Ghost of Electricity Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Anyone know anything? I'm pretty sure he plays a Nord, thought it was an electro 2 (or 3) but just found something that said it was a Nord Stage. Anyone know anything about his set up, synths in particular? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ginandcigarettes Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 The video of Art of Almost in the WilcoWorld roadcase has a lot of good shots of Mikael's gear. He has a fair number of pedals and I think rack and laptop stuff, but I can pick out a Hammond A100, a Nord Stage 88, and a Virus ti (v2?). That's some serious gear. There's a picture of Mikael with a Nord Electro 2 on his lap in the Wilco Book and I think I've seen him play a Korg CX-3 (new) which may have been controlling a Nord Electro Rack. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Ghost of Electricity Posted January 5, 2012 Author Share Posted January 5, 2012 Thanks. Next question: I've been thinbking about getting a small synth to add some layers to the music in a new project i'm involved in. Nothing which would be front and center, but atmospheric, layered, background kind of stuff. clicks and beeps and modulation sweeps, kind of like the layers mike adds, invisible but omnipresent at the same time. unfortuynately, his gear is wwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy out of my price range. I'd be looking for something which would be used as a stand-alone unit plugged into amp or p.a. (as opposed to running through a laptop-not looking for a controller unit only). I'm not really a keyboards player, i can plunk out a simple one-handed melody and even do a little bit of chord work given a little practice, but nothing intricate. said board would have to be extremely user friendly for a novice like me as all my concentration will be on hitting the right notes. don't have time to spend punching a hundred buttons to get to the right preset. and it would need to be very reasonably priced. any suggestions from anyone in the know? two possibilities of things i've come across which might fit the bill are the Roland Gaia sh 01 and the korg ps60. any opinions on these? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ginandcigarettes Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Last time I had money and would research this stuff, I found the Alesis Ion, which would totally fit the bill. 500, 600 bucks maybe? They don't still make that, though.That was a wonderful piece of gear -- intuitive layout, a knob for everything, graphical interface, Tom Sawyer bass sound as a preset. It was that middle price point that was edged out by the MicroKorg for the cheapies and the Nord Lead for the snobs, I guess. The problem is that you seem to want two separate things -- both of which any decent synth will be capable of doing, but which will complicate choosing a synth. If you're trying to layer atmospherics and such and have real-time control over what's going on, you'll need a fairly decent user-interface with some knobs for tweaking as there is going to be something about a preset that annoys you and you're going to want to fiddle with things live. You'll need none of this, really, if you just want to plink out melodies and simple things like the MicroKorg with a ridiculously user-disinterested interfaces will be fine -- find your preset, write it to a storage button, press it when you're playing live, play. The irony is the less you want to do, the more you have to do. If you don't want to spend your life programming, then you'll spend your life cycling through presets until you find the one you like. Love that preset but wish it didn't have portamento? Frak me, now you have to figure out how to turn off portamento or you try to find a similar preset without portamento or you grit your teeth and take it like a man (or woman, as the case may be). Art thrives on restriction, anyway. Maybe the song was meant to have portamento? But seriously, if you have a laptop, consider doing the soft synth. A hundred or two for a decent soft synth. $20 on Craigslist for a USB controller and you're done. You can find a lot of soft synths for free or relatively cheap on the interwebs. I use my laptop for Mellotron, Chamberlin, Optigan, and some synth sounds (SampleTron I purchased, SampleMoog I got free because of the purchase, and SampleTank is just free to everyone) and I also use SoundPlant (16 bit is free and 24 bit is $40?) to trigger samples when the synth-ing is too complicated/ layered to pull off live or when we just want to nail the album sound exactly (yankee... hotel... foxtrot...). Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mahinty Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 I bought a microKorg a couple of months back and love it. I wrote it off for ages because of the ridiculously small keys - but you get use to it. It will give you some pretty good analog-ish pads (although, keep in mind that it is only 4-note polyphonic) and leads, and knobs for real-time control of the most likely parameters (filter cutoff, etc). The arpeggiator is also pretty sweet and intuitive. In the "Art of almost" promo/teaser clip, I'm pretty sure I spotted the amber back-lit pitch-bend wheel of an Akai Miniak amongst Mikael's kit - it has the same engine as the Alesis Ion (mentioned above by ginandcigarettes), but with a few more knobs. I played this, and a bunch of other 37-note, VA (Virtual Analog) synths during my hunt and surprised even myself on settling on the MK (I must admit that, I liked the character and retro-styling of it - from the wooden end-cheeks to mini-moog-type knobs). And if it's good enough for Neil Finn, it can't be too bad Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Moss Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 There's a picture of Mikael with a Nord Electro 2 on his lap in the Wilco Book and I think I've seen him play a Korg CX-3 (new) which may have been controlling a Nord Electro Rack. Derry DeBorja from Jason Isbell and the 400 unit was using the Nord Electro 2 as well. Seems to be a popular keyboard. I'm still toying with the idea of getting a keyboard myself but can't seem to pull the trigger yet. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mahinty Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 In the "Art of almost" promo/teaser clip, I'm pretty sure I spotted the amber back-lit pitch-bend wheel of an Akai Miniak amongst Mikael's kit - it has the same engine as the Alesis Ion (mentioned above by ginandcigarettes), but with a few more knobs. Actually, just re-watched that clip, and those glowing mod wheels probably belong to a Moog Little Phatty (which you can clearly see later on in the clip) - not a Miniak. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdTn0hXzVZU Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mahinty Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 Derry DeBorja from Jason Isbell and the 400 unit was using the Nord Electro 2 as well. Seems to be a popular keyboard. I'm still toying with the idea of getting a keyboard myself but can't seem to pull the trigger yet. I have an Nord Electro 2, and it's great. If you want electric piano (wurlitzer, rhodes) sounds for a gig, it can't be beaten. It's Hammond sound is pretty good too. It has been superceded by the, wait for it, Nord Electro 3 which has a better Hammond engine (as well as vox and farfisa organs), better acoustic pianos, and you can load in sounds from the Nord Sample Library (which includes some pretty cool stuff, including Mellotron samples). If you haven't got budget for an NE3, then there should at least be a few cheap NE2 keyboards turning up on the second-hand market. The Nord stuff is great quality. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mahinty Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 A couple more IDs: That's a Nord Stage in the centre, and to the right a Nord Lead sits on top of a Korg CX3. And: That's a Hammond A100 on the left (same electrics as the famous B3, just different woodwork and a built-in speaker) with, I think, a Korg M3-20 on top of it, and again there's a Nord Stage in the centre. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Ghost of Electricity Posted January 16, 2012 Author Share Posted January 16, 2012 What's that lo-tech contraption on the right then? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ginandcigarettes Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 That's a really early polyphonic keyboard. The lid-looking thing is a sweepable low-pass filter and it has a pedal to change the amplifier envelope's release parameter. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mahinty Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 That's a really early polyphonic keyboard. The lid-looking thing is a sweepable low-pass filter and it has a pedal to change the amplifier envelope's release parameter. I think you can just get an app for it these days Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ginandcigarettes Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 The MicroKorg is a great little box; people I really like love them -- Jon Brion has one above his Piano at Largo, Kori from Mates of State has one sitting atop her organ. I recently replaced the keyboardist of a band and she used the singer's MicroKorg for the synth sounds. I used it for a while before I got fed up with the little keys (I'm actually a shockingly limited keyboardist -- I can't play evenly unless there's some weight under the keys and I can't tell where my hand is with miniature keys). So I spent an hour or two writing patches on my Ion to match those sounds and ditched the MicroKorg. On a side note, @mahinty: I think you're confusing the Alesis Ion with the smaller Alesis Micron. I had a Nord Electro 2 briefly and it was pretty heavenly, except for: (1) Shockingly awful acoustic piano. Shocking.(2) Semi weighted keys that split the difference between real Hammond keys and piano keys in a way that I personally didn't like.(3) Lack of an onboard compressor (this would have really helped out the Wurly).(4) Silly non-three pronged plug. I still miss it, though (it has a good home with another ex-keyboardist of my band). The minute I'm seriously in the black, I'm plunking down the change for an Electro 3 with hammer action keys. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mahinty Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 On a side note, @mahinty: I think you're confusing the Alesis Ion with the smaller Alesis Micron.Yes, yes I was confused. My eyes read one thing, and my brain read something else. I had a Nord Electro 2 briefly and it was pretty heavenly, except for: (1) Shockingly awful acoustic piano. Shocking.(2) Semi weighted keys that split the difference between real Hammond keys and piano keys in a way that I personally didn't like.(3) Lack of an onboard compressor (this would have really helped out the Wurly).(4) Silly non-three pronged plug. I still miss it, though (it has a good home with another ex-keyboardist of my band). The minute I'm seriously in the black, I'm plunking down the change for an Electro 3 with hammer action keys. Yeah, the acoustic pianos aren’t the best, but some are passable for live work (but should be avoided for recording). I personally like the semi-weighted waterfall keybed – better than you standard electronic keyboard keybed, and perfect for organ stuff – I think it’s a good compromise. The Electro 3 addresses the piano quality problem and adds some reverbs (also good for the pianos) and extra amp models to the effects section – which would be handy. What would you want a compressor for? To get more honk out of the wurli without a jump in volume? That sort of thing? It’s a bit of a shame that the Electro 3 is still mono-timbral – it would be great if you could get an organ bass happening with an electric piano right hand – but I guess they need to differentiate their product line. If you really want to split your keyboard then cough-up the extra dosh for a Stage. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ginandcigarettes Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 Yes, yes I was confused. My eyes read one thing, and my brain read something else. I ran the dryer yesterday without anything in it. I cleaned the lint tray, shut the door, and set it for casual and pressed start. Nothing in the dryer at all. So... yeah, no problem. Don't worry about it. I personally like the semi-weighted waterfall keybed – better than you standard electronic keyboard keybed, and perfect for organ stuff – I think it’s a good compromise. It works for you -- that is great. It just didn't work for me. When I play organ I want a ridiculously light touch -- it covers up my lack of talent. But it's much too light for me for piano and (especially) Rhodes. It's actually pretty perfect for Wurly, though. Again, for me. What would you want a compressor for? To get more honk out of the wurli without a jump in volume? That sort of thing? Yeah pretty much. I found that in a band context the EPs (especially the Wurly) kinda disappeared in the mix and their dynamic range was a little too broad for rock and/or roll and no amount of fussing with velocity curves fixed it (to my satisfaction). I just wanted them to punch a little more. I think the Electro 3 has a compressor section and some amp sims so that looks to be mostly resolved. It’s a bit of a shame that the Electro 3 is still mono-timbral – it would be great if you could get an organ bass happening with an electric piano right hand – but I guess they need to differentiate their product line. If you really want to split your keyboard then cough-up the extra dosh for a Stage. You said it. Is the ability to have piano on the left hand and mellotron on the right worth $1,000? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mahinty Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Just out today, the Nord Piano 2 – if you don’t need organs, it ticks a few boxes – good pianos (acoustic + electric), Sample Library patches, splits, effects, amp modeling, compressor, weighted hammer-action keybed…. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mahinty Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Read all about it from the horse's mouth: http://www.keyboardmag.com/article/wilco-a-whole-lot-of-synth-love-from-mikael-jorgensen/147469 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ginandcigarettes Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Thanks for posting that! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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