Old Guy, New Synth

The Moog Forum Moog Music General Topics Forum
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First post here. My name is Bruce Murphy, and I was the keyboard player for Men without Hats. I’m still playing, in a trio called Bakelite, where I play Hammond B3, Clavinet and my brand new WW Jade Voyager. We play instrumental 50’s style B3 tunes, except we picked all hair metal songs and bad 80’s hits. (Sorry, no Safety Dance)

Trying desperately to keep my live rig free of my Virus TI or any of the bazillion synths I have that are cool and easy to use, but don’t have that retro vibe. The Clav runs through a Dunlop Wah, 2 envelope filters, and a couple of boutique distortions. It’s a nightmare keyboard, as it was made by Germans from PopSicle sticks, but I’m really good at making it feed back in a semi-controllable way, and it just has that visceral growl that nothing can copy.

I have a couple of questions for Voyager users. The darn thing is dry as a fart, as you would expect, but I need a bit of “unsterile” for live. The Moog goes through the FOH, so I’m building a pedal board to filthy it up. Currently it goes through a Fulltone OCD, a Boss Space Echo thingy, and a Rocktron Talkbox. FOH gives it a touch of reverb.

My issue is that the Moog sounds a thousand times better in stereo. The talkbox is mono. Anyone have any idea how I can EASILY run a 1/4 into the talkbox so that when I stomp it, I get only the mono talkbox signal, and when I stomp it again, I get the straight STEREO signal from the Moog to the board?

My guess is I build a box with 2 1/4 ins to a stereo switch. Bypassed, the signal goes to 2 1/4 outs to the board. Kicked in, it goes to a separate 1/4 out for the left signal, and right goes nowhere (dummy jack for the right) The alternate left goes to the talkbox.

Does this make sense? Having a tough week with the ole brain.
Thanks,

Mos Fet (Bruce Murphy)

Bakelite-“All Your Favorite Songs, Skinned Alive and Left for Dead”

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you could do it with a small cast aluminum enclosure, one DPDT stompswitch, and 5 x 1/4" mono jacks…

2 jacks on one end of the enclosure for cables from the moog, tip connectors wired to center lugs of the stompswitch.

2 jacks on the opposite end of the enclosure, tip connectors wired to the right side lugs of the stompswitch.

single jack on 3rd side of the enclosure, tip connector wired to both left side lugs of the stompswitch.

all grounds would be connected via contact with the metal enclosure

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First, welcome to the forums.

Nice switch box.

Not as simple but an alternative could be to use a mixer(something like a Mackie 1202 or 1402) to send all you keys to FOH ( and or monitor world) from the Voyagers outputs to one of the “stereo” inputs on the mixer. Use an aux sends as a pre fader to feed the talk box. When you go to use the talk box mute that ch, will will remove it from the main mix out, but since you are doing a pre fader send it will still show up at the talk box. return the talk box to another ch on the mixer. Down side is you’ll have to do extra button presses in two spots rather than the simpler box acorkos posted.

Have fun either way
…or two talk boxes and two tubes… :slight_smile:

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..or two talk boxes and two tubes…

One up each nostril! The mixer idea is great, but I’m a) extremely busy live, and b) extremely forgetful. Too many button pushes!

The box is exactly what I need! Thanks!

Bruce

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:slight_smile: The box would also be my first choice. It’s hard enough keeping everything else in prder without having to remember extra buttons to push. But if the box bodke or you don’t have time to build it :slight_smile:.

Enjoy

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too bad…i love that tune…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgugo4wS6sw

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Yeah man, Men Without Hats were a great band. Definitely inspired me to get into synths. Good luck with the talkbox switcher.

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Thanks. The Hats were oddly anti-Moog. We had bags of Prophet 5s. One was modified to take a gate signal out of a Linn and play basslines. You held down a note and it triggered insanely fast and accurate 8th notes. Later on we got Marika Tjelios to play those static 8s on a DX100 midi’d to a sampler. She was a MACHINE! I’d try playing Living in China and my forearm would cramp up after the first chorus.

The Hats had this megadollar Synclavier that someone used for stringlines or something ridiculous. Ivan wanted to use his Arp 2500 on the Pop Goes The World tour, but I think he came to his senses.

No Moogs though! Might have been a Source once, but my memory is foggy. I did sneak a DX7 in there. Every morning during rehearsal there’d be a Prophet in my rig, and I’d remove it and put my DX7 there! Eventually they gave up.

I think all the gear is in storage in Montreal, including those unbelievably cool keyboard stands from the ROY tour. Nobody’s touched them in decades. Hmmmmm… flood the market with Prophets some day?

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Thanks. The Hats were oddly anti-Moog. We had bags of Prophet 5s. One was modified to take a gate signal out of a Linn and play basslines. You held down a note and it triggered insanely fast and accurate 8th notes. Later on we got Marika Tjelios to play those static 8s on a DX100 midi’d to a sampler. She was a MACHINE! I’d try playing Living in China and my forearm would cramp up after the first chorus.

The Hats had this megadollar Synclavier that someone used for stringlines or something ridiculous. Ivan wanted to use his Arp 2500 on the Pop Goes The World tour, but I think he came to his senses.

No Moogs though! Might have been a Source once, but my memory is foggy. I did sneak a DX7 in there. Every morning during rehearsal there’d be a Prophet in my rig, and I’d remove it and put my DX7 there! Eventually they gave up.

I think all the gear is in storage in Montreal, including those unbelievably cool keyboard stands from the ROY tour. Nobody’s touched them in decades. Hmmmmm… flood the market with Prophets some day?

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Oh BTW, Matt from Peptone is going to whip me up the box with a 2nd switch for A/B on the monos. Also a couple of LEDs so I dont get lost!

Once again many thanks!

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Welcome to the forum. I look forward to your posts.

Eric

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Welcome, Bruce! Belated congrats on your success in Men Without Hats! :sunglasses:

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Hmmm… I’ve been looking for some new unique keyboard stands… what were those ROY stands like? Do you think they’d ever come up for sale??

Ivan has a Synclavier AND a 2500? Christ on a bike!!!
:open_mouth: :open_mouth: :open_mouth:

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The Rhythm of Youth stands were designed by the same Montreal dudes who do Cirque de Soleil I think. The tour setup looked like some high tech communist rally, with scarlet banners running down the side of the stage. The lighting effect looked amazing, but were extremely low tech. The backdrop was a white scrim and there was a huge grid of what looked like bedslats about a foot behind it. When the lights hit them from behind they cast these huge squares that seemed to move.

Ivan had a Yamaha CP70 piano which had one central chrome pedestal. It was mounted to this massive base that kept it from falling over. Later on, it got modded with ball bearing setup so Ivan could grab it and spin it around. I wonder how they kept the cables from breaking?

I wanted to use the keyboard stands on the Pop Goes the World tour, but they were just too big to travel with.

You can find picture in Google somewhere. Any of the live show stuff…

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Wow, that sounds really cool. If you hear anything about them, or if you keep in touch with Ivan, and the topic of gear should come up, please feel free to drop me an email or a PM.

I’ll have to check them out. I wonder who does the Cirque stuff…

Hope you’re well.

PK