So, we’re back from our trip away to my old place and we always enjoy it as we get up to all sorts. This time around, I took a couple of things back. One of them being my Yamaha Reface DX.
I’ve been thinking about selling this for a year now, the reason being is because I had a TX7 (DX7 in synth module form). I still held onto it because I thought I can have a secondary one. But my recent find of the Volca FM2 (Mini modern DX7) combined with my TX7 and Reface CS, convinced me to let go of the Reface DX.
I will do a future video about this situation and show why I made this decision. But for now I will say goodbye to a dear friend <3. Though it’s going to a good home, Electronscape’s home.
I’ve done past videos using the Reface DX, you can check some of them out below:
The Newcomer
So while we went to one of these ‘cash converter/cash generator’ exchange stores because as we were walking around the town centre, Rich suddenly pointed and said “Look! Synths!”. The next thing I remember is my face pressed against the shop front window trying to look in…ouch.. *rubs nose*.
Now I already have in my possession someone’s Yamaha SY22 so I was naturally curious about the SY55. Ideally, I’d have loved it to be a SY77 or a TG33 because the SY55 isn’t exactly a higher model to the SY22 even though there are some things about it that are an improvement, other things I prefer on the SY22. (I’ll do a side by side video on these two at some point). Heck I’d definitely not complain if it was a full sized DX7 ;-))
What attracted me about the SY55 is that it’s Multitimbral 16. Which means it can produce 16 different sounds simultaneously. Each sound can be assigned to a MIDI channel. So I could if I wanted, link this up to the Polyend Tracker, and instead of using samples, just assign all the MIDI channels to the SY55 and use that instead. Also another thing that attracted me to this was that it’s at a good price, a third of the price of the Reface DX I just sold. So definitely worth exploring.
On the way out of the store I also saw my old keyboard, the Casio CTK-450 my first full size keyboard. I got this for my 13th birthday, I spent hours on this and learned a lot with it.
Trackers
So the day we arrived back home, I got on with sampling the sounds of the SY55, I have them now and am looking up ways to change the Sound bank on it and put more sounds onto it. The same way I do with the TX7 and Volca FM2 using Dexed via MIDI.
Speaking of trackers, I recently released a video about different trackers on the Amiga. I did mention it before creating it and many of you were looking forward to it. In the video, I went through each of the ones I used on the Amiga back then and talk about why I’m so drawn to Soundtracker Pro 2. I also mention other trackers such as MODPlug Tracker/OpenMPT and Polyend Tracker, not to mention Synthesizers such as the TherapSID and DX7. It’s quite an involved video and I enjoyed creating it.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you can enjoy it here:
I’ve actually created five tracks for my upcoming album already, I have to say I’m excited about it once again as I’m liking the feel of the ones I’m creating so far.
The Great Feast.
I’ve had a hectic few days, also a get together at the weekend. I cooked a feast of Middle Eastern food as well as freshly made pizza (including the base) for Rich’s daughter’s birthday get together. It was a lot of hard work but worth it as everyone loved the food and enjoyed themselves!
I had made freshly made falafel, hummous, chicken and beef kafta, salad with lemon and olive oil, fresh baked Arabic bread and fresh pizzas. Needless to say Rich’s daughter Alice, enjoyed her birthday very much <3
These are the left overs, the only proper chance I got to get a shot of the spread 😀
I definitely need to do this again sometime, maybe not in such a frantic manner this time as this normally would be a few days worth of dinners 😀
Rich said it’s the best falafel and hummous I’ve made to date. It’s amazing the difference freshly soaked chickpeas make. I think I’ll be doing that more instead of using canned.
I had better get on with some project work as I have plans for upcoming videos, not to mention continuing the next album.
Hope you all have a lovely evening!
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