Support |
Did I hear you say you budget was...UNLIMITED?? WELL...Here's what I'd do (consider this a challenge): !st: Install a KYMA sytem from Symbolic Sound; it's a hardware processor that uses either a Mac or PC as the interface, but has its own audio and MIDI I/O for latency-free realtime audio processing. Besides allowing virtually unlimited realtime fx chains with every conceivable aspect modulatable by virtually anything and having a timeline-based operating system so that what was a delay/multifx chain a moment ago is now morphing into a rack of granular and analog synths (with plenty of juice left for fx on top of that), it also can use any aspect of your audio input signal to drive its endless synthesis engines, including pitch, volume, etc (real guitar synthesis at last)...oh, and list-member Dennis Leas is currently deep into a project designing dream-world emulations of all know looping devices for KYMA, and it will stream any-size samples to and from a hard drive in real time. This is the ULTIMATE dsp toy under 5 or 6 grand (see below, Italoop; sorry, VSig just can't compare...also, I'm assuming there's something unspeakably cool if you wanna dump 10 to 20 grand or more in one place; I just don't know what it is...), and it's only $3300 for a base system, but you'll want to add at least a Motor Mix or two with motorized faders for hands-off control; 2nd: Add an Eventide Orville, or at least an Eclipse or two, for those unparalleled spacey Eventide harmonies, delays, and reverbs; 3rd: Pick up a Kurzweil KSP8, which reads like an ultimate version of the beloved old Ensoniq DP4, which was very cool, but suffered from noisy modulation; online samples of Kurzweil processing will make your mouth water...check their site; 4th: to drive all this bliss machinery, a custom-made guitar or two each with RMC transducers for driving Roland VG processors and Axon or Yamaha MIDI interfaces (more for MIDI continuous fx-parameter control than to drive synths, you understand...) and Sustainiac or Sustainer circuitry for those EBow moments...Hmmm, I think one of these would be a baritone from either Timtone, Citron, Villette or Turner (oh, hell...one each, please) driving this new VG for Bass from Roland (to supplement my remote-controlled, sound-proof room full of tube amps and mics); 5th: I'd need a custom (Bradshaw?) foot controller, of course; and... 6th: for mixing, monitoring, and recording all this, I'd need a Switchblade to route and switch anything to anything, a Yamaha or Roland digital mixer/daw w/CD-recorder, and a few Waves L2 hardware limiters and Avalon or Grace preamps to keep everything tidy and rich level-wise... then I'd rest... dpc