cosmicevan wrote:
go on...
...I too, have dreams of Lyra 8. One day I'll get one...or at least get to try one.
I struggle with traditional synthesizer/drum machine interfaces- it’s the programming, I think. Even after spending time learning how to build a sound on a Moog or the sequencer on an Elektron device or whatever, there is always this distance between a sound I want to make and actually producing that sound through the instrument. For some people it seems like they get used to it and the process ends up coloring their original intention in wonderful ways. For me, it colors it in not so flattering ways. I don’t know how to explain this well- it’s like I am thinking about how the patch is structured, how the sequence is built, etc. on a technical level and by the time I’m done, I don’t even remember what the feeling was behind the original intention to make the sound. Consequently, it ends up sounding really formulaic. Even dull or generic, like a demo of the device and not actual music.
I often contrast this with playing guitar, where there is no programming most of the time, I’m just playing it. This is a lot more fun for me.
And so I come across a video for the Pulsar 23 where Vlad is live looping these little patterns and it’s immediate and playful, and the sound is lively and elastic, and you can just stick little alligator clips wherever you want to do whatever you want and unclip them if you don’t like it!
So then I watch another video, and another, and then pretty much anything Soma related, which is how I learn of the Lyra 8, and it’s another very intuitive, expressive, lively instrument that isn’t a guitar.
Then I read the manuals and went to the Soma site and read Vlads philosophy behind all this stuff and decided, okay, you know what, fuck it. I can either spend the next few years feeling awkward interfacing with my current gear or just go head first into this new Soma weirdness.
So that’s what I’m going to do- I’m going to dedicate my time exclusively to learning these two instruments together and see what happens.
