Promised... delivered. How does OASYS sound live in a band?

vEddY · Post by **vEddY** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 7:01 pm

OK, so I promised in another thread to post some MP3's that I recorded while playing live with a band that we assembled for this gig only (fun 'n' games). I'm playing the OASYS here, no playback, no other keyboards, no computers, no additional gear, all live, no sequencing, no overdubs. I know that most of you will hear the two drummers off-beat, vocals singing out of tune and a strange language at intros, a lousy mix (less then five hours of mixing) etc. but try to listen to how OASYS sounds and the overall picture.

Alive and kicking (Simple Minds) http://it-review.net/audio/Alive.mp3
Let's dance (David Bovie) http://it-review.net/audio/DanceB.mp3
I can't dance (Genesis) http://it-review.net/audio/DanceG.mp3
Enjoy the silence - Linkin park remix http://it-review.net/audio/Enjoy.mp3
Footloose http://it-review.net/audio/Footloose.mp3
Imagination (Belouis some) http://it-review.net/audio/Imagination.mp3
Missionary man (Eurythmics) http://it-review.net/audio/Mman.mp3
She's a river (Simple Minds) http://it-review.net/audio/River.mp3
and Take me to the river http://it-review.net/audio/TakeRiver.mp3

Hope you'll enjoy the sounds

Decent headphones-speakers-stereo usage highly recommended.

Charlie · Post by **Charlie** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 8:04 pm

Hey, that was fun listening! Thanx for sharing!!

zolhof · Post by **zolhof** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 8:11 pm

yeah, thanks, love those songs! downloading right now

Mike Conway · Post by **Mike Conway** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 10:53 pm

Your band is fricken cool!!

jgsidak · Post by **jgsidak** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 12:57 am

I love "Take Me to the River." Are those live horns or you on the Oasys?

Sounds as good as The Commitments!

vEddY · Post by **vEddY** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 7:05 am

jgsidak wrote:I love "Take Me to the River." Are those live horns or you on the Oasys?

Sounds as good as The Commitments!

Yeah, that's the version we were shooting for. Every single "strange" sound that you hear on these songs - from horns on that song, harmonica on Missionary man, strange sax sound on Imagination etc. is done on the OASYS. The band had two drummers (they changed, didn't play at the same time), bass guitar, two guitars, one synth (OASYS), male and two female singers. Five rehersals before the concert and some 50 hours of sound programming for me. That's it. And we played some 35 songs.

Also, these recordings we did just make my point of "what's missing in the OASYS" just that much more visible. As a synth, it's the best. Trumpets, horns, pianos, organs - the best. Sax? Shite. It's cool for "Imagination" because sax sound there is washed away by reverb and delay so it sounds strange on Belouis some's original as well. But as a sound - it just doesn't work. Strings - no matter if we're talking ensemble, sweep, phased or analog - just awesome. OASYS needs some serious work on saxes and some other types of "classic" sounds. So far I've been unable to do any decent sax sound...

vEddY · Post by **vEddY** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 7:11 am

Mike Conway wrote:Your band is fricken cool!!

Thanks Mike

There are a number of things that could've been done better, though. If you start analyzing things, you notice how much vocals could improve, how one guy on guitar is five classes better then the other, how drummers don't have any authority on drums etc... but overall, it lays pretty good, with OASYS connecting the dots and masking these things pretty good. And this is a tough nut to crack, music we've been playing...

But hearing the OASYS on this "record" (internal use only, but it's a CD nevertheless) just gives me goosebumps. "Imagination" is a perfect example. Or Simple Minds, both songs. There are more recordings, but these were the songs that are decent. I'll post another one with our famous "Vocals heavily out of tune" (tm), but where OASYS also shines unbelieveably.

Charlie · Post by **Charlie** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 7:24 am

Hm, just thinking about playing live again ... have been in the studio too long. Got to get an 76-Oasys now ...

Hey, that's a strange line up. Why do you have 2 drummers? Quite unusual ...

vEddY · Post by **vEddY** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 7:26 am

Charlie wrote:Hm, just thinking about playing live again ... have been in the studio too long. Got to get an 76-Oasys now ...

Hey, that's a strange line up. Why do you have 2 drummers? Quite unusual ...

Yeah... I think you can notice that quite easily actually

One hits drums pretty hard is "behind the beat" drummer, one is more "in front" and easier on the drums. Now if I had a drummer that could do both while being in "command" of the rhythm, I would be a very happy man. But drummers and vocals..

I could write books on those characters

Charlie · Post by **Charlie** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:42 am

The classic drummer joke:
Frontman to the drummer: "You gotta play more dynamic."
Drummer: "Hey, I play already as loud as I can!"

Well - I'm glad I don't know the jokes they make about keyboards.

BTT: I think the Oasys would be fit for more "dramatic" use. These songs here are an understatement of its capabilities. But that's due to the type of music played here.

vEddY · Post by **vEddY** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 10:08 am

Charlie wrote:The classic drummer joke:
Frontman to the drummer: "You gotta play more dynamic."
Drummer: "Hey, I play already as loud as I can!"

Well - I'm glad I don't know the jokes they make about keyboards.

BTT: I think the Oasys would be fit for more "dramatic" use. These songs here are an understatement of its capabilities. But that's due to the type of music played here.

Haahaahhaaha, a good one

and yes, that's typical for drummers

but to play in rhyrhm, even if tempo is slow, while being in "command" of the groove, that's a language they don't really understand

In terms of sound quality and a couple of other things (how close it is to the original sound while being "true" to its character, standing out in a mix however down on volume it may be etc.) it's really pretty amazing. You don't have to do whacky things to display its abilities

And one other thing... Try to imagine that you're playing that and notice the fact the way I programmed these sounds. They're Karma-switched, so there's no delay between sounds when I'm switching them, and I often use sustain pedal to 'overlap' previous sound to the next one. You can clearly hear this on 'Alive and kicking'. It's just amazing how super-usable and flexible OASYS is in that respect.

Post by **Sharp** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 2:34 pm

Nice one vEddY.
You guys sound freaking great. If your ever doing a tour of Ireland and you need a roadie let me know

Big time impressed

James

vEddY · Post by **vEddY** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 3:35 pm

Sharp wrote:Nice one vEddY.
You guys sound freaking great. If your ever doing a tour of Ireland and you need a roadie let me know

Big time impressed

James

Hahahaha that's a good one, James

roadie

tour

more like "hold me so I don't kill the drummer and female vocals because they suck"

On a more serious note - it would "show promise" if people would rehearse their s**t. Then my ears wouldn't hurt as much because singing out of tune... Can't get it. Being a drummer and not being able to keep the groove together... Don't get it. Makes me wanna kick people's lazy asses. Hugely
frustrating. At least 20 recorded songs went down to the good ol' Trash Can because of that. Yipieeee.

Akos Janca · Post by **Akos Janca** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 8:15 am

Thanks for posting vEddY, I liked the songs! (For sure, I heard also the mistakes, but still a good performance overall.) The OASYS sounds wonderful.

Regarding the saxes, haven't you simply tried the factory EXs3 *EXTRA* Sounds? (Not the first set but an addition, that can be downloaded from here, titled EXs Extra Sounds and Guide). If I remember well I have found some good saxes in this bank.

Just curious: how did you transport your OASYS? I use Road Ready RRKB88W which protects well but the whole package is quite heavy (60 kg) and not easy to move. Do you have a better solution?

Joke: A young child says to his mother, "Mom, when I grow up I think I'd like to be a musician." She replies, "Well honey, you know you can't do both."

vEddY · Post by **vEddY** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 8:45 am

Akos Janca wrote: Regarding the saxes, haven't you simply tried the factory EXs3 *EXTRA* Sounds? (Not the first set but an addition, that can be downloaded from here, titled EXs Extra Sounds and Guide). If I remember well I have found some good saxes in this bank.

Just curious: how did you transport your OASYS? I use Road Ready RRKB88W which protects well but the whole package is quite heavy (60 kg) and not easy to move. Do you have a better solution?

I went through every single sax sound in every sound collection for the OASYS. It's just not that good. There are other examples, but this one stands out a bit.

Transport? I have one of Kaces's gigbags (www.kaces.com, keyboards, model KKP-14KB). It's heavy as hell, but I'm always "abusing" some friend's help to carry it around. But only if I have to take it somewhere down the stairs or up. This thing has rollers and it's been good so far. But we played this in a club that's underneath the ground and some help was pretty much a must.

OASYS is really heavy. But I've gotten used to that - owned Trinity ProX, Triton ProX and Triton Studio 88 prior to that. Comes with the territory. Now if only there was a rack version..