Dave Smith talks about the devel of the P08

gd · Post by gd » Fri Aug 31, 2007 11:30 pm

sorry if this has been posted but I gave up going through the 43 or so pages of the original thread by DB.

http://www.keyboardmag.tv/

just click on Dave Smith and go through the videos.

CTB · Post by **CTB** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 12:01 am

Great stuff! Thanks for this!

Bitexion · Post by **Bitexion** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 12:09 am

Seeing it in real life makes me think of the Access Virus C keyboard.
This guy is fricking amazing, though. He designs everything himself, from the prototypes, circuit board layouts to the computer software controlling the analog circuitry. A true synth wizard.

PitchBender · Post by **PitchBender** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 12:38 am

cool lots of good videos! if only they would play all the way! grrrr
they play for a little while then stop.

mok · Post by **mok** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 1:03 am

Dave sometimes thinks too much about 'what peopple want' instead of going with his gut - a prime example is that analog delay. A real voltage controlled analog delay in an 8-voice analog synth would be a master stroke, and I'd say that while not having it isn't going to upset too many people, including it would have been unique and perfect, regardless of how "bad" the BBDs sound. I have a Moogerfooger, an '80s Maxon, and a tube Echoplex that all "sound bad" too...

Bitexion · Post by **Bitexion** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 1:34 am

I guess he believes most people who love a good analog delay will already have an external delay unit to take care of that. So it would be kind of over the top. I run all my synths through a TC Electronics M3000 so I would probably use that delay very little anyways.

It's nice to see him speak about designing synths.
How much easier it is to get the right parts now with internet and websites compared to 30 years ago when you had to call up manufacturers, get a huge catalogue, then call a distributor and find the prices, if it cost too much, call another manufacturer, get another big catalogue. Much easier these days.
He's my dream dad.

OriginalJambo · Post by **OriginalJambo** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 2:09 am

PitchBender wrote:cool lots of good videos! if only they would play all the way! grrrr
they play for a little while then stop.

I had that problem with Firefox but not Internet Explorer.

I hate to say but I think Firefox is getting worse every time I update it to the newest version. It sucks.

Bitexion · Post by **Bitexion** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 2:18 am

The videos play all the way in Opera too.

CTB · Post by **CTB** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 3:01 am

Videos paused for me in IE as well, though I'm not using 7 or whatever the Firefox clone is.

Dave is one of those people like Bob Moog (in our synth world) and some other music artists that I respect in that I'd love to just be a fly on the wall and watch the brilliance happen since I do not possess brilliance myself. To be in the room when many of my favorite albums were composed would be truly fun.

These videos were great.

OriginalJambo · Post by **OriginalJambo** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 3:08 am

CTB wrote:Videos paused for me in IE as well, though I'm not using 7 or whatever the Firefox clone is.

I was using Internet Explorer 6 as well and it was fine for me. Weird that.

These videos were great.

They really were!

I was even tempted to consider maybe selling a few of my poly analogues to fund a P8, but when I found the price at Turnkey to be £1500 (that's $3000!) I thought "f**k that".

I mean if sold most of my vintage synths at the prices I bought them for originally I still couldn't afford it and that's with CRAZY UK vintage synth prices on the resale!

PolySix - £100
JX-3P - £100
Juno-6 - £120
DX7 - £140
ESQ-1 - £140
JD-800 - £300
Octave CAT - £350
Polivoks - £250

Is a UK Prophet-8 worth that? I think not. Welcome to rip-off Britain.

Bitexion · Post by **Bitexion** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 3:14 am

New analog polysynths were never, and will never be cheap anyways.
The Prophet-5's and Oberheims and Jupiters weren't exactly cheap when they were new either. Thousands of dollars.

OriginalJambo · Post by **OriginalJambo** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 3:20 am

Bitexion wrote:New analog polysynths were never, and will never be cheap anyways.
The Prophet-5's and Oberheims and Jupiters weren't exactly cheap when they were new either. Thousands of dollars.

I know man but people keep complaining about these "insane" vintage prices. Thing is when you compare it to the new stuff you are having a laugh really!

The Prophet-8 looks awesome of course, but that setup right there blows it out the water. And my setup does have s**t loads of cross over! Guess I'll wait 20 years until I can buy it for £500, and that's including the inflation.

neandrewthal · Post by **neandrewthal** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 4:51 am

Don't you guys make twice as much over there and doesn't everything cost twice as much? Isn't only 50% more than the American price a good deal?

Jazzpunk · Post by **Jazzpunk** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 5:14 am

mok wrote:Dave sometimes thinks too much about 'what peopple want' instead of going with his gut - a prime example is that analog delay.

Actually he said the analog delay didn't add enough mojo to justify the degradation of sound quality once it was in the signal path.

I'd say he was trusting his gut and his 30 odd years of electronics experience when he made that call!

OriginalJambo · Post by **OriginalJambo** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 5:16 am

neandrewthal wrote:Don't you guys make twice as much over there and doesn't everything cost twice as much? Isn't only 50% more than the American price a good deal?

I think the average salary is about £25,000 a year or something like that.

Maybe you are right, but considering you can get an Andromeda second hand for less than £1000 it hardly makes it look like a fantastic deal.