congratulations squids

[Mr. Tunes]

not sure if this has been posted before but:

i bought an issue of Future Music for the airplane yesterday and I flipped it open and one of the first ads is for the Yamaha Motif keyboards and it was a feature on Squids and how he prefers the Motif for using the Sonic Reality samples in hardware and how he programs keyboard sounds for big artists on this keyboard format.

It was nice to see the man portrayed as an artist in his own right and it was cool that this was not an ad for SR. and it was a nice photo too!

congratulations buddy.

edit: im confused as i was just in the bookstore and saw another magazine called Future Music that i remembered from years back
the one i'm talking about is called Future Music Magazine and it's the premiere issue which IMO is not a creative magazine title after what has already been done.

[Squids]

Thanks Tunes. I don't think anyone mentioned it. I was wondering if anyone here saw it. It's a Yamaha ad so it is actually in Keyboard, Electronic Musician, Remix and a bunch of others (yikes!). Future Music is the UK magazine coming to North America for a version here. I haven't seen it yet myself.

Anyway, I was honored that Yamaha asked me to do it. When they bought Steinberg they were talking to me about connected the two a bit with what I do and having a story there that they thought was interesting (we use Yamaha keyboards as our main controllers for making sounds such as those in SS2). Since we have a history programming sounds for Yamaha (Motif rack and ES for example) and since they know we make sounds for HALion as well as our own "Motif" in software with IK, Sonik Synth 2, they thought it would be cool to have me in their ad. I happen to use the Motif ES8, Cubase SX3 and our plug-ins as one of my main set ups. They also put in some props for me as a keyboardist/programmer although I think it sounds more important than it is in actuality. But, it looks good!

I don't know how long they're running the ad. This is the first time I've done that for another company. Obviously for our own ads I am not going to stick my picture in it ("I'm not only the hair club president but I am also a client!" aaaaaa!!!!!!). But, since it was their idea and their two page ad... who am I to argue? Thanks Yamaha/Steinberg! (they even put www.esoundz.com in there too for the upcoming downloadable HALion and Motif sounds we're doing... now THAT is awesome!).

These sort of things are good for SR. Not for my ego personally or anything. I am not about that. But, to become more and more recognizable and credible is important for a sound company since people for the most part buy sounds on trust that the brand is a good solid source of quality. We've been very lucky to have the cooperation and support from the larger companies that SR does third party support for such as IK, Propellerheads, Yamaha/Steinberg, NI, M-Audio, Cakewalk, Roland and so many others.

[Mr. Tunes]

yeah i know you're a big fan of the Motif, i remember helping you carry one out of the Galaxy Theatre in anaheim you must've brought out two or three of them to the show that day. and I know you use another black Yamaha as your main controller for the trade shows, i forget which model it is.

and yeah you wouldnt put your own face on a SR ad, but if anyone visits your Bio on sonicreality.com they'll know it is possible to do this to yourself and let people know what type of stuff you've worked on. now if someone like ME tried to put my face on an ad for Mrtunes sample libraries or whatever that would truly be tacky.

I know you've been really lucky to have the support of all those companies, it has been fun to see you guys expanding over the past few years that i have been a fan of this stuff. but when i saw your pic in that Ad I was like "woh man!" i wanted to show it to the random person next to me on the airplane and tell them that i know you! i think anyone who comes onto this part of the KVR forum a lot and gets the pleasure of chatting with you is proud of this sort of thing.

and i am very curious to see what becomes of the Yamaha/Steinberg coalition and how it will compete with what Digidesign is doing with the hardware/software thing. I think this partnership will have a big effect on me in the coming years cause they seem to be more into the sort of thing that I am looking for whereas Digi is kind of audio engineer/recording/film mixing only and they are missing a big part of the picture which is keyboard player/songwriter/funkhead which you get with cubase and the yamaha hardware(and with nuendo you can add film mixer in there too). different strokes for different folks of course and it's hard to discuss other companies here because SR is involved with ALL of them. this month's Digizine email features sonik synth2 as the plugin of the month so... my mouth shuts now.

[DaveElson]

Just picked up the same mag a couple of hours ago.
Only just had a chance to glance through. It's actually the sister mag of the "other" FM on sale.
Both are from Future Publishing.
Not bad - half the price of the import and with a good deal on a 2 year subscription may go for it. 24 issues for around the price of 3 of the import.

[Mr. Tunes]

Just picked up the same mag a couple of hours ago.
Only just had a chance to glance through. It's actually the sister mag of the "other" FM on sale.
Both are from Future Publishing.
Not bad - half the price of the import and with a good deal on a 2 year subscription may go for it. 24 issues for around the price of 3 of the import.

hi daveElson, thanks for clearing that up.
yeah the reason i picked it up was because of the price, and it included a CD. i used to LOVE Computer Music but it was so expensive that i stopped buying the UK style of Magazine/CD and just stuck with Keyboard(loyally might i add as there was a funk in there where i wasnt enjoying a bunch of the issues but stuck through it).
and my memory of Future Music from years ago was something like "ohhhhh la-la let's drool over synths for a month"- but this new magazine that we are talking about: i thoroughly enjoyed what i was reading.

the thing i have always felt about american pubs like Keyboard, EM, EQ and what not is i never got the impression from them that they were on the cutting edge and trying to discover things i hadnt seen before.

But stuff like Computer Music and FutureMusic was a great answer to this but unfortunately it tooks so long for the magazine to make its way over here in north america that a lot of it wasnt exactly news to me.

this is something that i have always loved about KVR and Harmony-C is the rapid press releases and the comments on this forum. the buzz on KVR is so great that even the writers for the mags are on here all day getting opinions - so believe it or not everyone's contribution to kvr IS "the cutting edge".

while we talk about magazines any Keyboard mag collectors out there go to last august's issue with Prince on the cover and you find my letter in there that discusses Sample Cds. I was proud to see i got published. i cant remember if i plugged SR in it.

[Squids]

The May issue of Keyboard also has a good review of Sonik Synth 2 in it as well. It won a Key Buy which is hard to get.

As for Yamaha/Steinberg, I think that it could be a good match. I don't know what all of their intentions are with it of course but so far it seems that they want to keep Steinberg and the whole VST world alive. If anything, I think that they are more open to third party VST developers as opposed to thinking of them as competition to Steinberg's own plug-ins. That's not right. VST is a great popular plug-in format and to me that is even more valuable about Steinberg than their own plug-ins. I don't even use too many of their plug-ins besides HALion to be honest. But, I LOVE Cubase and always have.

Having said that, I have a great ProTools rig as well. I also like Logic and other systems too. But, for controllers I like Yamaha's feel. It's smooth and precise with good dynamics. I am particularly fond of the weighted action of the S80 and 90 (those are the black keyboards we get for the trade shows) and my Motifs (and since we're friends with Yamaha they supply keyboards for shows like that one at the Galaxy theatre... although if not for me there WAS members of Yes and Earth, Wind & Fire too which didn't hurt the "can you do me a favor" situation! ). But, actually, Yamaha has been great with us and they've always liked SR. They even wrote an article in their Access magazine years ago about our original "Concert Grand Pianos" sample library because we exclusively sampled Yamaha grands for it. Over the years we did support for their EX5 and A-Series samplers and were always available to do patch programming for them.

But, anyway, you're right. Apart from happening to love their keyboards and being a Cubase user I am an appreciator of good instruments and technology from all over the map. For instance, I am in love with Roland V-Drums. You can't get me off the darn thing! The Continuum Fingerboard and the Moog Voyager and... the list goes on. I also have to be political to some extent but you know if I like something I have no problem saying it.

[Mr. Tunes]

i know the may issue gives a Key Buy from the Soniksynth.com update and i cant wait to read the review. congrats on that too. after the Keyboard Mag Anniversary at namm when they came out with the Keanne issue the magazine changed drastically, i like the change.

reading over this thread i realize more and more how much politics is involved in the music we work on, and as someone who is educated in that field i feel good about that. but as a producer i sometimes just want to cry. i'm sure it has been even more challenging for SR at times because you are trying to satisfy one company yet there are all these other formats that need attention too... but i truly believe that something like Sonik Synth is the ultimate stage for Sonic Reality to perform on. i have yet to hear the motif samples i will one day when i buy a motif which i am more interested in than a triton.

i think a lot of people have been pulling their hair out for years now keeping up to date with the latest sequencers, formats, etc. and this is taking away from our productivity. i admire those who can find a setup and just stick with it. that's why i like Sonik Synth2/ST, because i can use it in all the sequencers(including Pro Tools!) and that is a major way of overcoming the aptly named "sequencer wars". you can use midi files/OMFs and then you can move around freely.

i find it really amazing how all the companies are slowly becoming owned by another company and eventually there will be one company or just two major corps. owning everything(cough cough intel and apple?).
on this note i am thankful that i got to go to namm this year and catch a glimpse of the atmosphere of how these products are unleashed. i got to see for myself the interplay between companies and how Squids has so many friends. I do remember you telling me that Yamaha was nice about lending you stuff for the Galaxy but i know that you also got a lot of other things for that show and also at the IK booth we got help from many companies to display the plugins(digi, m-audio, korg, yamaha/steinberg, mac, those blazing fast PCs from guitar center, etc.)

[Squids]

Well, working in the computer has its advantages. Hardware gear also has its advantages too. For one thing you need SOMETHING to control it all with. So, if you have an 88 weighted controller then you might as well have one with some sounds in it. We actually did the piano sound for the upcoming M-Audio Pro Keys 88 with sounds in it. It's a really good deal. We have the one without the sounds but I'd much rather have the one with our piano in it if I am around it. I prefer the feel of the Yamaha over every other keyboard though. The sounds are very good too, even if sometimes they are not as large as what you'll find in SS2 or ST2. Some instruments like electric pianos don't necessarily need to be. I like to noodle around with the Motif sounds in between working, meetings, phone calls etc.

The politics though... its not really that complex. There's so much crossover between everything that a lot of times it is just about companies that make products that are compatible with each other and the PEOPLE choose what system they want. We're just happy to be a part of people's systems whatever they choose. Cubase, Reason, PT, Fruity, Sonar, Live 4, DP, Logic, P5, Motif... and the list goes on.

[Mr. Tunes]

would you say that the electric pianos dont need to be that huge because of the simplicity in their physical design? and maybe that's why most vibes patches dont need to be that big (unless you included rolls on the mallots)? did you do an EP for the m-audio piece too? nothing beats a squids rhodes or wurly patch.

i wish that a lot of hardware keyboards could come down in price, so im always keeping my eye out on the used market. i wouldnt prefer to use them in a recording situation but there is nothing like being able to take your sounds out with you to jam or perform with. i've always wished that SR had a hardware keyboard on the market but all i had to do is buy a good sampler and i could get SR sounds in there.

the expenses of hardware is one thing that keeps me working hard in hope that i can make some good money one day to have all the great gear out there. i was a keyboard junkie since i was younger but now it's out of control and i want things like a harmon neuron and a roland mv-8000 - i would sacrifice a traditional family life just to have these sorts of things

[Rabid]

Last night, while moving things around I found my May 2005 issue of Keyboard Magazine. It had ended up in a stack of technical books and I never got around to looking at it. I threw it in the car so I would have it today during lunch. So I am setting in KFC (the original that used to be Sander's Café) eating my lunch and browsing through the magazine and happen upon the Yamaha add. Since I have a MotifES and have considered moving to Cubase just for the integration I paused to read the 2 page spread. But something was bothering me. The face seemed a bit familiar. Dave? SQUIDS? Yep. Our Squids in a Yamaha add and somehow I missed it and this thread.

Congrats Dave.

By the way, how much did Yamaha pay for touch up and air brushing of the picture? You actually look good. Almost professional.

Robert

[Mr. Tunes]

So I am setting in KFC (the original that used to be Sander's Café) eating my lunch and browsing through the magazine and happen upon the Yamaha add.

Wow... reading May 2005 Keyboard in a KFC during the summer of 2006... bizarre! Who's on the cover of that one again?

[Squids]

There's no air brushing yo! That's the real deal. lol

Thanks. They ran that freakin' ad in a bunch of mags and Buyer's Guides and stuff. 15 seconds of fame for Squids I guess. They sent me a poster of it that we put up in the office. This way everyone can see what a gansta the Squids is all posing tough with his Motif (which is backwards if you look closely).

[Mr. Tunes]

15 seconds of fame for Squids I guess.

15 seconds? More like over a year. I just saw you on the very first ad of Future Music US this month with Moog Lil' Fatty on the cover!

[Squids]

15 seconds of fame for Squids I guess.

15 seconds? More like over a year. I just saw you on the very first ad of Future Music US this month with Moog Lil' Fatty on the cover!

So does that make me a big fatty? Is THAT what ur trying to say? (Imagine how much THAT would suck... if Yamaha decided to say "Why would you want a lil fatty when you can have a BIG fatty like the Motif?" Then a quote from me "I like em fat! I like em round!".

Hey did you notice I placed as many SR products as I could in the ad? hehe. Sonik Synth in the background, Sonik Capsules box... It's kind of funny in a way because Sonik Synth is the closest thing sound-wise to a hardware synth workstation. Irony.

[Rabid]

You are a good match for the MotifES. It sounds better than any other hardware workstation near that price range. However, the OS and sequencer sometimes drives me batty.