The 80's - The Decade That Made Us

[MBTC]

For those interested in reminiscing about the 1980's, there's a new miniseries that just started on NatGeo called "The 80's - The Decade That Made Us".

It's not exclusively about analog synthesizers, but you're pretty much guaranteed to hear some nice warm cheese in there somewhere

http://channel.nationalgeographic.co...-that-made-us/

[MBTC]

Not sure if any of you guys caught this, but it was outstanding. Six shows in 3 nights. Be sure to catch it next time if you missed it and are into a trip down memory lane (or stream it via the net if that's possible). Well worth your time.

The series didn't focus on music as much as other cultural aspects of the time period, so it was even more off-topic for this board than I thought it would be, though as my first post predicted, you would hear some familiar tunes. Yaz - Don't Go comes to mind, also they were playing Depeche Mode - Everything Counts .... "the grabbing hands grab all they can...."etc while talking about the 80's yuppie wall street greed mentality.

[namnibor]

Yes, gr8 series! Am so glad I experienced the 80's as it was happening and will be 50 this Summer and still say that decade retains some of my most fond memories, mainly from the extremely creative music that was always coming out.
Since this IS OFF TOPIC, will say I bought the new Depeche Mode CD, 'Delta Machine' and thoroughly enjoy it! Only purchased the regular CD but there's a special two CD version on which that second CD has mainly a lot of synth stuff in which with 20/20 hind-sight, wish had spent the extra few bucks for that on Amazon.
We can only hope that this analog synth renaissance will spawn some great new music

[MBTC]

About Delta Machine, on Amazon you can download the additional 4 songs from the second CD for about a buck and a quarter each. I think you could just then burn them to CD? I'm not sure, I actually don't use physical CDs much anymore, everythings on an iOS device or I am listening to SiriusXM in the car. I even tend to stream via Bluetooth from the iPod to the car stereo rather than put CDs in.

I have the deluxe edition (total 17 songs) and can confirm that the songs on the second CD, oddly enough are some of the better ones on the album, but I have to say overall that I feel the direction DM has gone with their music has mostly not been the same since Alan Wilder left. Don't get me wrong, they've still got a great and unique sound, it's just that something has gone missing and my personal opinion is that it's Alan.

Do you listen to FirstWave on SiriusXM? Swedish Egil (one of the DJs) is a huge DM fan, but he listened to Delta Machine right around the same time I heard it for the first time, and I have to say his summary mirrors mine.... he said he felt that it was a decent effort overall, but it lacked at least one catchy tune that stays in your head that DM used to be famous for. I've seen others say they'd rather see quality of songs over quantity, and that's how I feel about it.

[namnibor]

I tend to not dwell on fact a particular band I favor no longer has this or that member rather, take he evolution (hopefully) of that groups music. Sure, it's different but can also hear the refinement in vocals and DP's music is still enjoyable to listen to. Loved previous CD and am enjoying this newer release. I do not listen to the radio generally due to close to 500 CD collection and on a long road trip tend to load a USB Memory Stick with many folders and just plug it into faceplate and change folders via buttons incorporated ergonomically on back side of both sides of steering wheel. ('03 Mitsubishi Eclipse GTS with only 70,000 miles )
Depeche Mode is one of those groups like another favorite, Front Line Assembly, whom do not NEED to rely on "radio-hit-playlist-hooked-songs", as they sell-out every concert and often need to add an extra night in same city to accommodate two sold out large venues.
Not too many groups would be ballsy enough to play as they did for small venue concert on David Letterman recently, where a good percentile was new material.
I imagine as all things indeed evolve, we will possibly see Allan Wilder and perhaps whole Depeche Mode orig members get back together. The latest Bryan Ferry CD was all the original Roxy Music musicians to include Bryan Eno in the studio producing it but because of legalities rather than personal differences, it was deemed to be released instead as another solo work but he did list each of them, giving credit to their contribution. The original Roxy Music is STILL way ahead of their time and quite listenable.
Do any of you listen to any of your stuff in car stereo to hear how it translates other than your studio monitors and headphones?

[MBTC]

Roxy Music / Bryan Ferry is another of my favorites, I'd love to see them in concert. I love that subdued warm sound of their synth pads (More Than This being an example). If all goes well I may be able to see Fleetwood Mac on tour this summer (not a synth band, but another one of my all time faves and perhaps showing how diverse my taste gets).

Occasionally yes I do listen in the car. What seems to help me the most is to reference against a good pro-quality track on the same monitors, the sooner in the process of creation the better.

I think every music lover should have SiriusXM. Did you know you can get an Internet subscription and download the app to your phone or tablet, then there you can stream it to a wireless speaker or listen on the go or whatever. You'd really like 1st Wave, not just for all of the familiar 80's tunes but for the occasional obscure ones you would have otherwise forgotten about. I don't think it would replace your current solution for in-car tunes, because unless you're close to Wi-Fi, streaming over your data plan might be a hassle, but once you have it you won't want to live without it and you could always add a vehicle solution later to the same SiriusXM plan.

[namnibor]

Now that I am Medically Disabled/Retired Military on pension, I quite honestly have no use for Smart Phones or cell phones other than a very basic one that lives deep in car in event ever need to call road service plan. As far as tablets, I only own a Nook Color Reader mainly for all the equipment user manuals and tips and allows me to not need to use laptop and use DAW dedicated Desktop PC with large screen. My Village has free WiFi for tablet readers such as I have. My cable package and internet via Time Warner is the little luxury allow myself but living with military combat PTSD really makes "social media" and social life a bit cumbersome. Reading a lot of forums and participating to an extent is a great first step but still at this point in life can not see the actual "need" for Smart Phone or otherwise as Facebook does not appeal to me one bit, considering it's development actually came firstly from National Security Agency--something general public has been blinded to those facts successfully and am sure already have a chip with all my medical and military info embedded, so will just let rest of world be sheepishly tracked while I heal with synth-based frequencies!

[MBTC]

Once you see some of the apps available for mobile devices (notice I'm saying mobile device rather than smartphone), and the impact they can have, you'll get it. I don't mean you *might* get it, you will. It's not about Facebook or Twitter, I don't do those either. But, you're already involved in social media by posting to this board whether you realize it or not

Just running the Time Warner iPad app (assuming you have a DVR) would make you go oh my god I wanna jump of a bridge for not buying this gadget sooner. You could buy the most expensive remote out there, and it would not compare to how amazing that app is for searching and recording shows.

That doesn't include things like Scanner Pro, which makes it dead easy to quickly scan paper documents and put them into a .pdf for easy mailing.

Pop the iPad into one of those portfolio cases with the built in BT keyboard and you would probably find yourself seldom using your laptop (and enjoying much better battery life), reading on a better screen, and between the free Kindle app and iBookstore you wouldn't pic up the Nook reader again.

This is just a few examples of useful apps, it doesn't even include the frivolous stuff like the Korg Polysix for iPad, FLStudio for iPad, etc.

I might sound like I have something to gain by getting you on-board with this, but I don't. I just lost count of the people that I've been telling this over the past couple of years, only to hear their reaction that they think it's a "generational thing", then when they finally do get on board I hear how sorry they were for not heeding the advice long ago. Smart phones and tablets are much more than phones or "twitter devices" as Letterman would say.

[namnibor]

I know it's not a "generational thing" as my mother in her 70's is all about the stuff, my father not so much.
I already have full extensive control with my lap top with my Time Warner DVR. I guess what you do not understand about me is being in first Gulf War then college, then officer academy and then 9/11 and even more involved leadership and conflict crap, and having barely surviving all that, at this time in life I am writing a book with a publisher already nipping constantly about so-called deadlines, am a visual artist and am not into it this time round to profit or market rather just like making music with synths--for the sake of the process itself. I allow myself cable but do not NEED such distractions as new 'toys" of likes of iPad, et al...however not discounting their value to others at same time. I am one person you would never "convert". I already admitted in previous post that participating in a few forums such as this are REALLY large steps and would perhaps help to understand the physio-psycho-dynamics of combat-related PTSD when one has literally watched almost every friend die horrific deaths.
My hardware synth arsenal is pretty extensive and these are the things I find really important, with absolutely no interest in iOS vsti apps or even vsti synths. The PC for DAW is just that--a recorder/sequencer and am old school to where I use hardware Lexicon effect boxes even.
This is the most peaceful I have been since early 90's and damn well deserve it. New Zealand trip planned for 2014, health-willing, just me and sketch box and water colors.
My Maine Coon Cat might be swayed by an iOS virtual kitty litter box, though

[MBTC]

Yeah I understand, making music is a sort of therapy for me as well. I decided at a young age to never allow it to become a career, making me the only member of my family that was not a professional musician.

But just for future reference, I don't need distractions either. The way I use these devices, they remove distractions and make life more efficient rather than the other way around. But yes, the way a device is used depends on the user rather than the technology itself.