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Originally Posted by Array
Regarding synths, how does the stuff you have now, particularly the TI Polar stack up to the synths you've played with in the 70's?  I figure that you are one of the few people on this forum who could give us some proper insight on the matter  |
I lived in LA and played in an original prog rock band (Genesis/Supertramp/Van Halen/The Cars/ELP) from the mid-70's - early 80's. Much of the music was keyboard-based (as I composed it), although we had an AMAZING guitarist (also a concert violinist, with perfect pitch), and our drummer was Keith Moon's evil twin.
We thought we were pretty hot shit at the time, as things go.
My rig was an ARP Odyssey, ARP Quadra, ARP Omni 2, Oberheim OB-1, Fender Rhodes, and Yamaha CP-70B electric grand. I had an Echoplex, one of the first Eventide DDLs, and Eventide harmonizer, 12-channel board, and a 1000-watt tri-amped PA just for the keyboards. Golly, those were the good-ol' days. But the fact is, I wouldn't trade my Polar (nor my Indigo) for any or all of that stuff (that cost about $27,000 back then).
The Odyssey sounded great, but we had to plug it in for an hour before showtime (in the dressing room) so that it wouldn't go sharp as it warmed up during the show. Our singer had to talk between songs so that I could set up a new sound. With no onboard effects, the Echoplex or DDL had to be adjust manually between songs as well. When I finally got the Oberheim OB-1, it was a godsend, because it could actually store eight patches (I think) in memory. Unfortunately, it never sounded as good as the Odyssey, and used to go out of tune too.
The ARP Quadra was a $5000 beast that gave us those big Tony Banks / Genesis prog rock pads. It looked cool and could do monstrous layered sounds, but always gave me grief during shows. Each key had a "contact wire" that touched a metal rod when the key was depressed, and these things were ALWAYS breaking. Same with the Omni 2. Replacing a broken contact wire meant opening the thing up and soldering a new one in, so when a key went out you had to play the rest of the show without that note. Unbelievable.
Of course the CP-70B and Rhodes had ongoing tuning and maintenance issues as well. The Yamaha piano would have to be tuned every third gig or so -- I'd have to hire a tuner to come out to a club and tune the thing onstage (with headphones while the latest Boston hit was blasting thru the PA). And the Rhodes was always a mess -- the tines would get out of whack and I'd have to constantly have the thing set up, tuned, re-voiced, etc.
And all of this stuff WEIGHED A TON, such that whenever we got paid I would give most/all of the money to the road crew, because they worked harder than I did setting all of this stuff up and tearing it down three nights a week.
The one thing I do miss from the 70's is that keyboard players were truly considered to be wizards. There were no rompler synths or Viruses with thousands of professionally-created factory patches... Knowing how to program the things was considered an art unto itself, and the ability to tweak and change sounds quickly during/between songs was considered to be an enviable skill. But I wouldn't turn back the clock - no way - the instruments we have at our fingertips now are AMAZING. While the TI may have its gremlins, it is truly the most awesome synthesizer ever created. This is without a doubt. If you could take a TI Polar back to 1976 in a time machine, you could sell it to some wannabe Rick Wakeman for about $50,000.
Retro is cool, for nostalgic reasons, and well, because, retro is always cool.
But the Access synths absolutely smoke anything ever made by Moog, ARP, or Oberheim, hands down.
Just my two cents, thanks for reading.