I did another H9000 demo for my friends at Eventide recently at the January 2019 NAMM nightmare, just like last year. They're a great company, with great people, and the 9000 is superb. They also made a video of me at home doing some of the same things in a less horrifying enviroment. You can find it here if you're into that sort of thing. As I mention at the end of the video, you can also find me on IG. Much like this "blog", I tend only to post when I think something's particularly interesting or funny, or I'm severely irked by something that needs expounding upon. In other words, pretty rarely, but less rarely than I post here. So if you find that my taste resonates with you, follow me there. Or don't. It's of little to no consequence, as with most of social media.
I have also been working with my friend Jeff Martin of the band Idaho, whose music I have been a fan of since the mid-90s. We met randomly at a gig a few years ago, became friends and eventually started working together. Our aesthetics and tastes line up very closely, so it's an easy collaboration. To this end, I built a mobile rig around the H9000 to use with that project, and it's been working out swimmingly. There's a glimpse of it here.
Back in the aforementioned "irked" category, I've noticed that there's a whole generation or two out there of
people using "vintage" synthesizers who have a) little to no programming talent or aesthetics, judging from the endless stream of unwatchable Matrixsynth video posts, and b) have zero awareness of this. In fact, I had a chat about precisely
this with an accomplished and dear friend of mine (who you have probably heard of, but whose name I'll omit here
to protect his privacy) the other day, so it's generally been on my mind of late.
As a result, I'd like to take a moment to rant irritably about some key truths that
these idiots have clearly completely missed.
So here goes.
1. Not everything Oberheim and Sequential made in the 80s was good. Much of it wasn't. Specifically, the OB-Xa, OB-SX, OB-8, Matrix-6 and Matrix-1000 were all terrible-sounding and/or lacked key programming features (such as cross-mod) of the actually good instruments Oberheim made, like the OB-X, Xpander and Matrix-12, though the latter two lacked the sonic "size" of the X and the SEM units. On the Sequential side, the Six-Trak, Multi-Trak, Split Eight and MAX were all awful as well. This period definitely represented the "bad old days" for Sequential. The T8 was not bad, due to its fantastic poly-aftertouch weighted keyboard, though at the end of the day, said keyboard was still controlling a declassé Prophet-600 (the Prophet 5 and 10's cheaper, anemic descendant.)
2. The Chroma Polaris SUCKS and has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE RHODES CHROMA. This is why it's a fraction of the Chroma's price.
3. The overblown dinosaur cousins of the DX7 that Yamaha produced after it are NOT WORTH BOTHERING WITH. Specifically, the DX5 and DX1. It's still Yamaha FM at the end of the day, so don't believe the hype. There are A LOT of better-sounding ways to do FM these days, for a tiny fraction of the price.
Bottom line:
Just because something's from the 80s and was made by a major manufacturer of the day
doesn't mean it's worth anything. Old != good in all cases, so use your ears.
Speaking of which, if you insist on buying 80s synths, at least take the time to familiarize yourself
with some of the people back then who were doing unique, personal and creative work with the instruments
of the day, and have taste. Joe Zawinul, Rainer Brüninghaus, Richard Barbieri, Mick McNeil (Simple Minds), Rupert Greenall (The Fixx) and PJ Moore (The Blue Nile) are all great places to start. DO NOT, on the other hand, listen to The Cars or Rush if you're looking for good examples of refined, highly-personal synth programming approaches. If you can't discern the fundamental difference,
perhaps you're barking up the wrong tree.
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