music

Roland D-05

leroyillanois

D_05A whole load of Christmas has come early this year. Not just new Panasonic and Sony cameras.

Probably the most exciting music tech news since the ’80s is the release of the Roland D-05 as part of Roland’s Boutique series.

The D-50 holds a more than a special place in my heart as the first synthesizer I owned. After years of obsessive scanning of Top of the Pops for glimpses of Yamaha DX7s and imagining ‘they really made all those sounds’, I walked into a now long-gone keyboard store in Brighton with the sole intention to pick one up, only to be ushered straight to the D-50 perched on the wall. The additions of a Roland D-110, Roland R-8m and an Atari ST running Steinberg Pro24 etc. etc. followed soon after.

The D-50 blew my mind. The sound was incredible. By all reports it complimented the Yamaha DX7 when mixed together. Despite the digital user interface I studied the manual, learnt Japanese and synthesis, and attempted to edit and program new sounds. Later on it was permanently plugged into the back of an Ensoniq ASR10 through its gorgeous effects stuck on a delay/chorus/reverb patch. I edited the preset 51 Glass Voices (already one of the best filmic pad sounds ever) –  I have not come across a better pad sound since. When I say ‘pad sound’ I guess I mean an epic expressive digital orchestral string vocal sound that you’d hold and drift off into space. Another melancholy pad sound I programmed was named after an old flame. Laugh if you want.

d_50_black

One of the biggest regrets I have is selling my D-50…to provide funds for a camera. Someone should have slapped me. It was the finest of instruments, one of the best keyboard actions I’ve played. It had happily molded the sounds of my imagination and become part of me.

Now and then I glance through eBay in the hope I might find it back up for sale in it’s silky lined transport case and…say a prayer…with all my original presets still on board.

One could go for Roland’s software D-50 audio unit only available on their Roland Cloud. A massive shame for those who are not up for paying another monthly sub for a load of things they don’t have time to fully appreciate beyond the presets. Logic X can cause pangs of synth AU neglect guilt.  How many times have you heard a music producer saying learn one instrument inside out and make it yours.

Here’s a great info & D-50/D-05 comparison video.

fxp to aupreset

leroyillanois

synth

A quick guide – note to self – on converting presets from fxp format (VST) to Mac aupreset as used in Logic X. This may not work for every synth. Thanks for all the help on KVR especially colin@loomer. Please read through the various advice and instructions as well as the below.

You’ve down loaded a free Mac AU synth eg. OBXD. You’ve found some great sounding presets previewed on SoundCloud etc. You download the file of presets, placed them in the library/audio/presets folder only to find they’re in fxp format and will not load.

Download the app here. You will have to go into your System Preferences/Security Settings/ and allow apps downloaded from anywhere.

fxp2aupreset

For this example put the (unzipped app) into your home folder – find Users then go into the folder with the little house with your name next to it.

home

In your home folder also create a folder, name it ‘vstpresets’ and copy and paste the fxp files you want to convert.

A couple of things you need to know:

Firstly, open the Terminal app, found in your Utilities folder, and copy and past the command:

auval -a

You will see a long list of your audio units plus other code. I hit Command+F to search for the name of the synth I wanted – for this example ‘OBXD’.

Copy the three, four character codes you will find next to the name of the plugin. These are the ‘type’, ‘subtype’, and ‘manufacturer’. For the OBXD it is aumu Obxd Dats.

Secondly, go to your folder of fxp presets and open one of them in Text Edit. You’re after the ‘State Key’. This could be before of after the <key>data</key> (lots of jumbled letters and numbers). For the OBXD it is <key>jucePluginState</key>.

key

Go back to the Terminal. Copy and paste this is the command line that will start the app and convert the fxp to aupreset into the same folder as the originals.

./fxp2aupreset.app/Contents/MacOS/fxp2aupreset ~/vstpresets/ aumu Obxd Dats jucePluginState

At the end of the command line you will see the three codes for ‘type’, ‘subtype’, and ‘manufacturer’ and then the ‘State Key’. Substitute these according to the synth’s presets you are converting.

Ham tracks that got away

Aside leroyillanoisLeave a comment

So here are some tracks that didn’t make the final soundtrack to the short film ‘Ham’. The final music was orchestral but along the creative way it had dabbled in various other soundtrack genres – spot the ‘Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind’ and ‘Cinematic Orchestra’ influences – at one point it was going to be a complete retro electro synth love-in.

The u-he TyrellN6 played a big part in the ‘Tyrell’ track (making up track titles is an art), a bit of a mash of ideas from 80’s electro to Vangelis. It’s a great free synth, at times a little heavy on the CPU when presets have a long delay. The track was a demo for the final scene, building up to the conclusion of the story. I loved it. It wasn’t used.

‘English Lessons electro’ was a mix of Logic synths and NI’s Absynth and Battery. The bassline seemed to go well with the character’s frustration and anger of learning English and life in general.

‘Opening Piano’ was borrowed from a romantic piano concerto sketch composed at another time.