Sampan is Born Again!

SampanViking

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Born Again Synth player that is./

You may have noticed I have been a little scarce of late. The reason is my discovery of my 1st Love; the Synthesiser!

In my teens and early twenties, I invested much of my free time and most of money in Synths and Recording equipment. Nearly thirty years ago however I the needs of time and space (my available time and space, not the cosmic variety) required me to break my studio down and pack it up, with most of it being eventually sold off.

Of course in those days Synths were still mostly Analogue, recoding needed proper mixing desks and tape recorders, they were bulky, expensive and needed a lot space and lot of power to operate. For decades I had neither time nor facility to set up a new studio so put it to the back of mind and largely forgot about it.

Then this year, three things happened.

1) My musical guru Edgar Froese of Tangerine Dream died
2) An old friend from my youth also suddenly died
3) Someone told me that lots of powerful synths exist as virtual computer programmes.

I was both intrigued and more mindful of mortality and concluded that there was no good reason not to start playing again.

I have frankly been amazed by what I have found and how much the technology has moved on. The best thing is that it is now possible to have a keyboard and studio set up beyond my previous wildest dreams, own classic keyboards that still cost thousands and for it all to cost virtually nothing and occupy no meaningful space whatsoever.

The low cost is remarkable, I bought an entry level MIDI keyboard for £70 (about $100) and with the bundles software that came with it and all the free VST pluggins have not had to pay a penny extra!

So there you are facilities that would have cost many £1000's in the day available for next to nothing, Incredible.

Anyhow here are a couple of pieces that I have knocked out while relearning the ropes. Be generous, I am having to learn a lot of new technology and I have not played or practised for decades.

Also be aware that I am a product of my generation and with tastes firmly locked in the Krautrock era

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Jeff Head

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Great stuff Sampan! Congrats on realizing this dream.

Very nice for your first couple of productions. I particularly liked the second one. Have been listening to it as pleasant background music while I work.

and, from the first...

"If you ever wondered what a mid life crisis sounded like, this is probably a good example."

LOL!
 
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SampanViking

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Little bit of old school here. That's Berlin 70's old school not 90's disco.
A highly modular system sounding piece that is dedicated to the memory and musical inspiration of Edgar Froese.
I will be honest, it will not be to everyone's taste.

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Air Force Brat

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Little bit of old school here. That's Berlin 70's old school not 90's disco.
A highly modular system sounding piece that is dedicated to the memory and musical inspiration of Edgar Froese.
I will be honest, it will not be to everyone's taste.
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I wish you were here and you could show the Honey-Badger what to do with this poor old Yamaha W5, its a midi keyboard and took those little disckettes, anyway. It was at our old church and I think they may have misplaced the manual so the Honey Badger does have about half of the keys???

I'm no help, but I loved the sound of this thing through the sound system at church, I love the electric piano etc, etc and I can hear them through the sound system so much better than an accustic instrument, but this thing is an antique?
 

SampanViking

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Hi AFB - you mean that only half the keyboard is working or that you can only access half of the soundbanks or other features.
If it has a split keyboard feature, you may have an active split but a Midi command muting the other half.
Anyway I can at least hep you with this
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Air Force Brat

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Hi AFB - you mean that only half the keyboard is working or that you can only access half of the soundbanks or other features.
If it has a split keyboard feature, you may have an active split but a Midi command muting the other half.
Anyway I can at least hep you with this
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Yes sir, only half the keys had any sound, I am trying to download the PDF in a different font as my adobe wasn't happy. Thanks so much for the instruction manual, once it downloads hopefully she can figure it out, she says its much to complicated

At one time she played it at our old church, and had several instruments layered starting with the organ voices, she wishes that I had bought her a professional keyboard instead, but I wanted the W5 as it is very cool. I love the sound of the electric piano which is much easier for me to hear over the sound system as opposed to the baby grand we have in our sanctuary.

Oh, and I do hope you are born again brother, heaven will need some musicians as I can't even play the radio??? LOL thanks bruda
 

Air Force Brat

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Yes sir, only half the keys had any sound, I am trying to download the PDF in a different font as my adobe wasn't happy. Thanks so much for the instruction manual, once it downloads hopefully she can figure it out, she says its much to complicated

At one time she played it at our old church, and had several instruments layered starting with the organ voices, she wishes that I had bought her a professional keyboard instead, but I wanted the W5 as it is very cool. I love the sound of the electric piano which is much easier for me to hear over the sound system as opposed to the baby grand we have in our sanctuary.

Oh, and I do hope you are born again brother, heaven will need some musicians as I can't even play the radio??? LOL thanks bruda

Ok its up and loaded and she saved it to the desk-top, if she has a question I will have her ask or PM you, thanks for the help because I didn't have any luck finding a manual on ebay or google, thank you again, and I do like that synthesizer sound, as I am 59 I love that rock sound, such as Peter Framptons work, he used the synthesizer on several of his songs? "Show me the Way" comes to mind. Thank you master Sampan!
 

SampanViking

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Thanks AFB
I remember very clearly listening to Framptons guitar/vocoder work in the 70's
For your WS5
I would recommend downloading Midi Ox - its a general utility programme
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Once downloaded
Connect your synth to your computer, start Midi Ox and press some keys that work. You should see Midi commands printed in the Midi Box text screen.
After that, press some keys that do not work. If you see Midi commands, the keyboard is fine but some how muted switched off. Check the WS5 manual to cancel splits or generally reset all Midi commands.
If there is no midi read out, then unforunately the keyboard is broken and you would be most likely best off buying something new and current, which will probably give you all you are looking for, but cost remarkably little.
 
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