mama

hcook · Post by **hcook** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:54 am

does anybody know what sound from the oasys tony used for the pulsating sound of mama in 2007?

tonybanks · Post by **tonybanks** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 10:01 am

Don't know if it's a preset.
As far as I am concerned I easily programmed a sound which is very near to the original (Genesis 1983 album).
Not a big issue, just had to calibrate the EG to contour the filter (tchun, tchun, tchun, tchun.......)
Live versions are not always the same. Different tour, different instruments.
We do not use a sequencer, so I had to match the pulse with the drum machine loop which fits into a 183bpm grid (if I remember well)
Two easy ways......Karma is the first and easier......second is to trigger the cycle with an LFO.
Of course you have to be very careful to strike the keys with perfect timing.

hcook · Post by **hcook** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:33 pm

what was the name of the sound?

BillW · Post by **BillW** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 9:10 pm

Or you could just play it live.

hcook · Post by **hcook** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 10:50 pm

it is some type of arpeggiated sound i still cant figure it out and i dont play live

Ray · Post by **Ray** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 12:59 pm

Don't know what sound TB used on 2007 Tour or whether it was even played from the Oasys. Most sounds from the Tour came from the Oasys (even though he hardly touched it) although some came from the synth/sample rack behind him.

I use a sample from an ARP Quadra (synth used to create that sound in original studio recording). I have then sequenced (midi) the staccato pattern into the Oasys. The Oasys also holds the looped sample for the original Mama drum pattern which TB used live for the first time in 2007 - previously he used a drum machine.

Been gigging the Oasys 76 for over 3 years now. Great to use live and what a sound

rainy-taxi · Post by **rainy-taxi** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 8:34 pm

Tony Banks didn't use the Oasys for the pulsating sound. It was merely the controller to trigger the sound from.

I think he used samples from the Arp Quadra poly section which he put trough a midi gate (which is custom built for him during the preperation for the We can't dance tour in 1992).
Its a harsh synth string with, no envelope, put trough the midi gate (i'm not sure if it is an actual audio gate or if it regenerates midi signals) and then trough external processing (in this case the Yamaha SPX2000) for adding a phaser effect to it.

Tony was in charge for the drumloop in mama I think which came from the Emu E4 (I see him operating his MMT8 sequencer).

I had a pretty good rendition of the sound with using arp quadra poly sections, put trough a filter envelope which was synced to the drummachine and then trough the phaser. Sounded marvellous but sadly the roland fantom is a b*tch when it comes to syncing to external sources. It gave a lot of quircks and the timing was very unreliable so I switched to using an audio gate within digital performer. It did the trick but doesn't sound as good as I want to I'm afraid.

I'll upload a small demo, recorded at a gig a few weeks back.

mocando · Post by **mocando** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 8:49 pm

I think you are talking for different sounds here. Are you referring for the initial sound which is like a howling string or the arpegiatted pattern than can be heard later on the 15th measure?

rainy-taxi · Post by **rainy-taxi** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 9:05 pm

mocando wrote:I think you are talking for different sounds here. Are you referring for the initial sound which is like a howling string or the arpegiatted pattern than can be heard later on the 15th measure?

I mean the pulsating sound (which comes in around measure 15, depending on the show) that indeed can be done with some kind of arpeggiator but was done with the midi gate.

www.wecantdance.nl/mamademo.mp3 (1.1 mb)

Please forgive the imbalance in sound. Mix from the venue was not top notch.
I didnt had time anymore to see if I could use the original quadra patch and find a good filter that can be synced. I'll be revising my sounds again and tweaking them a bit more so I might post a new demo if I managed a better sound.

rainy-taxi · Post by **rainy-taxi** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 9:12 pm

Ray wrote:Don't know what sound TB used on 2007 Tour or whether it was even played from the Oasys. Most sounds from the Tour came from the Oasys (even though he hardly touched it) although some came from the synth/sample rack behind him.

I noticed he played a lot of the songs from his racks, using the oasys more for the older 70ies like stuff (stuff from selling, atott, duke, lamb)

All the other stuff was just his old we can't dance setup, though cleaner sounding. Some of it revised because they changed some keys (which needed some sounds to be resampled again as the original samples didn't go as low as needed).

So far these are the best options for recreating the sound:

Using a filter with a snappy envelope, synced to tempo
Using an audio gate, synced to a metronome pulse
Using the original arp quadra, triggering the bass section with a metronome pulse (in fact, they used a linndrum cowbell on the 1983 and 1986 tours) which then opens and closes the filter accordingly
Using an arpeggiator, drawing the pattern and play the chords (and syncing it up)
Using a wavesequence (I tried it, it work's but you have to play extremely tight which is almost impossible, so not really an option)
Using a synced LFO to modulate the filter (or the amp envelope for that matter)