Success Story: PolySix MIDI Retrofit

[garranimal]

comment deleted

[RobotHeroes]

I quit vs. forget you guys. bye.

Hey AG it looks like you made someone leave. Good job AG successful troll is successful.

[Pro5]

If you can think of another reason to MIDIfy an analog synth, let me know. It isn't for recording... it's just as easy to multitrack these days as sequence.

In case you missed it in my long post. Another reason is so you can use any other keyboard to control the analog, which could often have dead or flaky/dying keys.. or just out of preference being that the controlling keyboard has nicer/quieter/quality keys. Again a good option and absolutely no reason to NOT have that option should we require it.

Also some people stack their synths in 'racks' (or shelves/drawers) for space saving AND protection/reduce wear and tear on the physical stuff like keys / wheels - and control those as 'sound sources' as you would a rackmount or soft-synth, without midi you can forget that idea.

[Automatic Gainsay]

I quit vs. forget you guys. bye.

Hey AG it looks like you made someone leave. Good job AG successful troll is successful.

:::hangs head:::

Well, I am an a*s. I thought everyone knew that.

I'm sorry for making anyone quit vs. forget.
Don't go, garranimal!!

[Automatic Gainsay]

NO really it's no reflection on my ability to be able to play 'in time' (I'm actually very good and have great timing - on Keyboards, Guitar and Bass). It's to do with being a 'producer' vs just a keyboard player. If you want to be a synth god and hone your licks and feel good that it was all done 'live' then sure leave the midi out of it, but for me who has a job to do (finish a song in which I play guitar, keys, bass and sing as well as mix/produce) I want the flexibility to use midi (or not) as and when I need it. If you couldn't fit midi to a polysix then I'd still love the synth and I would use it, and play 'in time' as much as I want. If it IS available and .. for people like me it's FUN to mod their synths and 'improve' them in features - no I wouldn't do it to some hyper expensive holy grail of synths but we are talking about a polysix here - then I'll consider doing it for those occassions when I would prefer to use midi to run a sequence through it (yes I record everthing these days back to audio tracks of course).

Sometimes I think we should listen to each other's music before we engage in conversations about playing. It sounds like you and I do exactly the same sort of thing.
For all of my creative personal music, I record almost entirely without sequencing (sometimes I use sampling and manipulation to improve my sloppy drumming). BUT, for professional work, I record almost entirely WITH sequencing. I try to stray from quantization because I lean towards orchestral arrangements with the professional stuff, but it doesn't mean I don't use it. So, I can see what you're saying.
I think the difference between you and I is that I don't use analog synths for anything other than recording analog-synthy synth sounds!
I hear you about time-saving, though. Boy, do I. I understand that completely.
I admit my views about vintage synth preservation are extreme and can sound judgemental, and I apologize for that.

Without midi it is cut off from all these choices and while it may feel good to know it's a genuine 'real man's synth' without midi, that doesn't help me at 3am in the morning when a polysix key gives up, or I need a fast/tight sequence recording in short time!

Fair enough!

[Automatic Gainsay]

I suppose I'm just saying that the more you quantize synths which don't have quantization, the less they sound like the synths they are.

Seriously, that's one dumb statement.

I'm sorry you think so.
It's a statement based in being a digital musician for 13 years, followed by being an analog musician for 9 years and having owned and recorded with most of the most popular analog synths.
The more you do with a synth which is outside of that synth's set of functionality, the less it sounds like that synth. It's not an opinion; it's just common sense.
Of course, if that's what a person wants to do, that's what a person wants to do.

[HideawayStudio]

I suppose I'm just saying that the more you quantize synths which don't have quantization, the less they sound like the synths they are.

Seriously, that's one dumb statement.

I'm sorry you think so.
It's a statement based in being a digital musician for 13 years, followed by being an analog musician for 9 years and having owned and recorded with most of the most popular analog synths.
The more you do with a synth which is outside of that synth's set of functionality, the less it sounds like that synth. It's not an opinion; it's just common sense.
Of course, if that's what a person wants to do, that's what a person wants to do.

I agree with AG too - even if it's just for technical reasons. You could argue that some synths/timbres have subtle playing requirements to enhance, utilise or compensate for a synth's shortcomings or features which can be lost in using quantisation. A decent synth player might be tempted to let go of a key fractionally early in readiness for the next to prevent note starvation, retrigger a filter, or play a key earlier to compensate for a slow string envelope - these might be lost in the process of quantisation. I actually discovered there was a certain playing style I was unwittingly adopting to play my ARP Omni-2 which, when I midi retrofitted it, was being lost after quantisation and causing clicking thanks to it's paraphonic architecture. I found, after carefully tweaking all the note lengths, that I could program this out.

[garranimal]

[iProg]

From my humble point of view, a great advantage with MIDIfying the older ones is that one can record the chords, lead, line, melody whatever...and then being able to change the SOUND of that afterwards...that's the only thing I use MIDI for, considering hardware synths. I play keyboards good enough and don't necessariyl quantize everything.

[pflosi]

that's exactly what my statement was about