his KARMA, gave me lots of trust in buying the O. I never saw the instrument in real time before buying..
I do write too little cause writing in English cost me so much time, but I am a great consumer of all the posts I must admit… At the Korg Forums Daz, Sharp and others offering also a real friendly, open and professional atmosphere. There is so much information you can find in those two places. The support is hearth warming in a western society where we sometimes forget about sharing among others…..
No complains? Ok, I got one. I am playing the beast in my bedroom. Yes my three kids occupying some rooms… And late at night when everything and every one is quit in the house in those final hours I am playing really softly and I am irritating cause I can hear the fan whispering inside… I know it is a detail, but still…. .
Wishes for the future? That´s another question….
Joseph and the Amazing Colour Dreamcoat performed in 2005 and 2006
blogasys: what are your favorite sounds and what does OASYS do best in your opinion?
AG: That´s a difficult one because I use different sounds in different projects and times and moods. There are so many different possibilities, they are endless. It´s impossible to manage and explore all the sounds in a short amount of time. Off course you can scratch the surface but then you don´t do justice to the sounds.
At the moment I am exploring the STR-1 and AL-1 more and more. Especially with the STR-1 you can make the weirdest sound landscapes. What a synthesizer. I don´t use it much for plying real plucked string sounds although it can do it pretty well. I use it for making creepy evolving pad sounds. With the vector joystick you can create nice effects, with all kind of little sounds burbling at the background, or more radical. I always start editing the sounds from existing ones, hardly ever from scratch. Some examples of edited existing sounds. You can find them in the user E bank and you can hear all the details best with headphones…
Celtic Harp: I love that sound at the background, how you describe it, a kind of scrape. It uses one STR-1 programm
First Sunrise: I love all the evolving sounds. It uses STR-1 and AL-1.
XyloSpace: I like the metallic sounds with the hiss. Just one STR-1 program
White Light Pad: Just one STR-1 program only 2 effects and no karma and all those scary sounds moving in the background… what a beauty of a synth…
Somehow I am attracted to all kind of Pad sounds and mysterious and creepy fields of sounds. I create those often.
I am new to the sampling department but I think you can make pretty weird sounds by using the sampling function in Program and combination mode. And use the slice function put over some Karma stuff, and sample it again with different FX and so on…
The best thing for me is that the Oasys is combining lots of different things at the same time. Put different ex instruments together with the HD-1 programs, wavesequences and samples, in a combi, and it just works. You like it, then record it in the Midi sequencer. Running out of tracks? Sample it or record it in the harddiskrecorder. You can achieve pretty complex things without loosing time and creativity.
blogasys: are there any things you would like to see in OASYS in the near future?
AG: I would like to see a major sequencer update, with at least the cue list , a higher resolution, easier way to select and copy and paste tracks and events. A Karma editor within the Oasys. I would love to be able to use the Karma output to manipulate all the scenes and sliders when I am in overdub mode. Since the red Karma I was hoping they fixed that one…
In the red Karma I was using the MOSS board. I miss the brass modeling sounds and VPM model. I hope to find those ones in future EX instruments. And of course totally new EX instruments with unique new sounds. And I hope in the future that Korg brings out new samples, combis, effects, Karma GEs and there is one more thing I would like to see, a way to fully edit a program in Combi and Sequence mode. But at the moment I think it stays to quite at Korg …. We´ll see what happens after the launch of the M3….
Peter M. Mahr - The Oasys Man
18.05.2007 - Peter Grandl
Since the year 2000 Amazona has presented readers, their music and their studios in the series Personal Studio. In this case we are interested in the 41 year old molecular genetics biologist Peter M. Mahr who has come to attention through his Korg Oasys blog. You can find other Personal Studio stories under ‘Archiv’ in the rubric ‘People’.
And now enjoy yourselves with someone who stood up for the Korg Oasys.
Your AMAZONA.de editorial.
AMAZONA.de – Hello Peter, you are very active in the forums, publish your own KORG OASYS blog and are very creative as a composer; and all this in your spare time. How do you manage it?
peter m. mahr: You’re starting with a question that I can’t really answer. If I said “I get up early” that doesn’t really cover it. (Laughs). Partly I think it has to do with my personal constellation, and partly that I just don’t go out so often in the evenings as I used to. The “extra time” can be used in the studio or in front of the computer. This also demands its price. It was recently made clear to me during an indirect discussion about “Stomp”, that I’m missing an important inspiration source. I have also more time due to a career change. I decided to take a step back after I realised that my career wasn’t so important to me.
It’s probably due to my age that the weighting in my interests is shifting and I’m moving in a direction where I believe I will feel content for a long time. That sounds a bit cryptic but to explain it properly would take up more room than this interview. To put it simply, music has taken up a permanently important place. There is no other form of art for me from which I can take so much strength and dive deep down. Now I have more time for that! That is good for me and also for my immediate surroundings. Hmm… somehow I have the feeling that, like a politician, I haven’t answered the original question….
AMAZONA.de – Now we’ll start at the beginning. How did you come to your music?
peter m. mahr: While I have notched up a few years this didn’t exactly happen yesterday. It’s a long story. Sigmund Freud would not be happy but it is my father’s fault. My old man is a “hardcore” classical fan. Those who don’t understand this description just need to know that I heard at least one hour of Mozart every day since I was a little boy. As a balance and, if you like, a topping, there was also Bach (Johann Sebastian), Haydn, Schubert and, to relax, Beethoven. This conditioning goes so deep that even today, I get a urge to eat Wiener Schnitzel with potato salad when I hear Mozart…..because we had schnitzel and salad every Sunday complete with soundtrack from Wolfgang Amadeus. This confirms Pawlow’s experiment. (Laughs).
But seriously, I was so sick of this music by the time I was 8 or 9, and together with a cutting experience from my music teacher (who found me completely untalented and threw my out of her music class) I concluded “F… music”. I was just conning myself, of course, as step-by-step I was more quickly interested in music again as I was willing to admit. Although it was Jean Michel Jarre, Walter Carlos later Kraftwerk and naturally Ultravox, and Depeche Mode and O.M.D…..oh ja and Human League…..and Heaven 17, and so on. The detonator was definitely Jean Michel Jarre’s “Oxygene” and a photo that was published of him standing in front of a Modular System. It was clear to me, that’s how I wanted to float around space. A band was starting to come together in our school at about this time, whose musical direction was pointing somewhere else completely…but somehow or other I slipped in with my synthesizer.
AMAZONA.de – Your first synthesizer?
peter m. mahr: That was the KORG MS-20, followed one or two years later by a Mono/poly. The Polysix was not affordable for me then. After one or two years break, my most favourite synthesizer came onto the market – Yamaha DX-7.
AMAZONA.de – You belong to the circle of people who were the first to buy a KORG OASYS. Why? It is actually a lot of money for which you could buy three different, highly priced, synthesizers.
peter m. mahr: Name me three that can offer what you get with an OASYS. I say that because there isn’t anything to compare to the OASYS. Not that everything else is bad or that everything on the OASYS is good, it is simply this “whole packet” that you’ve got in front of you. The OASYS offers physical modelling and not only in the form of virtual analogues, wave sequencing, a very good sound sampler, hard disc recorder, sequencer, good effects, not forgetting the KARMA; it that runs stabile and sounds simply very good. That is actually a whole lot of stuff that you can work with without problems. Of course I wouldn’t dare suggest that it’s perfect, you just have to read the English speaking forums to know that. It is still, however, a super piece of equipment, whose ticks don’t negatively influence my style. I don’t have the time or the energy to play around with updates which only suggest improvements but at the end of the day have just wasted my time.
Also, when I have to sit in front of the computer and solve problems I totally lose my creativity. The OASYS has it’s price, no question, but in return you get the afore mentioned profits. You turn the destroyer on and after about 1 minute and 50 seconds you’ve got a very good sample player, lots of virtual instruments (like the CX-3. the AL-1, optional MS-20 and the Polysix and also the, from me, highly treasured STR-1 string model) all ready for action. And that’s the status quo! Who knows what could come next? However I do have the feeling that KORG have devoted themselves completely to the M3 and have left the OASYS users hanging a bit. I also find it negative that the “open system” is not really open for outside providers. But perhaps we would become exactly the problems that the OASYS, until now, didn’t know at all.
AMAZONA.de – In your keyboard park you’ve got a Neuron. That’s also not the cheapest thing available, what persuaded you to buy this piece of equipment?
peter m. mahr: Right from the beginning the instrument awoke my interest, even after the rather full-bodied speeches of the makers had made me frown. The more discussions that were made in the different forums, the made curious I became. After the Hartmann company realised that claims and reality are incompatible, the price came down enough so that I was willing to take the risk. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the “inventor” of the home shopping laws.
But to answer your question, I find the Neuron the most interesting synthesizer since the DX-7 that I can afford, and maybe as a little supplement for the Yamaha VP-1. But back to the Neuron who has a fixed position in my studio, and more importantly, in most of my other pieces. Its’ sound is unique, one moment a scratching, cheap digital and the next it’s off in a totally other direction. You can feed it with material and the results are more often than not, different as to what you expected. That means it’s got character, which is something quite rare these days.
AMAZONA.de – Unfortunately the Neurons are difficult to come by as the Hartmann company doesn’t exist any more. These means there are no more updates. How safe was the Neuron in the the last software version?
peter m. mahr: What I always asked myself about the collapse of the Hartmann firm is – why are there so many companies in Germany making very good products who are incapable of staying alive? I’m thinking of PPG, Waldorf, Hartmann and in the younger days, Creamware. Something is not right. On this note I’m reminded of a comparison in the bio-technology field, but that wasn’t the question……if your asking about the reliability of the running system……..I have respect for the people who play it live. My Neuron shows his character in that every now and then, right in the middle of playing he doesn’t make a sound, only to them later, return from the deep. The first time it happened to me I got an adrenaline shot but now it doesn’t stress me out at all. I only hope that he doesn’t develop a serious defect one day, that would be bitter, very bitter.
AMAZONA.de – And as a full bloodied analogue you’ve also got a MOOG Voyager. Maybe a few words on that?
peter m. mahr: I can make that short. The voyager stands out due to its’ beautiful, almost gentle sound. Although I don’t think he sounds the same as his famous predecessor. Originally I was sure I would never separate myself from my voyager but recently I’ve been toying with the idea of selling him. He has already disappeared from my immediate working area and is sitting on the sidelines next to the Roland JX-10 in the synthesizer park. I almost always use the OASYS for the bass sounds these days. Although I’m not trying to say that the virtual analogue in the OASYS sounds like a Minimoog or a Voyager! But the OASYS is putting them under pressure and offers a much wider spectrum. Also I’m don’t find the “analogue sound ideal” so important. But let’s see what the future brings…
AMAZONA.de – What’s the main centre for all your sound generators?
peter m. mahr: When you mean a recording centre then that is a mix between an AKAI DPS24 and a MOTUS dp5.1, (I use this for 5.1 mixes which I just started doing). My most important tool is the OASYS. Especially when I’m starting something new, I just start it up and nothing else. (Although the weighted keyboard on the Roland XV-88 is much better). You’re probably wondering why I’ve still got such a thing. That’s because of the completely different character of tone that it has which comfortably completes my sound palette, and also on the keyboard. I usually use the AKAI’s MPC4000 as a sequencer, because when it comes to timing it can’t be beaten and I find operating interface user-friendly. Even when the two TFT screens leave a lot to be desired, I am actually a fan of spartan looks. As I found myself modifying the colour palettes in dp to suit my taste a few years ago, I have atarted generally to question my work methods. The pretty pictures and colours distract me and the fact that I need to make a visual “feel-good zone” sets the alarm bells ringing! Why do I have the TFT screens then? That is because of the surround sound mixes that I can only do in this form with dp. When I listen back I turn the screen saver on so I can concentrate on listening.
AMAZONA.de – Why did you choose a MPC4000 and not one of the smaller versions like a MPC 2500?
peter m. mahr: The MPC2500 wasn’t available when I went shopping. But even if it was, and I had the money, I would still buy the MPC4000. Even when it’s just my opinion, or let me put it so, on the one hand it’s not the best thing that AKAI have put on the market. If we are just talking Drums I would recommend the MPC3000. But on the other hand I wanted a simple, intuitive, easy-to-use sequencer, which didn’t break my working flow, stood out due to superb timing and offered a suitable sampler. The 24bit and 44.1, 48 and 96kHz are, in my opinion, further plus points for the MPC4000. The sound, to prevent any misunderstandings, is above doubt. A nice touch is that I can take it with me on holiday and work with it. Try doing that with the OASYS…..
AMAZONA.de - Let’s go back again to the flagship, KORG OASYS. Have you ever rued buying it?
peter m. mahr: At the beginning we had a very ambivalent relationship, that I also wrote about for posterity. It had to do with the, now well known, “G.A.S.”. In the OASYS blog you’ll find the story under
There are things worth criticising; the sequencer is right at the top. Just the way you have to turn it on and the building up…..he is not up to the standard of the rest of the equipment. This doesn’t bother me that much because I would still work with the MPC anyway. On the other hand I would be happy to have a better sequencer as long it wasn’t a Phyrrhusseig. A type of dp, Logic, Cubase or similar would probably overload the computer so that less voices could be used or they would be of a terrible quality. The last thing would be completely unacceptable for me.
AMAZONA.de – What is the main usage for the OASYS?
peter m. mahr: While he is an all purpose tool for me, I use him in every area I am musically active. He is not standing in the centre of my studio for nothing.
AMAZONA.de – You can make a direct comparison. Analogue (Voyager) against virtual analogue (KORG OASYS). How real does the AL-1 sound?
peter m. mahr: As I already said, I tend to just use my OASYS. Especially in the case of bass sounds, you are more flexible. Quite often I lay two sounds on top of each other and then use the Ribbon controller when I play it back. The mix of both tones, the diverse other parameters, from sound making to steering the effect intensity……. the Voyager can’t keep up. However he is better at doing other things.
But I think it’s better that I let a short audio clip speak for me: http://members.chello.at/peter.mahr/files/B.mp3. This makes most virtual analogues look old. You won’t ever reach the soft, warm Oberheimpads either. That doesn’t mean to say that the AL-1 sound terrible, even the partly catastrophic work sounds shouldn’t put you off. It has always been a puzzle to me how to program a church organ, E-piano and an A-piano into the AL-1, especially when KORG’s programming team usually very good is. Whoever is responsible for this decision didn’t do the OASYS any favours and would do better to sort out the sounds on the PA-series.
AMAZONA.de – What is at the top of your list of updates for the KORG OASYS?
peter m. mahr: This will probably surprise you, Firstly FM, super drum samples, then a Vocoder like the one you find in Roland’s V-Synth. The sequencer is not so important to me…as I like my MPC but should he one day be like that, then, if only for the timing, I would definitely use him. Why I want FM doesn’t need to be explained does it? The soldering of the batteries in the TX-816s is getting on my nerves, although I’m afraid something like that would never fit in the OASYS.
Why the drum sounds? Natural drum sounds is what I mean here. The processed are already great but I miss acoustic drum kits. The Roland SRX Board has got wonderful 80’s kits for example, and I want something in this quality. A 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s kit would be perfect, and lots of snares, kicks and toms. Unfortunately there isn’t much point in implementing the wavedrum as most of its’ tones belong in the box of unidentifiable sounds. Maybe a wind/brass model would be nice if it was of the same quality as the String Model. Then I would have to decide where I would get the money from to buy a second one as I would definitely need a back-up.
AMAZONA.de - One last question: What was your most disappointing synthesizer buy?
peter m. mahr: Rolands JV series, although that was my mistake. I mistakenly thought that they would possibly sound a bit like the JD’s ……but they are worlds apart, The JD-990 was, in my opinion, the best digital synthesizer from Roland.
AMAZONA.de – We thank you for this interview and wish you much musical enjoyment in the future.
Today “Mag66″ aka Nigel Sixsmith is guest at blogasys.
blogasys: What is “Mag66″ standing for?
Nigel: The mag66 nym comes from the fact that when I was six I started to read magazines, lots of them and have done so ever since… and so my close family always called me the “magazine boy”. Years later when I first got interested in Usenet, I had to think of a nym to use and so I chose mag66 as in (mag)azine, the age I started reading ‘6′ and my last name Sixsmith giving the other ‘6′!
blogasys: Could you please tell us a little bit more about yourself?
Mag66: I’m an ‘Ex-Brit’ born in England in 1957 who moved permanently to the USA in 1996. I spent my childhood in a small village about 100 miles north of London and then at the age of 15, joined the British Army as a Musician. During my Army years, I studied at the Military School of Music at Knellar Hall, and then spent a great deal of time traveling around the world, meeting and playing with all kinds of different musicians and bands. After I left the Army, I settled for a few years in London, working at various studios as a session musician as well as starting up our own studio, The Art of Sound, dedicated to introducing young musicians to the synthesizer. I now live in Arizona with my partner, Brenda, our 16 year old son Chris and our dog, Hoss.
blogasys: What is your musical background?
Mag 66: My musical background is quite varied, I would guess you could say. My mother was responsible for getting me started down the musical path by arranging for me to have piano lessons when I was 5 or 6. My first experience with a keyboard was by my sneaking into a local Methodist Chapel, when the Preacher was not around after school and playing “Rock & Roll” on a very old foot pump action church organ! Unfortunately, one day the Preacher caught me but instead of being (too) annoyed, he simply told me that if I agreed to play every Sunday at his services, then I could spend one afternoon a week, after school, playing whatever I liked on the Chapel Organ. So began my brief career, at the age of 9 as a Church Organist!
At age 11, I was sent to a new school, Arthur Mellows Village College and it was there that I met the most amazing music teacher, Malcolm Stowell Smith. He auditioned me for the school orchestra and band and promptly convinced my parents that I should learn to play, of all things, the Tuba!! Next thing I know, I am hauling this huge brass instrument around all over the country, playing at various concerts with different bands and orchestras and even managed to do a few solo performances here and there, which for a Tuba player, was pretty rare (and very strange!) Malcolm also encouraged me to sing as at that time of my life, I had this (apparently) quite angelic, though deep´ish voice so I started to sing in various productions of operas and operettas as well as taking part in competitions around the country.
Sadly, Malcolm, for reasons unknown, suddenly decided to leave the school after 3 years and teach somewhere else and after that (and after the fact that at 14, my voice didn´t exactly break but shattered into a thousand pieces) my singing career was over and so it was back to hauling around the Tuba again.
I joined the British Army, as I mentioned earlier, as a Tuba player, Double Bass player and Pianist/Accompanist, shortly after my fifteenth birthday and studied for my Music Degrees in both Performance and Theory. It was on a trip back home shortly after I joined, that I had my first experience of a synthesizer. An old school friend of mine, Tom Anniss, introduced me, via a very scratchy recording, to Walter/Wendy Carlos’s soundtrack to “A Clockwork Orange” as well as the “Well Tempered Synthesizer” and I was hooked on synthesizers for life. I knew then, that I had to buy one and I set my sights on getting a Minimoog as soon as I could. However, being still in the Army meant I had very little money and so, my dreams of owning a Moog had to be put on hold until several years later when I finally managed to buy myself a used one from a close friend of mine. Instead, I bought myself one of the first Korg MS-10s to arrive on the English shores. I still had to take out a couple of loans at outrageous interest rates, to be able to afford it (and it took me several years before I ever finally finished paying off those loans too!) but I finally had my hands on a working synthesizer!
After a few months of owning and diligently studying this new synth, and being sick to death of playing “Umm Pah Umm Pah” on the Tuba, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with the military band, I convinced my commanding officer to allow me to play synth with the band resulting in my playing “lead guitar” sounds at a couple of concerts of “Modern Pop Songs” as well as “Sound Effects and Gun Fire” during a performance and recording of the 1812 Overture!
My time with the Army was rapidly coming to an end however and so I after I resigned I joined a group of traveling musicians who performed at several free festivals around Europe and with my trusty MS-10 (and a portable generator and Amp) in hand, I began to find gigs with many bands of the time such as Hawkwind at the Windsor Free Festival or Gong at the ´77 Live Reunion gig, to name but a few. I was the nameless, crazy, hippy, synth player who stayed mainly off at the back of the stage, making all these weird and strange sounds from my “box of tricks” while the bands played to their audiences.
Since then, I have done session work in various studios in England and the USA, I helped found a studio, called The Art Of Sound, as mentioned earlier, moved to the USA and began working on just my own music and I have never quite lost my love (Obsession) for synthesizers.
blogasys: Which musicians influenced you most?
Influences? So many but I guess I should mention the following people:
Walter/Wendy Carlos, who started off my obsessions with synths. Roger Powell of Todd Rundgren & Utopia fame, because of the way he put together these incredible keyboard/synth rigs for live stage work and was an amazing synthetic sound creator too. (He also is a mighty fine computer programmer and was responsible for the first PC Midi Sequencer program written for the Apple II, which was called “Texture”).
David Sancious (Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Peter Gabriel, Sting, etc.) who was the first person I ever saw play live who recreated and performed guitar lead lines on a Minimoog. Kate Bush. The way she writes and creates her music set the standards by which I have tried to follow. Peter Gabriel’s Textures, textures and textures. How he creates those incredible pads, harmonies and “quirky” effects used throughout his music, is something I have always found myself striving to emulate.
The Edge (U2) I just love his guitar work and the way he produces these amazing guitar sounds and uses them, in really interesting counterpoint melodies, in the most unlikely ways, within the rock framework of U2’s music. Steve Hillage, Daevid Allen, Miquette Giraudy and of course, Tim Blake of “Gong” fame, for introducing me to the wonders of step sequencers, poly rhythms and evolving textures.
blogasys: What kind of music are you listening today?
Nigel: The current playlist for my car’s MP3 player, has amongst others, currently stored in it;
Kate Bush, especially her last album, Aerial, which I have listened literally thousands of times by now and even though it was released in 2005, I still find myself listening to at least once or twice a week. The Fray, who I think are one of the most under-appreciated bands of the current times (even though they did score a huge hit with “How to save a life”!). John Meyer’s Continuum album, I love the way he puts together great but simple melodies with wonderful (and at times funny or sharp) lyrics. The Beatles ” Love ” Amazing re-workings of some classic songs. Various tracks from Artists on Soundclick.com - There is some incredible talent out there, undiscovered by the masses and I am lucky enough, with the advent of such places as SoundClick, to be able to listen to and share music with all these people.
blogasys: Now lets talk about your music, are there any projects you finished and is there a current one you are working on?
Mag66: I am currently putting the final touches to my album “An Oasys in the Desert” which I am now hoping to release sometimes around April (But don´t hold me to that date!) It´s an album of music, I have written, performed and recorded since I got my Korg Oasys, I use only the Oasys for every sound recorded so it´s a kind of history of my exploration and understanding of one of the classic Keyboards available today.
Mag66: For recoding, just the Oasys. Nothing else. The Oasys is just this incredible keyboard which inspires me every time I sit down in front of it. I just had to write music using this amazing keyboard and so the new album is the result of all this inspiration and time I have spent learning and enjoying the Oasys.
blogasys: But there are more synthesizers then the OASYS in your studio
Mag 66: : I am one of those people who could never afford the keyboards that I really wanted when they first came out so I always had to settle for a cheaper alternative like buying a MS10 when I really wanted a Minimoog… or an EMS Polysynthi when I really wanted a CS-80.
The JD800 was the first synth I bought new when it was released. I played one in a store in London and knew I had to have one. I just loved all the sliders and the sounds you could create using such a tactile work surface so, as I had just sold my house and had a little money left over, I went and bought my first JD800. It became my main polysynth until the release of the Oasys (though I did often use the Triton and Karma a great deal too).
Here is a list of what synths and keyboards I have owned and in what order I bought them:
** indicates I still own this particular synth
(N) = Bought New
(U) = Bought Used
When I arrived in the USA in the mid 90’s I had to leave my JD back in the UK because I couldn’t afford to ship it here. Eventually I sold it to a close friend of mine but I missed it a lot and so, a few years later when I caught the “Ebay” bug… I saw one for sale in nearby California, that was very cheap and so I bid and won the auction and got another JD800 once more. (I also picked up two JD990s extremely cheaply off of Ebay too!) so now I have three of the beasts which I use to create very complex layered sounds as and when needed but sometimes i still just sit at my JD800 and twiddle with the sliders discovering still more new sounds and textures that I cannot create via any other keyboard I own (including the Oasys!) as there is something about the JD’s sound that is unique to my ears at least.
blogasys: What was the reason for you to purchase OASYS?
Mag66: I walked into a local music store in late 2005 and saw this visually stunning keyboard, stuck right at the back of the main keyboard room. I sat down, put on a pair of “cans” and the next thing I knew, six hours had passed and I was still playing and enjoying the heck out of the Oasys. I knew about the work Stephen Kay had done with Korg and the Korg Karma and I had bought a Korg Karma a couple of years earlier and loved it, for what it was capable of creating, both sonically and musically but to be honest, I didn´t care for the Korg Karma’s interface. It was a very complicated keyboard to program, made even more difficult by the small screen and lack of the work surfaces it obviously needed.
The Korg Oasys, answered all my prayers. Not only had Stephen improved and expanded upon the amazing Karma and it´s capabilities but Korg had put together a keyboard which had a large, touch sensitive screen, a great set of controls and work surfaces to work with, in real time, added to that a set of amazing sounds and the ability to create new and refreshing sounds and on top of all that, made the Oasys an open ended system so more new facilities could be added at a later date without the musician having to go through the old cycle of - Buy a keyboard, buy a new keyboard a year later and relearn a lot of the programming because it´s an updated and better version of the previous one, buy yet another new version with even better facilities and features (and more re-learning to do) a couple of years after that.. and so on. Though the initial cost of the Oasys is high´ish (Though when you compare how much the Oasys costs today, to how much a Minimoog or a Prophet 5 cost when they were released, it´s an absolute bargain in many ways) you don´t have to keep learning new interfaces, you get a great basic set of musical tools to start off from with new features being added by Korg at regular intervals (The STR-1 Plucked String Modeling expansion, has been my personal favorite one so far though the LAC-1 (Polysix and MS-20) expansion is pretty amazing too!) and you still get to keep a really nice feeling keyboard with the same set of controls, easy to use interface, and excellent work surfaces that you are used to. You are finally out of that costly cycle of buying new keyboards every year or so, simply to gain access to the latest types of sounds or features.
blogasys: Are there any things you would like to see in a future update?
Mag66: This is an easy one for me. I would hope Korg will re-do / re-work the sequencer/HD recorder section of the Oasys. It´s the only part of the Oasys that I feel, limits the outflow of creative juices, as far as I am concerned. That´s not to say that the current sequencer or HD recorder isn´t usable because it is and you can produce and record some really great songs, using just that built in sequencer but I feel, it needs to be brought up to date and more in line with the rest of the “vision” that is the Korg Oasys.
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