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Article: LISA COLEMAN - The Revolution's Keyboardist on Prince and the Power of Presets Check out the article published by Keyboard entitled "LISA COLEMAN - The Revolution's Keyboardist on Prince and the Power of Presets": http://www.keyboardmag.co...sets/63741 | |
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I love the background information on the keyboards and synths | |
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Very nice article indeed | |
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Nice read,thanks for sharing | |
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Prince’s music is as fresh today as it was back when you recorded and performed it with him. What was it like revisiting some of those iconic keyboard parts all these years later?
It’s been great. As much as possible, we’ve been using the original gear to play the music with. On the first few gigs, we were able to get pretty much all of the old stuff from friends. We had Oberheims and ARP Omnis, and things like that. Our friend Mike Hagen has an incredible collection of keyboards, so he loaned us a few things. But hitting the road, they were too precious to take on-tour. I did recently get the Dave Smith Instruments OB-6, and I’ve been able to edit the sounds to get them close to the original ones. Between myself and Matt Fink and a few others in the so-called “Minneapolis Sound,” we really came-up in a great time for keyboards and synthesizers. We made those Oberheims and other keyboards part of the sound of the 1980’s. Prince was so great at taking a factory preset and just blasting it. He made it really confront you. So we weren’t afraid of presets. Plus, they weren’t overused at that time. But those keyboards had such personality. They have such a specific sound. The new digital copies are pretty good, but there are certain things they won’t do, and they don’t respond the same way. They’re just different. Those keyboards were true instruments.
There’s a humanity to them.
You’re absolutely right. And I miss that about them. You can’t dig-in the way you could before. I’m advocating for more of that. Bring them back! What are your go-to keyboards these days?
Well, because of the nature of what I do in the scoring world, most directors and producers like good, old fashioned things like strings and piano. Some shows will tolerate some synth work, but it tugs at your ear. I use the Native Instruments Kontakt Player a lot, as well as Spectrasonics Omnisphere constantly. But while my career has taken me into places where I have needed to play more electronic and electric things, I still see myself as a piano player. I’ve been a holdout for years, just using my old Wurlitzer and my Hammond B3 organ as much as possible, using pedals and kind of freaking-out a little bit. But my love is still the acoustic piano. That’s where I live, mainly.
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Yep!!! Those OLD Synths!!! Once, when I jammed w/a certain Doctor here in Seattle, another "Minneapolis Sound" Alum loaned Him an Oberheim for the Show.....it was AMAZEBALLZ!!!
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