sort of hawkwind related

Doug Pearson ceres at SIRIUS.COM
Wed Sep 27 14:56:09 EDT 2000


A Korg Wavestation would certainly be the ideal synth for iitBotFtbD-era
HW, since I understand that was Alan's "main axe" (synth-wise) at the time
... and a joystick controller is a *must* for playing HW synth music (just
like Del Dettmar's EMS has).  But for more "classic"-era HW, I'd think that
something a bit more analog would be called for.  Just for the record, the
keyboard/synth rig I use in my Hawkwind cover band ("Ad Hawk") consists of:

1) Wiard modular - for the Del Dettmar synth sounds; the dual joystick
controller really shines here! (see http://www.wiard.com/ - the fact that
this device is designed/manufactured by Grant Richter of F/i, one of the
top spacerock synthesists in the world, doesn't hurt either!  Check out the
review of Russ Tolman's 'New Quadrophonic Highway' on that page, too.)

2) 3mS/Soundshimmer Triwave Picogenerator - for the DikMik audio generator
sounds; actually two audio generators plus 3 LFO modulators in one little
box; I run it through an old Digitech 2-second digital delay since my
Echoplex is too rare/fragile to use live and I don't own a WEM tape delay,
which would be the most authentic (see
http://members.rotfl.com/soundshimmer/triwave.html).

3) Korg MS-20 - for both "lead" synth lines (like the one played by Simon
House at the beginning of "Golden Void" before the vocals come in) and
noises/fx; this model (no, not MINE) was actually used by Hawkwind in the
early 80's and is all over the 'Choose Your Masques' tour double-CD (see
http://www.keyboardmuseum.com/ar/k/korg/m/ms20.html).

4) Sequential Circuits Prophet 600 - for polyphonic keyboard parts
(especially Simon House's organ & Mellotron sounds).  The fairly-similar
Korg PolySix would be more authentic, at least for contemporary
(early-80's) HW, but then again, my band only covers the 70's stuff anyway
(see http://www.keyboardmuseum.com/ar/s/seq/p6.html).

... all through a Roland KC-500 keyboard amp.

A lot of equipment, but I'd find it difficult to do Hawkwind songs justice
with any less than that (just don't ask me how I manage to play all that
AND handle lead vocals at the same time)!  There's a reason why my credits
on the Primordial Undermind album I played on read "analog attitude" ... ;^)

Good luck with your band (and sorry I can't help with your Wavestation
query - like I said, nothing but "analog attitude" here)!  For me, there
aren't very many things that beat playing Hawkwind songs!

        -Doug
         ceres at sirius.com

On Tue, 26 Sep 2000 09:36:24 +0100, Kevin Perry <kevin.perry at VIRGIN.NET>
wrote:
>I think there are cool enough sounds in the Wavestation to start with (I use
>an SR which does come with more presets than the EX and original
>Wavestations): Stereo Waves, Vulcan Harp, Quarks (ho ho) are 3 off the top
>of my head that are very Hawk-ish.  If you use a joystick to control the
>vector mixing, then a lot more existing patches sound like IITBOTFTBD-era
>HW.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: michael blackman <michaelangelo68 at OZEMAIL.COM.AU>
>To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.SPC.EDU>
>Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 4:30 AM
>Subject: sort of hawkwind related
>
>I am in the process of starting up a Hawkwind cover/tribute band here in
>Australia and I was hoping someone out there may be able to help me out.
>
>I desperatly need some really cool sound cards for my Korg wavestation...



More information about the boc-l mailing list