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Crystal Castles?


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Does anybody know how they're getting their synth sounds? I saw them live a couple of weeks ago (and will again this Friday) and all I saw on stage was the girl singing, a drummer, and the guy with a Microkorg. I've read somewhere that he somehow had an Atari chip put into his synth to get the sounds. Is that even possible? Could they be using the Microkorg as a cotroller for softsynths? Any idea which ones might be used?



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overrated?



oops sorry i thought we were playing word association.poke.gif

as far as ive heard it's all chopped up samples. the micro is used as a vocoder.

dont get me wrong, their cool, but I think they focus too hard on a gimmick and tha tkinda turns me off

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thatd be a good call ... but who knows cop.gif

ive been suspcious for a year or so that there is a producer in canda churning out these indie pop bands

back on topic, there were a few videos over at matrix synth that sounded really similar, with some guy semi nude in a top hat. you could be onto something..

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Quote Originally Posted by ElectricPuppy View Post
I saw "Crystal Castles" in the thread title and thought, "Cool, someone's gonna talk about that old arcade game..." How disappointing. icon_lol.gif
Me too. That was a fun game.

1181242101141.jpg
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This article has the producer claiming he put an Atari 5200 sound chip inside a keyboard he found in the trash. That'd be cool but this band is surrounded by so much hype I have a hard time believing it.

 

There are a lot of software emulations of sounds like this, and people have already mentioned the MonoMachine which has a hardware implementation of these types of sounds. And you can always sample old video games too!

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I'm seriously not getting the hype on this "band",the Pitchfork crowd( I read it everyday so.. ahem)eats this {censored} up.Is it that interesting,new,innovative..why is this so special?...someone please clue me in!
I listened to it and was mildly annoyed by my misspent 2 minutes at hearing game music with a girl caterwauling over it.I like Diamanda Gal

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for me it's the raw anxious quality of the tones and vocals... it's that marriage of technology and human emotion, it's microchips and circuit boards but the way it's all mashed together makes it sound alive.
yeah, they're completely hyped up right now. the album will likely sound dated in a few years, but right now it sounds exciting to me. maybe it's because i don't know how to achieve those kinds of tones and programming so the mystery of it hides the mediocrity you're hearing.

also, i'm not saying these guys are my new fav band... but it's fun brainless music that has it's place. JMHO.

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I saw them live a year or two ago and from what I could tell 95% of the music was coming from laptop (with a dramatic flourish the guy would press enter every four bars or so).
Microkorg for vocoder maybe and some other tones and an old yamaha pss for a few things.
I absolutely hated them, but could see how the band and others could have some fun with it. The hype machine is absolutely ridiculous on this one - but, no need to get mad at a couple of kids making a joyful noise who are getting chewed up by the aforementioned machine and spit out at you.

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just a tidbit from a friend of mine at microsoft... he likes the band too, so i forwarded the article to get his input. it's as follows:

"This is pretty much 100% bull{censored}. The Atari computers and consoles
(from the 5200 on or so) all used a custom POKEY chip. They were
actually really famous for it since it could do polyphonic sound, etc.
before anyone else was doing that with home PCs or consoles. Not only
that, the POKEY was a weird chip in that it was kind of an
analg/digital hybrid. It has certain pins for makins sounds, etc. but
some pins were actually potentiometers so you can have a variable
amount of voltage going in to make it do different things. My parents
bought me an Atari 128XE as my first "real computer" (I had a TI 99/4a
before that, that you had to store programs on audio tape) so the
programming model for making sounds, etc. with those chips is one of
the first things I learned.

So unless his keyboard he found in the trash had a slot for the exact
number of pins as the pokey, in the exact same configuration, he is
100% lying. He could've made some sort of custom bridge between the
two, but there's no way he did smile.gif"

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The first one sounds like two year old idiots making a bunch crappy noise and the second one sounds like a two year old trying to create music for other two year olds.

It's ridiculous that no matter how talentless somebody is, and how idiotic the childish crap is they create, people come along and try to talk it up like it's out of the ordinary or something great. That really puts a bad light on those who think that and shows they know nothing about music.

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You guys are too hung up on the Atari chip thing. I bet he told an interviewer how he controlled a SID with a cheap crappy midi keyboard and the interviewer just {censored}ed up transposing it into the article. They do it all the time, the first time they do it to you you'll understand...

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Whether it's the artist or the journalist, the bull{censored} level overpowers whatever talent might be lurking underneath.

Also, you can't just control a SID with a keyboard, either. The SID requires microprocessor to operate and software that knows how to address its registers. So no matter how you slice it, it's BULL{censored}. wave.gif

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Quote Originally Posted by ElectricPuppy View Post
Whether it's the artist or the journalist, the bull{censored} level overpowers whatever talent might be lurking underneath.

Also, you can't just control a SID with a keyboard, either. The SID requires microprocessor to operate and software that knows how to address its registers. So no matter how you slice it, it's BULL{censored}. wave.gif
Probably a SidStation and an ignorant reporter. I've been misquoted a few times in my life.
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I figured that the Atari thing was BS. I've only seen a Microkorg on stage and I know it can't be making all the sounds live. The group does have a {censored} load of hype but I do like some of the songs on the new album and they put on a good live show.

The synth dude, Ethan Kath, used to be Ethan Deth from the Toronto metal/punk band Cheerleader 666 which later changed its name to Kill Cheerleader. I don't know how he made the jump to electronic music.


int-0604-killcheerleader.jpg

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