Nick Rhodes - sequencer player

[NancyJohnson]

7 hours ago, ambient said:

Richard Barbieri is a brilliant synthesist. I’ve seen him a few times, I love his solo work and his work with porcupine tree.

Just to follow on from this, I asked on said forum whether Richard Barbieri had any formal keyboard training pre-Japan.  Now what follows is quite brilliant.  Rob Dean (Guitar/Japan) confirmed Mr Barbieri was working in a bank when he joined Japan.  Interestingly, Richard Barbieri also chipped in - and he's in hospital today having his gall bladder removed - and remarked that he 'was just getting the hang of it when [we] split up'.

What a bloke.

[xgsjx]

I liked DuranDuran.  The songs were good, the singist can sing, the bassist played some fantastic basslines & the keys guy made me want things I couldn't afford (hence taking up bass).

I've always loved synths & synth bands.  I don't know how any of Depeche Mode would fare against a good pianist, but that's not what synths are about.  It's sound creation.

[Maude]

1 hour ago, xgsjx said:

I liked DuranDuran.  The songs were good, the singist can sing, the bassist played some fantastic basslines & the keys guy made me want things I couldn't afford (hence taking up bass).

I've always loved synths & synth bands.  I don't know how any of Depeche Mode would fare against a good pianist, but that's not what synths are about.  It's sound creation.

I love Vince Clarke era DM and Yazoo. A real synth pioneer but this is what he said in a recent interview, 

"I’ve always written on the guitar - I still do, even today. I’m not a good-enough keyboard player to write on the synth. After I left Depeche Mode, I started writing with a Roland MC-4, for me that was more important than the computer or the synth, because it was the first time I’d been allowed to make music that I couldn’t physically play. I wasn’t limited by how good a musician I was. Like I said, I was never a great keyboard player, but with the sequencer, I could play anything I wanted". 

[Barking Spiders]

13 hours ago, xgsjx said:

I liked DuranDuran.  The songs were good, the singist can sing, the bassist played some fantastic basslines & the keys guy made me want things I couldn't afford (hence taking up bass).

I've always loved synths & synth bands.  I don't know how any of Depeche Mode would fare against a good pianist, but that's not what synths are about.  It's sound creation.

When synth stuff emerged it was a breath of fresh air after the guitar band format had long since got stale. And since the much of the most creative and inventive music has been made with samplers, sequencers  and programming especially when the software or equipment is bespoke . To be a proficient electronic musician you need to be pretty savvy viz writing programmes and  tinkering with electronics, which I find more challenging than merely picking strings.

Edited August 9, 2018 by Barking Spiders

[xgsjx]

I'd like to try & get a synth band together.  Have a drummer that plays an MPC or similar.  I've a funny feeling I'd need to live somewhere like London to get people with the same mindset.  I'll be lucky to get a band that doesn't play the usual bunch of covers.  😂

[jazzmanb]

On 7/8/2018 at 20:38, kusee pee said:

A synth legend.  As well as playing, he was very creative and also heavily into the production.  The sounds he brought to the first two DD albums brought so much atmosphere which allowed the rest of the instruments to shine against a lush background.  Probably the hardest spot to fill in a DD tribute IMO.

Thanks Nick 

[Woodinblack]

I think these people live anywhere - there are groups around that do synth stuff. There is a group near here that just do 80s covers, which is a lot of synth pop stuff, and this is nowhere.

[ambient]

On 08/08/2018 at 22:35, Maude said:

I love Vince Clarke era DM and Yazoo. A real synth pioneer but this is what he said in a recent interview, 

"I’ve always written on the guitar - I still do, even today. I’m not a good-enough keyboard player to write on the synth. After I left Depeche Mode, I started writing with a Roland MC-4, for me that was more important than the computer or the synth, because it was the first time I’d been allowed to make music that I couldn’t physically play. I wasn’t limited by how good a musician I was. Like I said, I was never a great keyboard player, but with the sequencer, I could play anything I wanted". 

Check out the programme synth Britannia, it's really good; all about synth bands from the late 70s up until the mid 80s.

[ambient]

 

 

 

Edited August 9, 2018 by ambient

[darkandrew]

That would be a tough one to audition for since a lot of his live parts were produced in the studio and sampled for live use, playing them back on his Kurzweil K series synth / sampler. To be honest, I can't see a lot wrong with doing that; I don't think it's being dishonest or duping the audience for example, after all these multi-layered textures are an intrinsic part of the songs and the songs wouldn't be the same without them. There's also some intersting YouTube clips that Alan Wilder (Depeche Mode keyboard player for most of the 80s and early 90s) posted when he was having a clear-out of his old gear, where he demos his Emax samplers and you see exactly what parts were sampled for live use, and you can see that even with samples, loops, etc mapped out on the keyboard, there's a lot more to playing it live than just pressing a button.

Edited August 10, 2018 by darkandrew

[kusee pee]

13 hours ago, jazzmanb said:

Thanks Nick 

Busted 🤫

[Maude]

17 hours ago, ambient said:

Check out the programme synth Britannia, it's really good; all about synth bands from the late 70s up until the mid 80s.

I've seen it a couple of times, BBC4 weekends, usually has some good stuff

[MacDaddy]

Be careful what you post on Basschat!

TBF be careful what you post on line in general, but our little community can create an atmosphere of intimacy, which unfortunately is not exclusive. 

Point being, a number of years ago, I was rather bemused to find a post i'd written in a Basschat thread on DD, had been pasted vertabim on a DD fan site. 

[markdavid]

On 08/08/2018 at 21:19, xgsjx said:

 

I've always loved synths & synth bands.  I don't know how any of Depeche Mode would fare against a good pianist, but that's not what synths are about.  It's sound creation.

This is a very good point.

I think Nick Rhodes is a very important part of Duran Duran, imagine The Chaffeur without his synth part, even the part in the first verse that sounds like someone doing slides on a bass are synth, Save a prayer also features his synth very prominently, there are many others i could mention.