I have had this from Keith:You will be aware that the third Fun Challenge set by Peter Slack was Forever Autumn from The War Of The Worlds. I have always enjoyed this music and although I already had the music for Forever Autumn found that Peter Slack also had the music for The Eve Of The War and through his friend Tony, I was able to get the music for Thunder Child.
I decided that it would be fun, and perhaps of interest to the AR Group, if I played this music using nothing but the Roland Fantom XR. I remember some time ago a member being interested in the Fantom but being concerned that Roland did not list all of the voices. The fact of the matter is that there are too many to list in any meaningful sort of way and the names they are given are more a way of identifying a file rather than being a meaningful description. I have scanned two of the six pages of melodic voices supplied with the Fantom – there are a further six pages of rhythm voices. Each patch (voice) has a name and a category so patch 004 in the User Group is The Vortex and is in category Synth FX. This is one of the voices I have used.
I have used a total of twelve registrations which I made with the help of my laptop – easier that just working direct with the Fantom. The upper manual was used for the main melody. The lower manual was split into three so, for example, ray guns and explosions were on the left, accompaniment in the middle and alternative melody on the right. The pedals had the same two voices throughout. I would recommend good speakers or headphones to get the full effect of the music.
I wanted to use largely electronic sounds to give a suitable science fiction feel to the piece and I certainly indulged myself with the ray guns etc. when sinking the Thunder Child. This is very much my interpretation of the music so Forever Autumn is much more sad and pensive than the original speed would allow.
The recording was made live in several parts. It would be nice to be able to make a control track or edit as you can when recording the organ as a midi file but I have yet to find a way of doing this. There is one particularly clumsy registration change in The Eve Of The War but I do not think that it detracts too much. It was not possible to use the organ drum box but as the music benefits from a free interpretation and some of the music goes 4/4 and then 3/4 it was no great loss. I am, however, looking into ways of adding manual percussion after the main recording.
You can view (and print) the 'patch list' by clicking on this LINK:
The 'Patch' List (PDF File)Click each of thes LINKS to listen to Keith's 'Performances'. A 'left-click' and choosing 'Open' will listen to the piece directly. By choosing 'Save' you can save to somewhere on your hard disk to listen to later (preferred option). Or you can also do a 'right-click' and choose 'Save Target As...' to download the music to your hard disk. To listen later just find the file and 'double-click' on it. If you are told 'Windows cannot open this file' you will have to have to instruct your computer to run MP3 files with eg. Windows Media Player.
The Eve Of The War (MP3 File)Thunder Child (MP3 File)Forever Autumn (MP3 File) I know that most organists buy the Roland Fantom XR as the means of playing the Theatre Pipe Organ In A Box (TPOIAB) sounds available from Transformation Technology. This is not, however, the only reason to have a Fantom. It is a fantastic expansion box for any organ and I only recently learned that Reg Rawlings has now found someone who can enable the Yamaha AR to access all of the registrations direct from the organ.
Keith
