Wednesday, November 02, 2005

SynthMania: Famous Sounds

I have so much respect for those who truly know how to take advantage of a synthesizer. I don't imagine it's terribly difficult once you get the hang of it, but it's the getting the hang of it that's the difficulty. I bought a Korg X2 in 1994 and still have not used it to its proper capacity. In fact, I've really only used it as a makeshift piano/organ in concert situations. It's capable of so much more, but my problem was that I could never find someone willing to teach me how to use it. The instructional video was good up to a point, and then jumped to a highly advanced level without describing how it got there. I'd love to learn how to properly use a synthesizer/sequencer - I imagine it would open up my performance opportunities.

Anyhoo, I came across this excellent page of Famous Synth Sounds. This page is treasure for music geeks. The descriptions are great, but the quick-loading mp3 samples are even better. My favorites are the TR-808 cowbell (this thing is pissing all over Faith), the Funky Drummer, (admittedly not a synth sound but a drum loop, thanks DWS) and the loop of '89 (although I remember this best from "Don't Forget My Number" by Milli Vanilli).

The link to the Alesis Ion eventually leads to this mp3 sample (1.7 MB) which features all the classic synth sounds the author created with the Ion. There are a number of sounds in here, I can recognize most of them:

Sound 1: Rush song, I'm forgetting the name...Tom Sawyer?
Sound 2: Bad version of Baba O'Riley
Sound 3: Pretty good version of Won't Get Fooled Again
Sound 4: No clue, but it's Moog-y so maybe ELP?
Sound 5: Jump by VH, obviously
Sound 6: Separate Ways, Worlds Apart by Journey...ROCK!
Sound 7: Fooling Yourself by Styx
Sound 8: No clue.

1 Comments:

At 11/02/2005 2:08 PM, Blogger Michael said...

I want to say 4 is by the cars, I've definitely heard it and it's someone 80's poppy not ELP, nary and idea about #8.

Nice post.

 

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