I know we had a thread about which synth you'd most like cloned, but what about which crap synth/keyboard would you most like cloned.. I'll start the ball rolling

Casio vl-tone


Korg Polyphonic ensemble


Stylophone 350s (actually this was so crap it nearly came back round on itself and became good)


One of those horrible fan driven reed organs that they used to sell in woolworths (bontempi?).
couldn't even find a piccy of this, what does that tell you?

the hohner melodica (i think it was called). it had a mouthpiece and a mini keyboard. you could get some nice sounds by tonguing it (pardon!!) or eventually it filled up with spit and that added to the tone..


any more ideas??

Yes, someone do that damn Kazoo!!

er, obviously the rare keyboard version that I can't seem to find a picture of right now

stuff the kazoo, what about the real legacy stuff, the tissue paper and comb with washboard and spoons accompaniment .. go grandad go...

ang on, quick, reach for synthedit..


arghhh too late..

http://www.ianweb.dial.pipex.com/Khazoo.zip

Oh God No a midi version...

http://www.ianweb.dial.pipex.com/Khazoo2.zip

ianweb123 wrote:

the hohner melodica (i think it was called). it had a mouthpiece and a mini keyboard. you could get some nice sounds by tonguing it (pardon!!) or eventually it filled up with spit and that added to the tone.. any more ideas??

Oi...Melodicas are beautiful.

The hurdy-gurdy, on the other hand, is what we might call 'an acquired taste'

Leave Gurdys alone!!
BTW I heard a street band with several saxophones and drums and a pro melodica was still heard!
I want a REAL WASP vsti!
Chi

Quote:

I want a REAL WASP vsti!

what a 6 legged job, not an EDP wasp, that doesn't count because its not crap..

would you want the Real Wasp with or without the jam-jar?

ianweb123 wrote:

would you want the Real Wasp with or without the jam-jar?

Oooohhhh, with! Just be sure to add an unscrewable lid with holes in it.

Got you guys beat! I did a 'virtual' Casio RapMan for the Yamaha EX community. www.ex5tech.com The RapMan is sooooo bad, it's good!
I couldn't squeeze all the great beats into the file, but made some patterns 'reminiscent'. And of course, the powerful Vocoder (yeah, right!) had to be ommitted as well. But every wave/split, drum pad, and wheel scratches are all there.

Casio RapMan - the poor mans DJ70!

Quote:

what a 6 legged job, not an EDP wasp, that doesn't count because its not crap..

Oh COME ON! I played one for years (the synth that is), actually I played two at once. They were 'orrible. I just miss the sound, the tacky knobs, the flat keyboard, the repeating ADSR, the reversible LFO feeds..., ok it wasn' t that bad.
I just hate the Orion one because it only sort-of looks like one.
Chi
BTW I want a JAW HARP vsti- see the other thread!

I guess that you knew I was working on one called the Stinger, and that Dash Synthesis have one in the pipline ..check out http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13228, you'll also find some samples of my own (real) Wasp on that same thread..

I was very, very disappointed with sparque's stylophone clone. I have a genuine stylophone which i'd love to put onto my tunes, but can't due to lack of output.

If you've never heard a real stylophone before, you could be forgiven for thinking that the sparque clone gets close to it's badness, but it really doesn't approach it. The tone from the original (alongside it's little speaker) tunnels into your ears like a wax eating ferret on crack.

cron wrote:

The tone from the original (alongside it's little speaker) tunnels into your ears like a wax eating ferret on crack.

there'a a tune there(somewhere)
ew

How about this one.. go wild with those sliders.. (I actually can't remember if I ever heard this one, but its gotta be crap surely...)

There was pretty crappy stuff out there. Wonder if anybody tried to clone real crappy accoustic instruments. We used to play around with this mouth harp thing when we were kids. I can not think of anybody actually using this thing on any recording.

(I search web and eventually found this picture - Someone's actually selling the thing.)

I've got a picture of Mike Matthews(Mr. Electro-Harmonix) playing one of those at NAMM
Looked like Tom Waits with a washboard...
ew

Yes the EH is ABSOLUTE crap :p they threw an organ and some guitar fx together and a keyboard which is two layers of contacts you had to PUSH TOGETHER (the real wasp used hand capacitance BTW).
Cloning this would be virtually criminal.
Anybody who thinks that JHarps aren't SERIOUS should do a search or two. Man, there are jharps around that are easily worth $100 or more.
Try the Jews Harp Guild site FMI.
Chi

BloodHound wrote:

We used to play around with this mouth harp thing when we were kids. I can not think of anybody actually using this thing on any recording.

ever heard "give it away now" by the chilli peppers?!?

According to Benjamin Ang & Reginald Li: (I quote)

"Telharmonium (1895 – 1914)
Thaddeus Cahill of America was the first inventor to generate musical sounds electrically on a large scale. His Telharmonium was a gigantic
assembly of rotary generators and telephone receivers that converted electrical signals into sound. It weighed 200 tons and took 12 railway
cars to transport it to his Telharmonic Hall. He broadcast Rossini overtures from there to a restaurant using telephone cables connected to
speakers on the restaurant ’s tables. However, the instrument failed because it was too complex, could not produce loud sounds (amplifiers
and loudspeakers had not yet been invented), and its signals interfered with telephone calls
. Cahill was the only user of this instrument and
no known compositions for the instrument exist today."

adretti wrote:

ever heard "give it away now" by the chilli peppers?!?

Thanks, I give it a listen!

Casio vl-tone

I had one of those... drove my parents mad hitting that yellow Demo button.

It got interesting when the batteries were on the way out though -- wish I had kept the thing just for that, I could probably use it now.


One of those horrible fan driven reed organs that they used to sell in woolworths

I had one of those too! I don't remember if I took it apart to see how it worked before or after it quit working... heh


How about that awful Hohner Bass 3? (http://www.palmguitars.nl/catalogus/photo/hohner3basses.jpg) Bought one at a pawnshop for $15 several years ago, don't have it anymore unfortunately.

Quote:

... that awful Hohner Bass 3

Wow... I know nothing at all about this,.. what is it? .. is a poor mans Moog Taurus?

HOHNER! thats a thought- There was a version of the Hohner Diatonic Accordeon (Melodeon) range that had only chords on it.
Now there's a tacky piece of kit
Chi

A very poor man's Moog Taurus... three preset buttons (String, Tuba and Organ if I remember right), a "tone" knob and a volume knob. Very weak and uninteresting sound compared to the Micromoog I had at the time, which was weak compared to any other Moog I've heard

The Organ world was full of horrers.. I had a device made by Dubreq (obviously buoyed by the success of their stylophone..!) which was a set of gravity activated plungers which sat along the back of a piano keyboard up against the fall. These were attached by a multicore cable to a small black and silver organ tone generator and amp which sat on the floor.
The sounds it produced were truly aweful, esspecially when all the contacts in the plugs became dirty. It was very much a case of 'spot the note'..
We seemed to be so much more easilly satisfied in those days...

a set of gravity activated plungers which sat along the back of a piano keyboard up against the fall

No! Heh heh

I wonder if someday people are going to look back at VSTi's with the same kind of horror Already I'm looking back at the Cakewalk/SoundBlaster/Acid/Sound Forge combo I used a couple of years ago and cringing...

I like the Electro-Harmonix idea too! One of my all time faves is Eddie Van Halen wailing on that thing through a delay on 'Dancing In the Streets'.

But you know what we all need - more presets for Ian's great synths!
I don't mind tweeking something to get it 'just right' for a song. But I know that these synths are capable of a whole lot more. Ian, you gotta open up the Phat Chap a little more, that's a deadly beast - but takes a long time to navigate the controls for me.

But hey, do the Electro-Harmonix - no patches to worry about on that thing!

I remember an organ that you placed over the piano keys- blech!
It's an fx I know but what about the EMS Synth Hi Fli ? (a synth-based guitar effect on a stand beloved of Cabaret Voltaire).

Quote:

Ian, you gotta open up the Phat Chap a little more, that's a deadly beast

If you check the web site now you should find I've made a couple of changes to him.. (he hasn't lost any weight though )
I am also cooking up a bank of 16 presets, obviously if anybody feels that they want to contribute

BTW I'm glad he's found a good home, even if it is in the 'crap' thread

ATB
Ian

Thanks a bunch Ian. Appreciate, and looking foward to all the work you do.

Will venture shortly.