| ERIC PERSING'S ABOUT TO MAKE YOU HIS BITCH. |
[Sep. 10th, 2006|22h:03m:00s:00f] |
| [ | noise |
| | Random Wesley Willis tracks, featuring his Technics KN2000. | ] |
OK, I have a confession to make.
I have a dirty little secret that I've never shared to anyone. But now, I feel it's time for me to fess up.
No, it's not my tendency to roll down my Prelude's windows at every GaNgStA ThUg cruising along with their "pimped-out" ride sporting the MOST EXXXTREME scraping ground-effects, and blast out the most cutesy-coated & insane denpa-kei material I can find. No, it's not my relentless pursuit for calculating the ideal absolute territory ratio (after all, it's a significant importance when you bust some MAD B-BOY SKILLZ with a skirt, over-kneesocks, and a keytar!). And no, it's not my habit of overengineering my horrible side jokes whenever I write my blog posts!
What it really is... is that I have a guilty pleasure for cheesy synthesizer factory demos. Preferrably the late 80s / early 90s era of consumer synths.
...
OK, fine! Mostly Casiotone demos. There, I said it!!! (つд⊂)ｴｰﾝ
But seriously, though! The synthesizer demo genre is sooo underrated! For all the restrictive boundaries that the programmers had to overcome in these consumer synths (such as the lack of key velocity & pitch modulation), a lot of these synth demos are meticulously crafted to gather your attention and invite you to play around with the synthesizer's features! As an indirect result, you got to admit that these synths feature the most cheesy yet fondly memoriable melodies that would permanently engrave on your big shiny forehead because YOU KNOW YOU MISS THEM!
After all, I surely do! When I was younger, I would visit my neighbor's house just to play around with her Casio MT-540 keyboard. It would be much to her annoyance, as I would visit her house every day just to listen to the fantastically-programmed 4-minute-long demo arrangement of Shakatak's "Night Birds" on loop for hours on end until she finally threw me out by dusk.
A few years later, I would learn with dismay that she had long sold the keyboard away to someone. After many years of feeling painfully alone from missing that Casiotone, I was VERY delighted to find out that Synthmania had recorded the demo tune of a Casio CSM-1 module, which had the same exact synthesis engine & tune as the MT-540!
HOORAY! Time to set this baby on loop once again!
With all things considered, I feel bad for all the lil' nameless Japanese kitties who compose and arrange such wonderful music in said restrictive boundaries, which unfortunately then get dismissed as "crappy toy sounds" just because the synths reside on a lone corner of Radio Shack. (Which, come on now... I bet even YOU were drawn in to the store by the blaring demo tunes, and became immediately impressed by the Casio Chord auto-accompaniment features! I know I was whenever my family drove us to the mall!)
In the end, you just can't help but feel sorry for these synth programmers and all the undeserving flak they receive!
Well, OK... unless you're SOUND DESIGN MASTER EXTRAORDINAIRE ERIC PERSING!!!, for which you always have to brand your name on the credits whenever your trademark Los AngelesLinear Arithmetic synthesis patches grace every AIRline commercial, your next sappy new age track, half the "ST-01:" sample library of Karsten Obarski's Soundtracker (the other half consisting of sampled Yamaha DX100 patches), or even the latest Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z episode*, until every patch gets so cliché and sickening that your yandere instincts go in full overload every time you hear that gawdforsaken drum loop, which then you finally go off into a murderous rampage with an axe, stalking every man whose name just happens to go by SOUND DESIGN MASTER EXTRAORDINAIRE ERIC PERSING!!!
* = Yes, ep. 4 used "DigitalNativeDance". Jebus, that patch just never dies!
Which, speaking of him, even professional keyboards and rackmount synths sported their own factory ROM demo sequences! Synth manufacturers had magically discovered the wonders of multitimbrality by the late 80s, and took full advantage of this. The Roland U-110 rackmount is a prime example of a saving grace: Although this synth is usually labeled as the classic archetype of an uninspiring PCM rompler, The inclusion of T-Jazz #1 and Swing High did a fantastic job of showcasing the samples. Even Cloud 9, for all its polyphony-pushing flaws, at least gave the illusion that the rompler had pad-esque warmth inside. I believe NoOne Home was even arranged in a tracker MOD file by someone!
Hell, even the sickingly-popular Korg M1 workstation had a few factory demo sequences as well, complete with a common melodic motif! Screw the belief that "Universe" was responsible for it all -- "Ms. Muro" was most likely the one that whored out millions of M1 keyboards to every studio out there!
Still, the influence that synthesizer demos had in many young musicians traces to the humble consumer keyboard! Now, for you 20-something-year-old American musicians: I'm willing to bet that your first MIDI keyboard that got you started was a Yamaha PSR-500, bought by your parents in 1991-92 from Costco after much begging and pleading. You may laugh about it now with your fancy-scwancy Korg Tritons / Roland Fantoms / Yamaha Motifs / blablabla, but admit it: You hung out with the demo model tucked in the electronics corner of Costco all day as your parents shopped around for their bulk groceries.
Even though it was yet another rompler (I finally popped the case open recently, and let me tell you: IT'S FULL OF DEAD AIR), It was one of the first consumer keyboards that actually had a decent instrument set (record-skratching on a key? HOW CAN THIS BE!? OH MY GOD IT EVEN COUNTS FROM 1 THRU 4 TOO!!!), and its much-desired features (such as key velocity & pitch-bending) even made it more tempting. The price was fairly cheap, but still professional-looking enough that it could serve as your main sequencing workhorse!
However, the ultimate selling points for me (and i'm sure for other kids) were the demo songs. The jazz and orchestrated demos were utterly amazing for the time -- almost unheard of in a consumer keyboard.
Somehow, I should make a "Yamaha PSR-500 Bought-from-Costco Registry" website; I'm VERY sure that many striving & professional musicians out there my age have at least owned this synth at one point of their early-to-mid-90s life, bought by their parents no less! Don't believe me? Guess who I found out that owned one...:
<virt> i begged my parents for a psr-500 too, also bought from costco
<virt> that was what really got me heavily into sequencing!
<virt> its power jack stopped working though and i got tired of spending $10 on batteries every 4 hours, so i begged for an alesis qs7 to replace it
<virt> please tell me you have the psr-500 demo re......yep, you do. i'm going to fucking arrange that
<virt> 4... 3... 2.... 1 virt, I eagerly await the result with drooling fervor.
That being said, I'm now embarking on a long, perhaps futile mission:
I'm going to find every single different Casio Tonebank and Yamaha Portatone / Portasound keyboard model, and record all of their demo songs for everyone to finally enjoy and appreciate! I can't die with a truly fulfilling life until I see sold-out concerts held using only auto-accompaniment chords (Wesley Willis tried his dear best to carry the torch, after all!), or see every thizzed-faced hyphy crunkhead out there ghost-ridin' tha' whip while gettin' dumb with a Casio factory demo tune blaring out of their 12" Jensen subs!
...
OK, scratch that. Maybe it wouldn't be a good thought after all. But still! It's a perfectly valid excuse for a guilty pleasure! Keep in mind you're reading the blog of someone who enjoys listening to CANYON.MID in an OPL2 FM synth card. WITH TRACK 16 UNCORRECTED OF THAT F# DRONE. :)
But anyway... Here is the main reason why I took the time to write this entry. I'm currently looking for the following demonstrations:
- Casio CT-670 (This consumer synth had a REALLY NICE, well-programmed arrangement of Paula Abdul's "The Way that you Love Me"! I used to own one (also from Costco!), and I miss the demo song so dearly :( )
(UPDATE: found it yayayayayay jebus this is the greatest song ever please thank Nikki for this FANTASTIC REVELATION OH GOD SO HAPPY YAAAYYAYASLEHRCUWECROWUEHRCISEDNC$*&CY$WE$C
- Casio CT-700 (I also remember fiddling around with this synth whenever our family went to Montgomery Ward, and recall its fantastic R&B ballad with a grandiose piano melody.)
- Casio CTK-1000 (I remember this keyboard had multiple demos, actually! I recently learned it was Casio's last foray into custom synthesis programming, before they threw in the towel in favor for only PCM romplers because Yamaha decided to sue them THOSE BLUBBERY FM SYNTHESIS JERKS PHASE DISTORTION FOREVER >:( )
(UPDATE: Got one, and recorded them for your enjoyment. Apparently Edward Alstrom is responsible for most of the instrument programming & original sequences in certain Casio synth models! ALL YOU CASIOTONE "EXPERIMENTAL" CIRCUIT-BENDING WANKS OUGHT TO APOLOGIZE TO HIM FOR ABUSING HIS VERY BLOOD SWEAT & TEARS)
- Or, any Casiotone/Tonebank or Yamaha Portatone/Portasound demo that you may have recorded, actually!
If only synth makers nowadays looked back into the golden age of cheesy fusion-esque factory demonstration songs... <3 |
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