OFF/HW: Legendary Pink Dots

[Doug Pearson]

GREAT review, Eric.  Thanks for posting!  I may have to check out the Dots
when they're in SF in a couple weeks ...

On Mon, 28 Oct 2002 22:14:18 -0500, Eric Siegerman <erics at TELEPRES.COM>
wrote:
>Despite their busyness, when I crawled out from behind Niels's
>setup where I'd been plugging in a strobe, he took a minute to
>brag about his old 70s analog synthesizer or post-processor or
>something that he plays his flute through.  Doug, what *is* that
>thing?  I'm pretty sure he called it a "flute synthesizer", so
>unless he was oversimplifying a bit for the yokel, it must have
>some kind of pitch-to-voltage circuit as its input.  Whatever it
>is, I guess it's pretty important to the show, and pretty
>irreplaceable.  "Nobody touches this but me!" he intoned.  (Like
>Bugs Bunny, I was sorely tempted to respond by reaching out and
>touching a fingertip to the thing, but I managed to resist :-)

Hmmm ... I checked their website for photos, and couldn't really find what
you describe ... at least I don't think.  I *did* notice that one of them
is using a Korg MS synth; I couldn't tell whether it's a -10 or -20, but
the MS-20 *does* have an external signal processor and built-in pitch ->
voltage converter, so he could have been using that (the MS-20 is one of my
alltime favorite synths; you can hear one making most of the "noises"
on 'Masques 82 Live' and other Hawkwind live recordings in the 81-84 era).
MS-20 photo:
http://www.synthfool.com/images/ms20.jpg

The only actual analog "wind synthesizer" I know of are the EWI/EWV series
by Akai (Electronic Wind Instrument = controller, Electronic Wind Voice =
synth module), which started production in the 80's and are still available
(I believe they're the only real analog synth available from any "major"
manufacturer these days besides Alesis, who aren't that major anymore).  If
he was playing a real sax through some sort of synth, it wouldn't be one of
these, since they require a special controller (EWI) plus synth module
(EWV).
EWI/EWV combo photo:
http://www.nose.ag/akaipro.html?/html/akaiprodukte/ewi3020.htm

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com