HW: Live 79 (An invitation to a 1 minute hate)

[Doug Pearson]

... WARNING: music equipment geek trivia contained within ...

On Wed, 31 Mar 1999 20:20:16 +0100, andrew
<andrew at DELUMINATE.FREESERVE.CO.UK> wrote:
>>>>>      Gee, and I thought "Shot Down in the Night" was *excellent* :)
>>
>> ... Someone else commented on not liking the "cheesy"
>>synth/organ chords, but I think they're a great expression of the 60's
>>garage band influence that HW sometimes shows (
>
>[all the bob/nik stuff that i wholeheartedly agree with snipped]
>
>WHHHAAATTTT     ?????   okay the organ i can understand, but those horrible
>polysynth plonkings comparable to the sinuous majesty of, say, a Vox
>Phantom?

Sorry to be nit-picky, but ... Vox Phantoms are guitars/basses (the ones
with the bizarre semi-trapezoidal shape, not the teardrop shape), not
organs.  The Vox organ models are the Continental (deluxe, 2-tier keyboard)
and the Jaguar (budget, 1-tier keyboard, not to be confused with the Fender
Jaguar guitar).  And, having played both kind of keyboards extensively (I
own a Vox Jaguar and have played several Farfisas), I definitely have no
problem whatsoever with late-70s/early-80s analog polysynth facsimiles of
those sounds (I own a Prophet 600, a "real" analog polysynth, and have
extensively used a Yamaha SK-20, which is as cheesy a divide-down "fake"
analog polysynth as you can get - I love 'em both for organ sounds; piano
sounds are a whole other story).  Although I'll admit that on a recent
recording project, even though I used the Prophet for *most* of the organ
sounds, I still had to pull out the cranky & temperamental old Vox for
"authenticity" on one song.  I'd be curious to see if anyone could tell the
difference from listening ...

>No, there really is nothing that could make me love this version
>(and it has to be said that this tack nearly convinced me to try again).

What about the 'Hawklords Live' CD that has similar polysynth organ
facsimilies all over the place?

        -Doug
         ceres at sirius.com