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Post by andrewwerdna on Feb 28, 2020 11:53:22 GMT -5
So I decided to dive head first into the rack world. I will most likely end up with a few bits of hardware studio stuff like EQ's and Compressors but right now I'm playing with a Yamaha TG500 rack rompler I just got. I've been looking into this early 90's gem and they seem to be a little hard to come across. It came out in 1992 so two years after the D50 and two years before JV1080 which, in my opinion, puts it in the perfect place as far as sounds go and damn it sounds amazing. Probably using this one for the next stuff I'll write. Here's a demo: Nice one. I'm very interested in obscure romplers like that, seems like it's kind of in an cool spot with Yamaha, just then getting away from the FM stuff, with the SY85 and then this as the rackmount version. Have you messed with modulating presets or building your own patches yet? vintagesynth.com suggests using an external editor of some sort, although I'm not seeing a good free one with a quick google search. I have a JD990, and even though it was surprisingly very intuitive to program on its own, I got lucky that somebody made a Ctrlr panel for it, such a wonderful elegant way to use a rackmount synth. Too bad nobody has done one for the TG500 yet. Also I missed your TG33 post until now, very cool!
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Post by element0s on Feb 28, 2020 15:02:25 GMT -5
I see Andrew posted this one on the frist page but here's the thing. I managed to get my hands on a fairly priced Yamaha TG33. It's the enhanced keyboardless desktop version of the SY22 Vector synth. What this means is that it can play four sounds at the same time of which two can be FM patches and two are lo-fi PCM samples. You can adjust the parameters of each sound individually and then blend them seamlessly with a 360 degree joystick with sounds in up, right, down and left. Or just use two, you can do that too. Or just one. Man this thing sounds great and is so much fun to play with. It's a major pain in the ass to program this but that's how it was back in the day. It's still better than rack stuff and I think there are some PC editors available for this, I have to look into that. I'm going to be maximizing the stuff I can get out of this box and patch my own presets, I already have a few good ones. After I'm done, I might do a DS/Ambient project only using this synth. We'll see. I recorded some of it on my debut album and it worked out pretty good. If you can get your hands on one of these Vector machines, grab it! They are great.
I just picked up one of the SY22 keyboards a few weeks back and it's a load of fun. I've barely scratched the programming surface but I'm having a ball just opening up patches and twisting the joystick all over the place, detuning and shit.
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Post by skirmisher on Feb 28, 2020 16:49:13 GMT -5
]Nice one. I'm very interested in obscure romplers like that, seems like it's kind of in an cool spot with Yamaha, just then getting away from the FM stuff, with the SY85 and then this as the rackmount version. Have you messed with modulating presets or building your own patches yet? vintagesynth.com suggests using an external editor of some sort, although I'm not seeing a good free one with a quick google search. I have a JD990, and even though it was surprisingly very intuitive to program on its own, I got lucky that somebody made a Ctrlr panel for it, such a wonderful elegant way to use a rackmount synth. Too bad nobody has done one for the TG500 yet. Also I missed your TG33 post until now, very cool! Yeah it's super fun to look for these less obvious romplers. I reckon there are tons of amazing machines to be discovered. I haven't mucked around with this one yet, just had a quick run through the presets and was very impressed. I'll definitely be tweaking this thing in the future. TG500 is a little problematic because it's an enhanced version of the SY85 and they went so far with it that the SY85 patches and stuff aren't compatible and the support/knowledge for this machine is scarce at best. Well, shrug. I've made some patches for the TG33 and I need to do a lot more. I actually used it for a couple of sounds on the first Skirmisher release. These things are usually very slow and awkward to program but programming four sounds to work in unison is something else. I actually found a software for the TG33 but it works only for windows 95 and older, maybe 98. Needless to say I have a Dos 6.11, win95 and a win98 machine set up (who doesn't, right?) so it's not a problem, really. I just need to get an ISA Midi-card and see if I can get it to work. JD990 is the enhanced rack version of JD800, right? Man that thing was a beast. The 800 was absolutely massive with all those sliders. Would be fun to get to play around with one some day. I bet it has lots of great stuff to dig out of it. I just picked up one of the SY22 keyboards a few weeks back and it's a load of fun. I've barely scratched the programming surface but I'm having a ball just opening up patches and twisting the joystick all over the place, detuning and shit. Nice! It's a machine known to cause serious addiction for sure. I'm debating on doing something more ambient oriented next since my current project has been fairly heavy in it's composition and now that I'm 95% through with arranging the stuff and almost ready for mixing the damn thing I feel like I really need a short break. The TG33 is well known in the ambient circles because that's what it does best, really. Has those 90's horror video games sounds in it too reminiscent of Silent Hill. I just might do a more free style / impro kind of ambient thing with it and see what I can come up with. We'll see.
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Post by andrewwerdna on Feb 29, 2020 11:45:30 GMT -5
JD990 is the enhanced rack version of JD800, right? Man that thing was a beast. The 800 was absolutely massive with all those sliders. Would be fun to get to play around with one some day. I bet it has lots of great stuff to dig out of it. Yeah, some years back I was really tempted to get the JD800, but the fact that it was so expensive, and many of them were starting to have problems with the glue under the keys breaking down and making a mess or something, which I had no interest in dealing with, and then I read this article which makes the case that "the truth is, it [JD-800] has nothing much to to do with JD-990," and proceeds to list the many advantages the 990 has over the 800, I was sold. The JD800 looks like a goddamn airplane control panel, and yet there's this mysterious little black box that is supposed to do all that and much more, that's just really cool to me. I still would like to mess with a JD800 at some point, though I definitely feel like I made the right choice there. I got two expansion cards for it too, the iconic "vintage synth" one and the "orchestral" one which I figured would be useful for DS, and has been, but unfortunately I'm hesitant to put either of them back in because I guess the capacitors on those cards have been breaking down and leaking, and I obviously don't want to risk damaging the synth but also have no experience with soldering or anything like that. Oh well. I got the SRX Orchestra VST on Roland Cloud to keep, which I believe has all the waveforms from that card, and I feel like I've done enough with the vintage synth card already, so I'm not too bothered.
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Post by skirmisher on Feb 29, 2020 16:16:51 GMT -5
Yeah, some years back I was really tempted to get the JD800, but the fact that it was so expensive, and many of them were starting to have problems with the glue under the keys breaking down and making a mess or something, which I had no interest in dealing with, and then I read this article which makes the case that "the truth is, it [JD-800] has nothing much to to do with JD-990," and proceeds to list the many advantages the 990 has over the 800, I was sold. The JD800 looks like a goddamn airplane control panel, and yet there's this mysterious little black box that is supposed to do all that and much more, that's just really cool to me. I still would like to mess with a JD800 at some point, though I definitely feel like I made the right choice there. I got two expansion cards for it too, the iconic "vintage synth" one and the "orchestral" one which I figured would be useful for DS, and has been, but unfortunately I'm hesitant to put either of them back in because I guess the capacitors on those cards have been breaking down and leaking, and I obviously don't want to risk damaging the synth but also have no experience with soldering or anything like that. Oh well. I got the SRX Orchestra VST on Roland Cloud to keep, which I believe has all the waveforms from that card, and I feel like I've done enough with the vintage synth card already, so I'm not too bothered. Oh I didn't know the difference is that big, that's cool. Yeah the 800 is way too big for me to be interested but at the same time it seems quite amazing. I think you should be fine with the cards. If the caps leak, you'll see the brown stuff coming out. And actually what makes caps fail sooner is the lack of use rather than getting electricity flown through them. They stay healthier when they get charged and decharged. Man I wish those cards were cheaper but sometimes they're even more expensive than the synths themselves.
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Post by imp on Mar 3, 2020 17:45:40 GMT -5
How much are Casio cz101 worth nowdays? I've mostly played around with VSTs as I'm still learning the ropes but I noticed cz101 in good condition for 300 euros. Is this too much or should I consider it? It seems like it would be a great first synth.
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Post by jorvvik on Mar 4, 2020 4:24:25 GMT -5
How much are Casio cz101 worth nowdays? I've mostly played around with VSTs as I'm still learning the ropes but I noticed cz101 in good condition for 300 euros. Is this too much or should I consider it? It seems like it would be a great first synth. Looking at previous sold items on eBay I would say that’s on the higher priced side. Maybe mint and boxed ones go for that much. Not massively over though. I’ve personally never owned a CZ101 or any of the Casio range for that matter so can’t comment on if it would be a good first synth. I don’t see why not unless the interface is a nightmare but I have no idea.
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Post by skirmisher on Mar 4, 2020 6:32:00 GMT -5
300€ for a CZ-101 is ok if you're in Europe. You can sometimes get them for a little bit less but it's not bad. I'm not sure if it's a good first synth and I'm not sure if I even know what a good first synth might be but I have first hand experience with the CZ-synthesizers and while they are fun they are a handful to program. Their envelopes are crazy. Well I guess most fun digital synths are a pain to program anyways. I love their sound and will never advice against buying one. The Phase Distortion Casios are a unique thing.
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Post by imp on Mar 4, 2020 7:33:57 GMT -5
I also really like the sound but it seems that software CZs emulate the hardware really well. Arturia has CZ V for 200e which models both cz-101 and cz-1000 and there's also VirtualCZ for 70e. So even though owning a real Casio would be nice I think software might be way to go.
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Post by skirmisher on Mar 8, 2020 6:56:18 GMT -5
I also really like the sound but it seems that software CZs emulate the hardware really well. Arturia has CZ V for 200e which models both cz-101 and cz-1000 and there's also VirtualCZ for 70e. So even though owning a real Casio would be nice I think software might be way to go. I have the virtual CZ and it is extremely good. The interface is so much better than the original hardware. It doesn't have the factory patches of the CZ synths but if you end up buying it give me a shout and I can hook you up with them. I have them all. Virtual CZ works as a CZ synth librarian so the patch files can be imported to it without any hassle. 101 and 1000 are the same machine soundwise by the way. The difference is 101 has smaller keys.
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Post by beforedust on Mar 16, 2020 6:21:27 GMT -5
Just won this thing in an online auction for about $50: Do you think it has enough buttons? It seems to be a quite rare 1980's keyboard with some limited synth action. Dunno, but I REALLY like the way it sounds: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IALc4Cvn9jMWhatcha think? Trash or hidden gem (pun unintended)?
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Post by Morphic Sun on Mar 16, 2020 10:58:35 GMT -5
Just won this thing in an online auction for about $50: Do you think it has enough buttons? It seems to be a quite rare 1980's keyboard with some limited synth action. Dunno, but I REALLY like the way it sounds: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IALc4Cvn9jMWhatcha think? Trash or hidden gem (pun unintended)? I've never heard of these, but from the demo I think it sounds awesome and it's cool that it has some synthesis functions too for such a cheap keyboard. $50 well spent I'd say!
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Post by beforedust on Mar 17, 2020 4:18:45 GMT -5
Yeah, seems perfect for DS, can't wait to get my hands on it
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Post by mahrgdidj on Nov 17, 2020 6:24:25 GMT -5
I think this is the right place to put this:
Excellent channel with really detailed rundowns of what are basically toys. I know these kinds of keyboards aren't really favored by the community, but that lofi sound is so effectively nostalgic. These videos are great just as entertainment too, very satisfying to watch him open these up, analyze the circuit, and give it a good cleaning.
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Post by morihaus on Nov 27, 2020 20:21:45 GMT -5
I see Andrew posted this one on the frist page but here's the thing. I managed to get my hands on a fairly priced Yamaha TG33. It's the enhanced keyboardless desktop version of the SY22 Vector synth. What this means is that it can play four sounds at the same time of which two can be FM patches and two are lo-fi PCM samples. You can adjust the parameters of each sound individually and then blend them seamlessly with a 360 degree joystick with sounds in up, right, down and left. Or just use two, you can do that too. Or just one. Man this thing sounds great and is so much fun to play with. It's a major pain in the ass to program this but that's how it was back in the day. It's still better than rack stuff and I think there are some PC editors available for this, I have to look into that. I'm going to be maximizing the stuff I can get out of this box and patch my own presets, I already have a few good ones. After I'm done, I might do a DS/Ambient project only using this synth. We'll see. I recorded some of it on my debut album and it worked out pretty good. If you can get your hands on one of these Vector machines, grab it! They are great.
I just picked up one of the SY22 keyboards a few weeks back and it's a load of fun. I've barely scratched the programming surface but I'm having a ball just opening up patches and twisting the joystick all over the place, detuning and shit. Maan. I will never get another SY22 but I do have fond memories of it as a first synth. I was 15 and I literally got it because Skinny Puppy said they used it on TDP Needless to say I never got any TDP sounds out of it, but it made for some great gothy jamming and stuff. It was stolen, sadly. I had always meant to sit down with that thing and figure it out
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