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Pink Floyd Synth


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I just saw a documentary on Classic Albums on VH1 on the making of Dark Side of the Moon and David Gilmour showed the synthesizer he used on the album.

 

I know it was a Putney of some sort, and it had a touchpad keyboard rather than an actual keyboard. It was not the suitcase model with the pushpins, it was a far larger beast.

 

Anyone know what model that is, and anything about it? Thanks!

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Perhaps it is a custom model VCS3. I know that is listed everywhere as the synth he used, but the one in the documentary is longer, looks more like a modern workstation with the knobs to the left, the "keyboard" to the right, and something above the keyboard that may have been a sequencer.

 

Perhaps it was built into a custom cabinet.

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This is kind of weird because I have just been given an assignment about pink floyd's music, and I found that Richard Wright used a minimoog, amongsth other instruments, and I want told to animate a picture of that given the midi files at http://www.floydhead.com/MIDI.htm ...

 

Now, I know nothing about midi or music, and a little javascript and Lingo (used by director, but being phased out). I've seen virtual pianos written in other languages so i know it's theoretically possible, given a simple midi file, that you could animate a fake keyboard, if you could translate the MIDI into a combination of key strokes (e.g. C# : 3rd white key and 3rd black key depressed for 1 second)

 

But pink floyd wrote their music on a variety of synths and other instruments!

 

The image of the minimoog keyboard layout is here : http://www.digitalaudiocentral.com/dac/images/stories/news/musicmesse09/minimoogV2.jpg

 

Do such keyboards even have the same number of keys? Is what I've been asked to do even possible? I have the feeling it isn't, but my teacher's been involved with bands, and i'd hate to make an idiot of myself saying it can't be done, or at least it can't be done without spending cash (no way am I going to buy an answer to an assignment!)

 

It's a really cool idea; i can see how to program a list of translations of musical notes if i know what they corresponded to with key-strokes and duration, so that someone watching could figure out how to play that piece; but I thing I'm way over my head with this one.

 

If anyone can tell me yay or nay I'd appreciate it.

 

Thank you.

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Other prominent users of the VCS3 family were Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, and Jean Michel Jarre. You can see a big rack with a bunch of them in the following video for Jarre's 1981 single "Orient Express" from his Concerts in China album.

[YOUTUBE]zQo9niQEr4w[/YOUTUBE]

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Thanks for that! It's given me an idea. I might just skip the whole idea and have pictures of the different synths and other instruments as part of the project, their history as another, and mp3s of some of their songs in another part. As it's a TAFE project, copyright doesn't apply (but i can't sell what i create anyhoo).

 

I think what I was thinking of might be doable but I'd have to know a heck of a lot more, and considering I'm doing an animation subject, not a music one, trying to understand MIDI is just silly.

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The one that Dave was demonstrating was the AKS, but it looked a little different. As I said, the synth part was off to the left, it looked like there might have been some knobbage above the membrane, as well.

 

D. Gilmour was using the EMS Synthi A "briefcase" model in this clip - the keyboard separates from the synth section at the hinges and he's laid them next to each other. Here's a pic of the same synth...

 

Synthi_a.jpg

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Never mind all these "synths in a briefcase" and control interfaces that look like a NASA launch terminal. Suilebhain's avatar freaks me out man. But I'm drawn to it in some sick, uncomfortable, yet exciting way.

 

 

I just looked at it again.

 

 

and again.

 

 

:p

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