I came across an old recording of me on keyboards with a friend playing guitar back in 1991. It was written and recorded by us in his bedroom apartment on a cassette multitrack and the keyboard/bass/drum sounds are all a Roland MT32 ( talk about lo tech ). Chris Wood ( a close friend from Connecticut ) was a great guitar player and was only 21 at the time. Unfortunately he passed away before he was ever able to fulfil his musical career. This track is a little off the wall but does have a great atmosphere and remarkable guitar playing.
http://www.synthzone.com/songs/Cantus%20Firmus.mp3
It has been converted to the highest quality MP3 so it is a long download.


[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 09-22-2005).]

It's a really beautiful work! What an absolute amazing guitarist Chris was! Sorry to hear about his passing away. Surely a great lost for our world...

------------------
Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

My goodness- I remember when I heard MT32 the first time. I barely just entered highschool I think. It was a MIDI version of Chick Corea's "Central Park" if I'm not mistaken. I thought that was the most awesome sound module ever!

Greetings Nigel,
INdeed. That is a beautiful track. Saying this both as a composer and a guitarist. Sorry to hear about Chris passing away.

-ED-

I'm so glad you all enjoyed it. Very few people ever got to hear Chris play so it means a lot to me that you recognized his incredible talent and enjoyed his playing. He really put all his heart and soul into his playing and you can feel that when you listen to him. He loved his music and I feel very honored to have had the chance to play and write music with him.

He listened to all music and loved classical, rock and jazz and you can hear the influence of all these styles in this performance.


[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 09-14-2005).]

Nigel...I too really enjoyed hearing the music of you and Chris...what a remarkable player he was...I bet he would've been a great Flaminco guitarist, I could hear it in his playing style...I don't know to much about keyboards other then Yamaha but I gotta tell you that the song I just heard was great and yes, it is our loss that Chris is no longer with usThanks for sharing
Tony Rome

The MT32 was Roland's first multitimbral module that they brought out in the late 80s. Soundwise it really doesn't compare at all well with modern tone modules. But apart from the memories that this track holds for me it really reminded me that you don't have to have start of the art gear to make good music. That comes from the heart. Sometimes it is easy to forget that and think that you always need the latest and greatest gear to touch people.

Because the MT32 was weak in many areas I just tended to use the patches that it was strong at. The main musical figure throughout the track was played using the MT32's Fantasia patch.

WOW!!!!
Thanx Nigel for sharing that with us. The guitar playing by Chris was beautiful, and that MT32 has got a really deep dark bottom end, very haunting.
Any info on what guitar(s) he was playing?
Thanx again....that's really an amazing piece.

------------------
...shboom

Chris used a classical nylon string acoustic but I don't know anything more about that guitar. The electric sound is a gold top Gibson Les Paul played through a small Marshall practice amp.

The MT32 was a strange hybrid analog/digital synth similar to the Roland D50. That Fantasia patch used both the analog and digital sound sources which may well explain the haunting bottom end. And because it was recorded on tape it would have only warmed up the bottom end even more.

I just realized I read too quickly and only saw the portion about the MT32 I didn't read about your friend's passing.

My apologies.

Nigel this is fantastic!!!!!!!!!!
I Like it very much. This is good music.
Thanks for sharing with us, and yes, your friend was an amazing player.
Theodore

Nigel,
Being a pain in the ass that I am I have to remind everyone that the D50, MT32 and Roland synths that featured L.A.S. were fully digital and featured no analog circuitry aside from the D/A converter on the main output.

It's "analog" waveforms and filters were digital. Initial confusion was generated by some of the KB articles on D50 and L.A.Synthesis were the description of D50's tone architecture was rather ambiguous (basically describing the D50 as if it was a hybrid synth when it actually was a totally digital instrument).

So I'm afraid the only thing that can explain the dark character of MT32's sound is it's low fi sound and 8-bit FX as well as 15k quality of most tape recorders. Like I said there was no true analog component to the sound of L.A.S. based synths and modules what so ever. It's just a miss-conseption that seems to live on even today.

Chris was one good guitar player though. Really dedicated and strong in his technique. That can only be admired.

-ED-



[This message has been edited by 3351 (edited 09-22-2005).]

Thanks for the correction -ED-. You are of course right about that. The L/A synthesis synths did do a good imitation of analog using digital waveforms and filters that allowed some interesting patches to be programmed. But that just reinforces my point that it is the music that matters and not the technology used.

I remember how we composed this piece. We were just jamming together using a Roland S10 sampler with the arpeggiator turned on. It created parts that I probably wouldn't have played normally. I then worked out the parts that the arpeggiator was playing and then played them by hand on the MT32. The sections where we play the C-Eb-D figure over two octaves was all due to inspiration from the arpeggiator lines.

Agreed.
It is definitely not the gear but what you do with it. Mind you for the time an MT32 was a pretty good deal. Surely it offered no editing (aside from sysex control of FX and basic patch parameters( it had some usable sounds, drum kits and most important of all it was multitimbral. Back in those days one was lucky enough to own at least a 4-track recorder. Most of us didn't even have that.
Anything that could play more than one part was an awesome deal. Especially something as easy to use and play with as an MT32!

Hey, besides "fantasia" there were some cool sounds. Remember "Echo pan"?
Or "Ice Rain" (Although I could be mixing it up with the original SC that had MT32 sounds in a hidden bank 2/bank msb 127 as I recall.) ? I mean at the time they seemed like state of the art Xpensive sounds.

Good music Nigel. I listened to it again today and it still gives me a very good feeling. The kind of feeling you get when you listen to something that you can relate to. Saying this both as a guitar and a synth guy.

-ED-

This is good, real and honest, both the music and the posts here. Thanks all for sharing. It does take me back to other days with a big smile.
Sorry to hear you lost this guy. He was good.
Bebop

Yes I do remember those patches. And you are correct they definately were on the MT32. I really liked the drum and percussion sounds on it as well. Even though the MT32 was lofi when you look back, it had a great balance and mix when used as a multitimbral sound source. All the sounds sat well together in the mix and nothing ever seemed to overpower other sounds. I remember using other multitimbral units after the MT32 that took a lot more work to get everything to coexist comfortably in the overall mix. Roland really did a great job with the MT32 and I wish I still had it actually.

Nigel, you can find them for $50..
Don't let nostalgia get in the way of clear thinking..they were cool then,,,but not up to today;s standard...Same with Yamaha FB01..

[This message has been edited by Fran Carango (edited 09-23-2005).]

No more beer for this man!!!
You've missed the point entirely. Nostalgia has little to do with what we're talking about. Although a healthy touch of nostalgia is always good if you're hanging out at the bar.

Don't you remember those times when you sit down, share a beer or ten and just talk about the good old times.

Nigel,
Yes, they were good for the time. You're bang on right about the sounds working well in the mix. Lots of old synths had that. ESQ-1 for example. But an MT32 was surely the easiest one of all. Often it was just a matter of adjusting the volume on all the channels. I don't know how ROland did it and why today's workstations kind of lack in that respect (although the sounds on my Motif ES8 work together great).

So, nostalgia or not as many will agree an MT32 was a great deal for the money. Especially for those of us who were just starting off.
Can't say if I would really enjoy working with one today but if I had one I'd probably play with it once in a while.

-ED-

[This message has been edited by 3351 (edited 09-23-2005).]

Yeah, I guess there is an element of nostalgia when I think about the MT32 and how it sounded to me then. I actually did pick up a Roland D110 module back in the mid 90s for almost nothing and was quite shocked when I tried to use it. It didn't sound at all like I remembered the L/A synths sounding to me some years previously. I only kept it for a week once I realised that I would never use it. Sometimes things are best left to be just good memories. But I guess that can apply to many things in life and not just music gear.

Neither D-10 nor D-110 were in any way similar to MT32 or SC for that matter. THey were more like stripped down but multitimbral (in the most useless way possible I might add) versions of the D50.

An MT32 was especially designed for multitimbral use. It's success lead to the development of Sound Canvas and General MIDI standard.

-ED-

I'm curious to why you say that. I would have said the odd one out of that bunch you mention was the SC. The MT32 and D10/110 were based on L/A synthesis architecture and shared the same voice construction based on partials. Many of the same patches in the MT32 were also found in the D10 as well. I remember editing patches on both of those tone generators and the available parameters were very much the same other than the D10 had performance patches as well as the multitimbral patches. I could be wrong but from memory the SC was much more of a sample playback module without the L/A synthesis architecture.

Well, speaking of L.A.synthesis only SC was indeed an odd one out of that bunch. Mind you it featured many of the same waveforms found on the MT32 and D series synths.

I guess what I really meant to say was that both MT32 and SC were designed with MIDI multitrack playback in mind. Multitimbrality and ease of use were their selling points.

The release of Roland D10 and D110 was triggered by Korg's release of M1 which stole a lot of attention from the D50 because of multitimbrality. THe L.A.S featured on the D10/D110 synths was a stripped down version of L.A. synthesis found on the D50/D550 and multitimbrality wise they weren't anywhere near as well designed as MT32 or SC.


As far as I remember Roland SC modules came with 256 sounds. 128 were basically GM sound set. Additional 128 were L.A. compatible.

I could be mixing it up because I used one of the Roland E-series arrangers that were basically an SC with styles and slightly cleaner FX. They featured SC sounds in banks A/B and L.A. sounds in banks C/D ("Echo Pan", MT32 Orch hit etc).

Having used a D50 for over 17 years now I can say with absolute certanty that despite it not having multitimbrality it's sounds worked very well in the mix and I created entire arrangements using only the D50 and a drum machine (borrowed that and an 8-track recorder usually. All I had at the time were the D50 and my other old favorite the DX7).

D10 and D110 weren't like that at all. Sounds did not work together that well for some reason and even though many patches had identical names to the patches found on the D50 and MT32 (I'm just talking factory stuff) they didn't quite work the same way.


-ED-


[This message has been edited by 3351 (edited 09-25-2005).]

[This message has been edited by 3351 (edited 09-25-2005).]