http://sparebricks.fika.org/sbzine28/features.html#1
Follow down the page to the MiniMoog! It’s fascinating to see where he used it on record and live.
Rick’s work is what got me into this whole mess 
Cheers,
theglyph
It’s a nice idea, but there are a lot of glaring errors and bizarre statements in it, like referring to a Prophet-5 as a Prophet-V, and then claiming its an additive synthesizer. Or neglecting to correctly refer to the Polymoog by its name and instead just calling it the Moog Polysynth. Through a lack of clarity in writing, he also leaves the impression that an Odyssey is a string synth.
He then goes on to say, “Rick probably did not use the Oberheim [Four-Voice] for too long, favouring the superior Prophet V, which appeared a year later”. Superior? In what way? It would be nice if he gave some context: is this putative superiority due to programmability? Reliability? Sound? It would be nice to shed some light onto this, because it’s not as a cut-and-dry an issue as he makes it out to be. One can argue the relative superiority of various instruments, but a good condition Four-Voice currently sells for well in excess of a Prophet-5 in similar shape.
Credit for making the attempt, but could’ve been far better executed.
Uh oh glyph, you woke up the synthbeast!
Interesting read btw.
I guess I don’t see these errors as all that glaring. I have always been a fan of Pink Flloyd musically. Not a fan of the drug culture it is associated with but frankly, Floyd produced some of the most rock music ever made.
For me, what is interesting about this site is to know how many of the songs were made and what keyboards were used. On might think that the Pink Floyd musicans used the most cutting edge of equipment but clearly this site shows a somewhat low tech side to Wright.
The same can be said of Gilmour and his various guitar rigs. Pretty basic stuff which just shows that its more the musican than the equipment. It also shows how Wright favored a more analogue side to music.
So overall, yes a few errors, but fascinating. One must not miss the trees for the forest right?
On the Prophet V and 5. Well, the only Prophet V I know of is the Arturia version. There was a Prophet VS which used vector synthesis not additive synthesis but cleary he is refering to the Prophet 5 so yes, I don’t know why he said it was additive. However, is it relavent to the material? Not really. He mostly emphasizes that it is polyphonic and therefore an advance (in the sense of polyphony) over the Minimoog. On the Prophet 5 and the Oberheim. He is expressing his opinion. Clearly he like the Prophet 5 and also likes roman number numbers, leave it at that.
What is does point to again is how little digital gear Wright used saved Kurweil and Roland JX-10 which as he points out is a hybrid.
How is this relavent. In many ways it is in parallel to the MIDI MURF arguement raging in the fooger forum. I don’t see were Wright or for that matter Pink Floyd as a whole had a lot of use for MIDI or digital. Most of Gilmour’s gear is analogue. Does it make analogue better? Not really, no more than the Prophet 5 is better than the Oberheim but to realize that a major progressive rock band stayed mostly in the analogue realm and sounded so cutting edge is an interesting statement and I do believe the web site shows that well whether you use a V or a 5.
The problem is: this is the internet. There isn’t someone sitting there fact checking articles, and in this case his mistakes lead to propagation of bad information. Eventually someone will copy and paste that same bad information and it’ll be replicated. Or they’ll read it, take it as gospel truth, and be misinformed by someone who really doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
cleary he is refering to the Prophet 5 so yes, I don’t know why he said it was additive. However, is it relavent to the material? Not really.
I beg to differ. Not only is he wrong, but he’s so terribly wrong it makes one sit up and take notice if they know anything about the subject. It’s not as though he got the number of memory locations in the Prophet-5 wrong, or that he forgot which rev implemented MIDI. He’s fundamentally changed the manner of synthesis it uses. It’s like claiming a BMW M3 has a diesel engine, or that Obama is a Republican.
He is expressing his opinion. Clearly he like the Prophet 5 and also likes roman number numbers, leave it at that.
Opinions are fine. Opinions without context, explanation, or correct facts to back them up are not. I doubt he likes roman numerals any more than the average person (no mention is made of Kurzweil KCCLs, Oberheim IV-Voices or Roland JX-Xs). The more straightforward explanation is that he’s just wrong and doesn’t know it.
First, let me say this.
If people are looking to the internet for accurate information they are looking in the wrong place. OK, there are some sites I go to like product sites that I know will be accurate for the most part but I certainly don’t expect that everthing I Google is. Do you? This is why when I want to learn about something I buy books and I tend to look for recomendations from people who know.
I do gain a lot of knowledge from sites like this by talking to people. Some of those people can also be wrong but so can the people that we run into every day in our lives.
Bottom line: I don’t expect the internet to have the same quality of accuracy as a book although it probably exceed the evening news. As for Obama being a Republican, perhaps when pigs fly, oh wait, if you been to some Concerts you may have seen that.
Relax, meditate, eat a hamburger., read a book and life will come much easier.
A few more comments on this. First, I noticed that this is from a “webzine” whatever that is. My guess is that this is a site that a Pink Floyd put out there. It’s dated the Summer 2006 so clearly it has not been updated in a long time.l This is a good sign that someone just wanted to gett his up on the web without a whole lot of thought before or after as to accuracy. Would I look to such a web site for information? I think in general I probably would. I don’t get the impression that the writter is trying to be deceptive and may not even be a musican who would, for example, know the difference between a subtractive and additive synthesizer.
If this was a website on designing circults or say information on a product, I would be much less likely to use it. I expect that all the information shown on the Moog website (the product part) is accurate. I would not want to buy a product based on inaccurate information. I am also not going to buy a vintage Prophet 5 based on this article. I would probably look at an old user manual (these are out there). One can presume these are accurate because they are often just PDF files of the actual manuals (in many cases).
So I guess what I am saying is that expecting accuracy from some Floyd fans web site is a bit much to ask. Expecting accuracy from a Magazine, for example “Sound on Sound” or “Electronic Musican” is different. I have subscriptions and its reasonable for me to expect accurate information.
What you are doing is buying a Yugo and expecting it to run like a BMW. Not goinig to happen but its good to know the difference.
I suppose it’ll be fine next time I go to buy orange juce and get sold Tang then. It’s orange in hue, makes a sweet tasting potable liquid, and has vitamin C. So it’s okay to label it as orange juice, right?
I’m still not sure why real, constructive criticism making note of factual errors is so wrong. I mean, one can also point that the GX-1 does not literally weigh nearly a ton, and the one he mentions as “recently sold to Hans Zimmer” changed hands in 1994 - more than a decade before the article was written. There’s more, but I’m just trying to further illustrate that these aren’t isolated examples of errors - they permeate the article.
I could forgive the guy if he went back and made corrections at a later date; we all make mistakes and I’ve probably posted a few bloopers too. But despite the fact that three years have passed he hasn’t bothered. It’s sloppy, especially for someone who pretentiously calls himself a “staff writer”. Granted, the magazine seems to be defunct now, but since they maintain a web presence this sort of thing is dead easy to remedy, especially since I’m sure a horde of trainspotters like myself have pointed out the errors and omissions already.
I shall take your advice though and go have a hamburger. Did you know hamburgers are made with two meat patties sandwiching one slice of bread? I read that on the internet, so it must be true.
I plan on publishing something on my blog on this soon. I personally find equipment lists, more specifically, equipment lists by album to be very very helpful. I kind of grew up with Flloyd and while I am not much of a concert fanatic, I did see them in Yankee Stadium. Great show. The fact that there music has appeared on PBS is a testimony to the longevity of this bands work. Their use of the Minimoog during a classic period in their musical development also makes them significant to this board but since many of my comments are going to be of a more general nature regarding the use of equipment and its importance to the sound of a band or composer so I felt it appropriate to post a link here when I finish it but not take up more space here on a more general topic.
nice picture of rick wright
http://thinkfloyd.free.fr/pink-floyd-photos/galerie1/pwaters/pwaterswishsb/slides/pwaterswishsb18.htm
[/img]
well, well…
Hello Lux_Seeker,
hello Christopher Winkels,
allow me to identify myself as the author of the ‘Guide’ you so deftly debated, all those months ago.
First of all, thanks for the interest you (and a few other people, it seems) have shown and for all your comments -both positive and negative.
I have to plead guilty of all the errata correctly identified by Christopher and declare here, in this public -albeit moderated- forum, a sincere and heartfelt:
M E A
C U L P A
And that’s as far as my Latin goes, folks 
(more on accidental Latin numbering and lousy editing in the paragraphs below) .
The version of the document currently online is obsolete and indeed in desperate need of an update (where ‘update’ implies a healthy number of corrections as well as a few additions). I have to say I am both surprised and slightly embarrassed this was uploaded in the first place, let alone it being still online. The purpose of that PDF, which I keep and update frequently for my own personal reference and not much more than that, was to assist in the editing of the main article I submitted for the SpareBricks webzine. “Editing” used rather loosely here, as the final submission was made against a strict deadline and with some particularly lousy proof-reading from my end. In hindsight, I should have known better than leaving Mike (the webzine’s faithful editor for a good number of years) upload it ‘as is’.
That document by no means claims to be ‘authoritative’, so yes, it is indeed merely a collection of personal ‘views’ (or, perhaps more fittingly, ‘hearings’), opinions, educated guesses and collated bits and pieces from a variety of disparate and largely incomplete sources, some of which were of dubious validity to begin with. I will be the first to admit that perhaps some of those ‘educated guesses’ were not particularly educated, after all. (I am starting to worry that my ‘additive synthesis’ misstep may quite possibly follow me to the grave … )
To set the record straight, the ‘V’ should have been ‘5’, of course, but was probably the result of a not wisely used “Multiple Find & Replace All” word processing automation that must have crept there due to the appearance of the Solina String Ensemble “model V” (Find ‘5’ and Replace with ‘V’ –you get the idea). As for the erroneous reference to the Prophet being an ‘additive analogue synth’, which I believe occurs just once in the article, is the result of me using [index styles] for term cross-reference. In the original document (before it got copied & pasted into a webpage) some key terms were highlighted and selected for inclusion in an Index Table. Such a term was ‘additive analogue’, as well as plain ‘analogue’. I chose the former instead of the latter… So, blame it on a combination of abused ‘word processor goodies’ and lousy editing (and subsequently proof reading) from my part. Maybe I should quit using MS Word and revert to LaTeX instead
Regarding the remaining ‘glaring mistakes’… Now that I read the piece again, I would have to agree, for instance, that someone could possibly interpret “Odyssey” as a string synth, though this was not my intention.
I do appreciate Christopher’s sentiments about the proliferation and propagation of erroneous information around the web. Having said that, I happen to believe there is very little we can do about it, other than exercising our better judgement upon encountering such information. It may not be flattering to find myself in the ‘wrongful’ side of the fence (having erroneously spread the word that, e.g. once upon a time, there was a synth called Prophet ‘V’ and it was an additive synth). However, this is a phenomenon inherent to the very fabric of the web (and the 'net long before the emergence of the WWW). Trying to discuss and analyse its repercussions at length would be almost futile, so I wouldn’t want to kick off a more extensive discussion on the pros and cons of net neutrality, and so on. The moment one submits a post to a mailing list, a newsgroup or a forum, it becomes potentially archive-able, retrievable and therefore subject to scrutiny, commentary or criticism. Occasionally, it could also become the reason for somebody’s “eureka!” moment, somewhere on the globe, if they happen to have discovered that elusive bit of information they were so keenly looking for. Exactly in the same way as my article has been scrutinised and debated by you lot, in this very forum. It is my belief that it all gets balanced out, eventually, but it’s only natural that not everybody sees it that way.
For what it’s worth, my motivation behind writing the essay in question was to make a first, primitive attempt at ‘mapping’, or ‘cataloging’ the bulk of the late Rick Wright’s oeuvre from a keyboards/synthesizer perspective. And this was (back in 2004, when I wrote the stuff) scarcely ever mentioned in published texts, biographies, essays or articles about Pink Floyd -whether online or offline. You could easily find shed loads of information about Gilmour’s guitar gear, but info on Rick’s equipment was nowhere to be found. And it seems that not much research has been made available since then. Some Wikipedia entries have incorporated Vernon Fitch’s findings and that’s about it. I hope I’m wrong and there are now more places one can find such information. If you know of such sources, by all means let me know.
The main purpose, back then, was to map what was played in which track. Whether that was done to a satisfactory degree or not is arbitrary altogether. Along the way, I was asked to provide some “brief description” of each of the instruments mentioned, so that the ‘uninitiated’ could make some more sense of it when they read “mellotron” or “VSC3”, etc. I tried to do this by offering some Floydian bit of trivia in each passage, as opposed to keeping it too ‘encyclopaedic’ in style. The purpose was definitely NOT to produce something akin to “A Concise History of keyboards & synthesizers for beginners”. I believe there are far, far, FAR better and more extensive sources for that sort of thing 
So, all in all, the focus of the piece was firmly on Wright and his playing during his career with the Floyd; it was not on providing a definition of synthesizers manufactured by Sequential Circuits. The fact that it did contain information on Sequential Circuits and some of it was evidently wrong, is regrettable and enough reason for me to apologise to you. In all honesty, though, I’d much rather be criticised because I incorrectly identified a mellotron whereas it was the sound of a plastic spoon sliding across Roger’s fretboard through his Binson Echorec.
Now that I see that this piece actually is read by someone other than me and the rest of the webzine’s contributors, I can do a number of things about it:
- ask the webmaster to kindly remove it
- make some time to PROOF-READ a revised version and then upload it
- add a disclaimer stating that the article only reflects my personal views and opinions, is prone to contain errors and ENCOURAGE everybody who cares to spot them to contact me about it.
By the way, the same ‘master document’ spawned one more essay, on recurring or “recycled” themes in Floyd’s canon. That too, suffers from the ‘Prophet V’ syndrome (but at least it’s not referred to as “additive” )
It was also published online in the Summer 2004 issue of SpareBricks and, for anybody interested, can be found here:
http://sparebricks.fika.org/sbzine20/features2.html
Lux_Seeker, thanks for your kind words. Christopher, thanks to your comments you rekindled my interest in refining and expanding what I started five-six years ago, as a pastime. I hope that somewhere in between the mistakes and omissions, you were able to find bits that were illuminating in some way.
P.S. At the end of the day, I hope I at least motivated you to pick the kind of hamburger and juice that was right for you at the time
Thanasis
"I can't see the lines I used to think I could read between"
- EnoI suspect, that for those whom the article holds the most interest anyway, errors in product nomenclature are insignificant.
Fortunately, this thread gives me the chance to congratulate the author for producing such a fine report!
Thanks for addressing this.
looks about for a “thumbs up” emoticon
I am sorry I did not respond to this earlier. I don’t always check the Moog board frequently and rarely get messages on it. First, I would like to agree that material, expecially on equipment, on Rick Wright is very sparse. I also have a strong belief that equipment can reveal a lot about a band and musican. Particular synthesizers have become iconic such as the VCS3 and the Minimoog (I own a Voyager). If you look at Wright’s equipment it reveals very distinct periods. An experimental period harkening back to the days of Syd Barrett (may God rest his tortured soul), a more progressive type period that featured Wright heavily with some great Minimoog solos and VCS3 for drones (such as “Welcome to the Machine”) and then a period dictated by Wright’s temporary (and in some ways) permanent departure from the band beginning with the Wall and punctuated by “Wet Dream”, Wright’s first solo album.
I dont’ want to go into the details but an example is the use of the Kurzweil. All Kurzweil’s synths are samplers with some other methods thrown in like hard sync. These take the form of a large number of algorhythms, some of which are variations on signal flow but some involving alternative syntheesis methods. However, the signficant focus is on sampling and Wright put all his samples from the first two periods on this synth. A sign that Wright was not that interested in the creative process of the band (which he was not for a few albums starting with the Wall). It’s not that Kurweil’s can’t be used creativity but it was almost as if Wright wanted to freeze his classic sounds and make them easily accessible for concerts and less interested in exploring new territory. This is reflected in latter albums when he re-appears after the Wall and Final Cut.
The dynamics of what happened with the personalities in the band, especially Waters, are difficult to say. The Wall was clearly more a showcase of Waters with some strong showing from Gilmour.
You can find my blog on Wright here along with one on his “Broken China” as well as articles on Tangerine Dream, Tara Busch and a whole host of other topics including my dislike of additive synthesis (a very long story and my proud title as Ex-Member on the VirSyn board - I am so proud of that). I would never have taken such an interest in Wright were it not for the article and that seems to be more the point than technical accuracy regarding synthesizers as has been well expressed here. Much of what I say here is also speculation. If some here are looking for hard facts I suggest a book with footnotes so you can check all the references and know that an editor has reviewed it.
Anyway, I encourage equipment lists and personal facts. The PDF file reveals a lot about Wright and indeed Pink Floyd and as a composer/musican myself I care about equipment and like to know what equipment is being used in a song.
I would love to see more of this articles on Floyd or anything else. Equipment lists are most appreicated.
John M.
Allow me to identify myself as the author of the ‘Guide’ you so deftly debated, all those months ago.
The version of the document currently online is obsolete and indeed in desperate need of an update (where ‘update’ implies a healthy number of corrections as well as a few additions).
Thanasis
Hi Thanasis,
My name is Daniel Fisher. I guess I live on both sides of the fence as I’ve been playing Moogs since 1978 but I am also one of the biggest fans of Kurzweil synths and samplers.
(And for the record, the honorable Dr. Moog was also a fan and employee of Kurzweil…)
I would be very happy to help clean up the accuracy of the section relating to Pink Floyd’s Kurzweils.
In particular, the following paragraph belongs with the K2000 section and relates to their 1994 Pulse Tour and opposed to their 1987 Delicate Sound of Thunder Tour:
As a trivia sidenote, the Kurzweil series came with a built-in PINKFLYD program as a preset, which used 31 layers and almost every single parameter available to simulate “On the Run”. All of the sequence was created by means of triangle waves, square waves, and white noise, and was programming by Daniel Fisher (who was employed by Kurzweil as a result!). This was later demonstrated to the Floyd, who were sufficiently impressed to consider using it on the road, and switched to Kurzweil synths and samplers exclusively. To their own (and the audience’s) amusement, during the ‘performance’ of “On the Run” in 1987-89, the band blatantly left the Kurzweil playing the sequence on its own (with a red spotlight on it) while they disappeared from stage.
Some trivial issues: The “DarkSide” patch wasn’t actually built in to the Kurzweil. I made it and gave away about a hundred copies on floppy disc at a Winter NAMM in '93. I even hand drew the DSOM cover on each of them with markers. (Ah, youth…)
I was already employed at Kurzweil since 1992, but that patch got me a promotion from QA Tester to Soundware Engineer along with a nice raise.
And finally, if “On The Run” was really played by itself on stage during the 1987-89 tour, it couldn’t have been a K2000 as it first hit the streets around Christmas of 1991. So it was either a tape recording playing while a red light was on their keyboard, or it actually happened on the Pulse Tour years later.
Sincerely,
DemonDan
Interesting.
I think Wright was perhaps making a statement that his involvement in the band was of no consequence after and during the making of “The Wall”. Perhaps what he was saying was, K2000 or not, you might as well just put a computer out here and push a button because that is the extent of my involvement in the band.
Wright did have a few substantial contributions on the Wall. I recall Gilmore saying that although thew writing credits went mostly to Waters, there was a lot of uncredited labor. I believe he said the ethereal organ progression playing behind the famous guitar solo on Another Brick in the Wall Part II was Wright’s composition, for example, and the song certainly would have been much different without it. Wright did not play on The Final Cut.
Dan Fisher! I get yet another chance to give thanks. I have a K2000 and the first thing I did with it was load that Darkside patch. I’m a proponent of making one’s own sounds, but in that case, I’m happy with a download.
Back to Moog-related topics, the Kurzweil’s ability to use DSP waveforms goes a long way to getting the monophonic portamento solo sounds that Wright got with his Mini (think the screamer in the last parts of the Wish You Were Here suite), but … I’d still rather use a Moog.
I did know that Wright had some involvement on the Wall but that they did not credit him with composiion but I did not know about “Another Brick in the Wall”. Wright’s abscence on the next album and his own album clearly signal that iether he was unhappy or being pushed out, I am not sure which but the fact that he came back is perhaps something to do with Waters, who knows in the end.
What I heard about the Kurzweil is that it made it possible to create a sample library of old sounds. I did not know about the portamento. Kurzweil makes great synths and I had one but they are clearly not in the same general universe as a mini and I as well would prefer the mini.
Overall, after the Wall, I heard a clear shift in the band. I frankly like Floyds early period although the mini solos in the middle period before the wall are great. I would have loved to have heard what Wright would have done with a Voyager. May God rest his soul.