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Look at what my son found in a closet this month


Etienne Rambert

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Welcome back my old friend.

 

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30 years ago, I bought this synth. It was my first real synth.

 

I got hooked on the string pad sound. Since then, I lost it.

Hurricane Katrina, I moved around.

 

Over the years, I bought a few K1 modules to keep the string pad

patch sound in my tunes.

 

Now voila, back at the old homestead, my son drags the original out of a closet. That tape on the right is so old, I can't peel it off.

 

It was a miracle he found it. It was a second miracle it lit up and the battery was still good.

 

Welcome home old pal. It's back in my set-up.

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Some of my better music was composed on that synth.

 

It's still the best string pad for I've ever heard - at least for my stuff.

 

Back in the day, I was a younger acoustic guitarist.

 

That synth allowed me to compose and orchestrate like later-Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Moody Blues or Mancini/Morricone/Rota/Weil.

 

That early-digital string cloud always hovered exactly right.

Not realistic, but suggestive, at times haunting.

 

Realistic instruments really can't touch it.

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Awesome! It’s always nice to see an old friend again. :cool2:

 

Have you tried a little Goof-Off on the tape? Check on an unexposed area of the paint first to make sure it won’t come off, but if it is safe to use with the paint, Goof-Off, a rag and a bit of elbow grease should take the tape and residue right off.

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A hair dryer warming up the tape will loosen the adhesive. Then any solvent will work to get the residue off. Even a small amount of WD 40 will work just don't let it drip inside the board. Its what I use to take factory stickers off motorcycle gas tanks.

By Law they have to put those stupid safety stickers on the gas tanks. It works on keyboard stickers too.

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I remember having a Kawai digital keyboard I bought at the "specialty department store" back in '91/92. At the time midi was a new thing for me and I had a lot of fun with it. It's been long gone for years and I couldn't possibly remember what model it was, more consumer than professional but I'll bet it had some similar sounds.

 

Currently I have a Kawai CE220 console style digital piano that I've thoroughly enjoyed in the front room. I just recently posted it for sale however and I believe a guy is coming to look at it tonight. As much as I love this keyboard it simply can't compete with the 1920 Steinway Model O that belongs to my wife and is also in the front room!

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I remember having a Kawai digital keyboard I bought at the "specialty department store" back in '91/92. At the time midi was a new thing for me and I had a lot of fun with it. It's been long gone for years and I couldn't possibly remember what model it was' date=' [u']more consumer than professional but I'll bet it had some similar sounds.[/u]

 

Currently I have a Kawai CE220 console style digital piano that I've thoroughly enjoyed in the front room. I just recently posted it for sale however and I believe a guy is coming to look at it tonight. As much as I love this keyboard it simply can't compete with the 1920 Steinway Model O that belongs to my wife and is also in the front room!

 

If it was a synth, the models available in 1991 were the K1, K3 & K4. They were serious synths actually. Some are still used in studios today.

 

There were also personal keyboards - the FS series, similar to the lower-end of the Yamaha PS series keyboards today.

 

I don't read Japanese, but here's a 1991 catalog.

 

And a 1993 catalog.

 

 

 

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There were also personal keyboards - the FS series, similar to the lower-end of the Yamaha PS series keyboards today.

 

I don't read Japanese, but here's a 1991 catalog.

 

And a 1993 catalog.

 

 

 

That's real cool and brings back some fun memories. There's no doubt that mine was one of the FS6xx models, most likely it was the 630. I was in "reboot" mode at the time, I'd just graduated from electronics school and moved to a new town. I was living in a small trailer and just getting back on my feet.

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If you need any manuals etc I can scan and post them here...

I replaced the battery in mine a couple of years ago.

 

I have them. It turns out the magic I had in the patch resulted from editing

I did via an obsolete but brilliant sequencer, Digital Orchestrator Pro. I did it all

via cc messages.

 

I’m trying to soften that attack. Then I’ll be be home again.

I’ve been trying to recreate that soft attack on the synth & haven’t

quite gotten there yet.

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I have them. It turns out the magic I had in the patch resulted from editing

I did via an obsolete but brilliant sequencer, Digital Orchestrator Pro. I did it all

via cc messages.

 

I’m trying to soften that attack. Then I’ll be be home again.

I’ve been trying to recreate that soft attack on the synth & haven’t

quite gotten there yet.

 

...8 bit...I lost my main tweak

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nice memories, the K1 II was my first actual synth (also a controller for the E-max II rack), then the Casio VZ-10m, and the Roland Alpha Juno

 

I had a huge card bank library I used to manage (6-7 banks with only two PC cards) with Opcode EZ Vision on a Mac (sysex data showed up as "sheep" icons in the piano roll)

 

then I finally got MOTU Unisyn - a proper synth editor/librarian

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