Breakdown of a track using the Roland FANTOM

Recently, I made a video in which I performed my song "Just Another Space Odyssey"

using

a keyboard rig consisting solely of Roland keyboards, and today I'm going to show you how I made that video. So the melody is from my first album, called "To Jupiter and Back", and that album was like a tribute to all the great synth music that I grew up with, with music from artists like Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis and Mike Oldfield . so I was very inspired by that music. Especially for this particular song, I was influenced by the melody "Arpeggiator" by Jean Michel Jarre.

So what I did with this song is I used a Roland Fantom as a sequencer and also as a sampler, and the sound engine of course as well, and basically what I'm doing is being able to control the entire keyboard. rig

using

the Fantom by simply selecting the synth I want to control, because all synths are connected to the Fantom. It has two MIDI outputs, so I have one MIDI output that goes to a splitter box that splits it into eight cables that then go to all my synths here except my Juno-60. I decided to use MIDI output number 2 to control especially the Juno-60, because it has an old MIDI adaptation and, as I have noticed, is very allergic to other MIDI data on the same cable.

So I decided to have a dedicated outlet for that. All synths are mixed with a digital mixer, so I try to separate the outputs as much as possible. From the Fantom I, I've sampled some of my sounds from old analog gear... ...types of effect sounds, so I control them with the sample pad. and then I have a brass sound. It's also connected to the Juno-60 at the same time so you can hear just the phantom... ...and then the Juno-60... So if we combine those two, we get... So a little bit more body to sound. You might be wondering: why do I have so many synths for this particular song?

Well, the reason is that I used a lot of different synthesizers. All the vintage Roland synths you see in the kit were originally used on the tune, except for the JX-8P, because I previously used an Alpha Juno 2 for the lead sound on the original tune, but then I realized when I bought the JX. -8P - I didn't have it at the time I made the album, but when I got it I realized that this sound was much better for the protagonist. So I stuck with that and have been using it live ever since. But to the rest of the synthesizers.

I have an Alpha Juno 2 to make sounds like... Going back to why I use so many synths. Originally I was just using old synths and old analog synths that can only produce one sound at a time, so in order to build a full mix you need to have a lot of synths. Well, in theory you could only use one synthesizer, but I've noticed that if you try to produce a complete, full-sounding mix using only the same analog synthesizer, you end up with some uniformity in the sound. It's really difficult to get an interesting mix, because no matter how powerful or complex the synthesizer is or how many functions it has, you still have the same oscillators generating the sound and it tends to produce a certain uniformity.

But when you use different types of synths, produced at different ages and by different brands, it's much easier to get a complete mix, especially using only analog synths like I do. Now, for this particular song I already had a lot of old Roland synths, as I mentioned. I had a Juno-60, which is used except for brass also arpeggios... ...that kind of sound. And in the rest part, the middle part of the melody, I'm making a harp type sound. That also comes from the Juno-60 and then I switch to the metal type of sound for the last part.

And I also have an Alpha Juno 1 that does the main type of bass sequence at the beginning. That comes from the Alpha Juno 1. Then I also have a Roland TR-808. This one is midi equipped, so I can play it from the keyboard here. But in the original melody I used only one sound and that was the drum. That's the sound that comes from the TR-808. But I also had a lot of other brands, so now when I wanted to recreate everything using only Roland keyboards, I chose the modern ones to recreate it, so the TR-8S has 909 models built in, so the kick and snare... . ..they are the 909 modeled sounds and I can play them from the keyboard here.

So I purposely used the transient attack from the snare, because I duplicate it with the 808 sound. So you have the 808 snare and the 909 snare and then when you combine them... that's my main snare sound. Then I also have toms that are sampled. And then I have, again, the effects sounds that we were using and the cymbals. And then I use the SE-02 for the sound that I was originally using an old Moog Source for. But this is basically a Minimoog clone, so I got really nice bass sounds with this. That's the main bass of the melody.

The JD-XA has two functions. I'm using the analog part to replicate a polysynth sound. That's the sound it makes. And then I use the digital side to give a string sound. So I can play them simultaneously because they are in different parts. That's really convenient. I originally had an Alpha Juno 2 for the lead sound, but then I started using a JX-8P because I liked it so much. So when I decided to make a video using only Roland keyboards, I wanted to explore the new Jupiter-X. Because it has a built-in JX-8P model, I've recreated the JX-8P's main sound on the Jupiter-X.

So it's pretty exciting how close you can get with the expansion sounds of the new model. This is the expansion of the JX-8P model. But it's difficult to play at the same time because they respond slightly differently to the keyboard. So I think the Jupiter-X has a bit more dynamic response. So what you need is a slightly different style of play. So in the original video I also used a System-8 and a Jupiter-Xm, but this time I couldn't place them. I used the System-8 to replicate the sounds of the Juno-60 and the Jupiter-Xm had basically...   ...the same sound that the Jupiter-X had, so I didn't need that one.

And then the Juno-60. Of course, it would be a little more convenient to have another synth, because now I have three different sounds from the Juno-60, so I have to change on the fly. But I'm pretty used to that, because I do it live too, so it's okay. In principle you could make the entire tune using just the Fantom, but it's a lot of work to program patches to be as similar as possible to the original patches. Next I will show you how I did the interpretation using the Fantom sequencer. In the first part, I prepare the melody on the fly and what I do is record MIDI loops.

Basically, it's similar to... you've seen artists use looper pedals. They record, for example, a bass and then it starts repeating what they just played, and then they put in a guitar part, for example, and continue like that. Well, this is the same principle, but instead of recording audio, I record only the MIDI data of what I play on the keyboard. That way, when it plays... I mean, an audio loop can be quite static: it's the same or exactly the same audio. but when it's MIDI and these are analog synths or virtual analog synths, each note will be different, meaning every time the loop is played there will be slight minimal differences, which makes it more lively I think.

In the second part of the melody, I activate a pre-recorded part; Well, "pre-recorded" is kind of wrong... ...because it's actually a "pre-programmed" part. So I programmed a backing

track

for myself and then I play over it. That's how I built the melody. At the beginning I basically give an example of how this works. So I just start the sequencer, "enter quantize" into "grid" and I have a resolution of 32 because I set the tempo to 62 bpm. Actually it could be 124, i.e. double, but that's okay, for some reason I wanted to limit myself to 62. Then I have "count" as "wait note".

And then what I've done, and this is very important because I move quite quickly from one part to another when I record. So I have the duration for each

track

, I might even be able to for each cell, but at least for each track I can set the duration differently. I know, it really takes a lot of things – it takes a lot, a lot of planning. So I know exactly, for the opening part I only need one measure, for the bass part I want two measures to loop and then for the drums I want four measures to loop.

And I have already pre-programmed this. The length of the clips is then known. So when I have this set, I try to remember the tempo and then I start. And then it continues repeating what I just played and just plays MIDI data and controls this synth here. And then I start adding on top of that. And what I can do too: activate the effect sounds. That's also from the original. And then where I want to start, I start recording the bass. This is just a one-bar line, but I have two bars because I want the second bar to be empty.

So when you continue looping, the second bar remains empty. And then at some point I drop the bass because I don't want it to sound like that anymore. I have to go up the octave and then I'm going to record the Jupter-X, so I switch to track number 5 and then I start recording that one. And then it repeats itself. And then I support the bass. This goes very quickly later, but I'm going to take it slow now so you can see what I'm doing. Then I switch to track number 8, which is the JD-XA, and then I basically duplicate what the Jupiter-X plays.

You can hardly hear it but it is there. After that, I mute the bass again and then put the Alpha Juno 2 on top. And then that repeats itself. And then I play bass. Then I start playing the string sound on the JD-XA. And then I also trigger the effect sounds. And then I start playing the drums. So that repeats itself. As you'll notice, I use two fingers for the box, because I have two boxes that are folded. But when I have quantize on Fantom, it automatically quantizes what I play so it sounds good anyway. And then I continue, basically.

And then at some point I move on to the second part of the melody. Then I just activate it. Then you get the idea. At some point it changed, because Fantom's sequencer is limited to 32-bar loops. So I had to split the backing track, so I have... ...the slow part, which comes here, I have it. Etc. And that adds up, and the interesting thing is... Something I forgot to mention, which is that I'm controlling the Juno-60 filter with a CV (control voltage) from the Fantom. This is really convenient because you can put, for example, the aftertouch on the Fantom to control the Juno.

But I'm not the after touch, it's in the pre-programmed part. So I programmed the Juno-60 aftertouch. Let me see if I have it here... Yeah, so this is the... I mean, without it it sounds like this. But then, because the CV controls the filter... Basically what it does: it raises the filter and then lowers it. Ok, you could also use that with the keyflow parameter... ...the cutout keyboard is still on the Juno-60, but for some reason I didn't. Because I can really control it, so you can hear it increasing. It's now much brighter than it was at the beginning, and then towards the end it will fade away again.

This is convenient because you can also control your old equipment using the ghost. And then I have, just to make mixing easier, have the sample pads come out through the secondary outputs, and then the brass sound comes out from the main output of the Fantom. That's basically how I perform the melody and then I'll perform it for you. So that was "Just Another Space Odyssey."