Vintage Synth Explorer Forums

Hi, I'm not a musician. I'm a drummer. (Ahem.) But I recently bought an E-mu Vintage Keys keyboard (not the rack unit) for use by the keyboard player in our Monkees cover band. The inch-thick manual is a bit daunting (I was an English major) but cycling through the "audition" riffs I can get a feel for most of the sounds. The instruction manual has a list of presets. The one that I think is most Vox Jaguar-like is called "Old Red Top." There's also "PortaVibSt," "PlasticOrg" and a couple of "Elka" sounds that are '60s-ish. I have no trouble accessing those. However, after the list of presets in the appendix is a list called "Instrument Listing," with the notation "This section lists the raw instruments in the Vintage Pro ROM set. The instruments are either multisamples or single samples." No. 28 is Farfisa. No. 29 is Vox Jaguar.

My question: Is it possible to just get those raw instrument sounds? That is, can I set the keyboard up to just pump out No. 29, Vox Jaguar? If so, how?

And if not, can anyone recommend how to set up the keyboard to get the best '60s combo organ sound(s), a la "I'm a Believer," "Stepping Stone," and the airy/breathy organ in "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You"? Many thanks.

John
Washington, D.C.

Each protean rompler (proteus, command station, etc,) has a ROM inside that has samples.

Those samples are the bricks that build each preset sound and they are the instrument listing you mentioned. If you access the preset edition, you'll be able to see the name of the instruments that are assigned to to that patch.

Changing the waves inside a patch is one of the most basic functions when editing them.

There is a set of 16 buttons totally at the left of the synth. Press the first one of them several times until you see the name of the "instrument" put the cursor on the instrument name, and browse the list with the modwheel

For those "I'm a Believer" and "A Little Bit Me..." tones you need something with harmonic control on the organ sounds. It's a very simple sound but, I don't think the Vintage Keys has the editing capabilities to replicate it convincingly. My recommendation is to get a Casio WK-3800 or similar such as WK-3700 or WK-3500. These can be had used for $200-300 and will do the sounds you're looking for as well as almost any other vintage sound you might need.

Here's one on NJ Craigslist as an example:

http://newjersey.craigslist.org/msg/1628168983.html