The Boards Electric Piano Sound

Fri Oct 09, 2009 6:39 pm

I've only recently got into BoC but I've got quite a lot of their material already. One of the things which struck me is their electric piano sound. To their credit they have not used a Rhodes like so many other electronic artists; the BoC electric piano sound is tinkly like the chimes of an ice-cream van.

I've tried working out what makes that sound. It doesn't sound much like any electric piano I know of (and I used to own a Hohner Pianet T). It could be some other really obscure keyboard like a Weltmeister Claviset/Selmer Pianotron or even a Hohner Cembalet though I suspect it's not really an electric piano at all but a synth patch.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks for looking.

Fri Oct 09, 2009 7:13 pm

this is not the droid you are looking for.

no but i think it has more to do with the treatment of the sounds recorded and less about the gear.
experimenting,trial and error. there are several ways achieve sounds that emulate theirs.

Fri Oct 09, 2009 7:18 pm

There's quite a bit of real piano in what they do. A lot of their sound is rooted in simple sources, warped by very unique, complex production. IE: A lot of their more unique synth sounds use samples of real flutes and other instruments as the waveform, and some sounds that seem synthetic aren't at all...just manipulated recordings.

Last edited by Skytree on Fri Oct 09, 2009 7:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Fri Oct 09, 2009 7:18 pm

Skytree wrote:There's quite a bit of real piano in what they do. A lot of their sound is rooted in simple sources warped by very unique, complex production.

indeed

Fri Oct 09, 2009 8:09 pm

Yes, I'd spotted the acoustic piano in "Roygbiv" and "Olson" and it's always nice to hear, even though as you say they use a lot of signal processing on the original sound sources.

I once played a flute through a distortion pedal and it sounded pretty good IMO...

It would be great to find that the lads have an old Hohner Cembalet in the arsenal, though.

Fri Oct 09, 2009 8:14 pm

Skytree wrote:There's quite a bit of real piano in what they do. A lot of their sound is rooted in simple sources, warped by very unique, complex production. IE: A lot of their more unique synth sounds use samples of real flutes and other instruments as the waveform, and some sounds that seem synthetic aren't at all...just manipulated recordings.

True indeed (they also stated this in interviews)!

Fri Oct 09, 2009 10:04 pm

Archrival wrote:
Skytree wrote:There's quite a bit of real piano in what they do. A lot of their sound is rooted in simple sources, warped by very unique, complex production. IE: A lot of their more unique synth sounds use samples of real flutes and other instruments as the waveform, and some sounds that seem synthetic aren't at all...just manipulated recordings.

True indeed (they also stated this in interviews)!

That reminds me...I meant to apologize for getting frustrated with you a few years ago on WATMM, Archrival. Hope all is well...rest assured no ill will remains on my end. (:

mucephei wrote:I once played a flute through a distortion pedal and it sounded pretty good IMO....

Nice! Flute/recorders/penny whistles are extremely under-rated, IMO. You should try running them through a good looper (I'm partial to the Memory Man), if you haven't done it before...absolutely sublime.

Fri Oct 09, 2009 11:09 pm

I agree with everyone here - post-processing + using acoustic sounds as waveforms are the answer.

Myself, I've always had a hard time creating a sound by processing versus spending WAY too long on a single synth patch - probably the man reason I sold all my synths.

Sat Oct 10, 2009 12:05 am

Totally! Modern samplers are much more powerful and give more interesting results than synthesizers.
You've got all the parameters and envelopes of a synthesizer but you can use any sound as the source instead of a crude, simple square, saw, or sine wave. So the result is stuff that has a lot more richness and dynamics. This is key I think in most boc tracks, creative sampling and the nuance it provides.

Also most classic synthesizers are classic because they're oscillators / waveforms sound good, so instead of buying these synths for 2000 bucks you can just find their raw waveforms on the internet and drop em into your sampler, filter em, tweak envelopes etc and it works out real well most of the time.

Sat Oct 10, 2009 1:05 am

vibraphone

Sat Oct 10, 2009 11:10 am

I can swear we discussed this before

Sat Oct 10, 2009 11:33 am

You ain'ts wrong :0
http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.p ... 05&start=0

http://www.synthmania.com/Korg%20MS2000 ... trings.mp3 ... is it just me who hears amo bishop roden here? Other than the fact they start on the same chord.. haha.

Sat Oct 10, 2009 1:30 pm

Skytree wrote:
Archrival wrote:
Skytree wrote:There's quite a bit of real piano in what they do. A lot of their sound is rooted in simple sources, warped by very unique, complex production. IE: A lot of their more unique synth sounds use samples of real flutes and other instruments as the waveform, and some sounds that seem synthetic aren't at all...just manipulated recordings.

True indeed (they also stated this in interviews)!

That reminds me...I meant to apologize for getting frustrated with you a few years ago on WATMM, Archrival. Hope all is well...rest assured no ill will remains on my end. (:

mucephei wrote:I once played a flute through a distortion pedal and it sounded pretty good IMO....

Nice! Flute/recorders/penny whistles are extremely under-rated, IMO. You should try running them through a good looper (I'm partial to the Memory Man), if you haven't done it before...absolutely sublime.

Thats beautiful to hear, thanks a lot, its so strong to apologize (takes some major balls) and that just shows that you must be in a good spirit (happy about that) to have energy over to spread positive energy to others. I apologize for my silly behaviour aswell, we have all become older and wiser. Have a lovely day and weekend! Wish you the best with the music project aswell, heard a lovely tune from yours with some singing that I can't remember the name of but anyway lovely song!

Sat Oct 10, 2009 3:50 pm

Techboy wrote:You ain'ts wrong :0
http://www.twoism.org/forum/viewtopic.p ... 05&start=0

http://www.synthmania.com/Korg%20MS2000 ... trings.mp3 ... is it just me who hears amo bishop roden here? Other than the fact they start on the same chord.. haha.

I did search for this - it's not exactly a novel idea I admit - but couldn't find anything in the archive.

It could well be a vibraphone....

Mon Oct 12, 2009 12:21 pm

I recently had to get a certain non-release because I heard 5.9.78 on youtube. I was wondering about the flute samples in that. Has anything been written here before about this song? Sorry is this question seems extra noobish but a search didn't reveal much even using google.

Mon Oct 12, 2009 12:35 pm

That song and video is genius.

I want that song in a Campfire Headphase production style...or why not a new 2009-2010 style version by them of that song (those melodies!)?

Mon Oct 12, 2009 1:06 pm

oh wow, that 5.9.78 video is wonderful!

Mon Oct 12, 2009 1:32 pm

bleak. wrote:oh wow, that 5.9.78 video is wonderful!

My favorite BOC themed video, for sure

Wed Oct 14, 2009 3:12 pm

yeh it actually inspired me to join these forums.. A really beautiful video..

I swear I joined them a few years ago though... or maybe it was some other BOC forums..

anyone know if this track has been discussed before?

Sun Mar 28, 2010 9:02 am

I'm beginning to think that the "piano" is a guitar, which has been run through a shitload of electronics. I was looking at the Electro-Harmonix website where they have links to Youtube videos such as this one for their effects boxes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ouX_r5lfBk