Kier Darby

Once your studio has its fair share of boutique, analog and modular synths that you love to tinker with, and your virtual instrument collection is brimming, you may find yourself considering a multi-timbral hardware synth that can provide your bread and butter sounds, but also be a great instrument in its own right. You’ve narrowed your selection to Roland FANTOM and Yamaha MONTAGE , because you’ve heard that both can be a great centrepiece to a studio, or for a live rig. So which is better? There are a number of videos online on this subject , but they tend to focus on a fairly shallow review of which sounds better, rather than what these instruments are actually like to work with. I’ve owned both of these synths for several years, and I think that there are some important differences between them that tend not to get discussed in enough detail, so I have produced a video to do just that . Although my video compares the original 2017 MONTAGE with the 2019 FANTOM ,...

The Yamaha MONTAGE , MONTAGE M , MODX and MODX+ synthesizers work great with DAW software, but Yamaha's own documentation concerns itself primarily with its own DAW, Cubase , leaving Logic Pro users scratching their heads. This playlist is a comprehensive guide to getting the most out of your MONTAGE family synth with Logic Pro, covering subjects from basic setup, different ways to record MIDI and audio, working with multiple audio interfaces, MONTAGE connect, putting the DAW remote to use, using external controllers and even integrating virtual instruments into your performances. The videos are designed to be watched in order first time around. Skip ahead and you may miss a set-up that is required for the video you are watching. The Complete Playlist Individual Videos Initial setup Managing audio devices About MIDI Recording MIDI and audio together Recording an arpeggiated performance Recording multi-channel audio MONTAGE Connect (or MODX C...

Lots of covers of ABBA's Lay All Your Love On Me (1980) either miss off the final synth solo, or largely make it up as it is quite difficult to hear it clearly through the mix, but if you want to play it correctly, this is for you. Following on from the excellent video from Jérôme Pech , transcribing the synth part from the end of Lay All Your Love On Me , here I have completed the work to include the final four bars heard in the fade-out on the album version of the track. The sheet music for the complete synth part is available at the end of this video All credit to Jérôme Pech for doing the majority of the hard work here, as seen in his original video: https://youtu.be/pAEnenB-q2g Copyright for the original song belongs to ABBA, of course.

It was announced today that from 2012, broadcast rights for Formula One races will be shared between the current holder, BBC Sport, and Sky Sports. The BBC will show a selection of races live, including Monaco, Silverstone and the final race of the season, while Sky Sports (a premium rate pay-TV channel) will broadcast every single race. Twitter is fuming with rage over the announcement, and I felt compelled to make a formal complaint: As a license fee payer, I would like to make abundantly clear that I find the newly announced Formula One broadcast arrangements abhorrent. BBC Sport director Barbara Slater's 'delight' over the matter fills me with ire, as I know of not a single follower of F1 that will share her sentiments. This is a monumental betrayal of those that have supported the BBC and F1 in recent years, and an appalling slight to the BAFTA award-winning production team and presenters that have raised the sport to its current heights. No, broadcasting 's...

The Facebook Like  button is ever more prevalent, with countless uses all over the web, but many site administrators will want to control the way that 'Likes' for their sites appear on users' news feeds, in particular by specifying their own logo or graphic to accompany the story. In order to do this, Facebook requires that the 'Liked' page participate in the Open Graph , so that an Open Graph image can be specified. This is a relatively straight-forward affair, involving the addition of a collection of <meta> tags defining og: properties (which, annoyingly don't validate as compliant HTML, but that's another story), but there is one requirement that appears  to have been added after the initial roll-out, as pages that omitted it worked before and then suddenly stopped working. That requirement is for the specification of fb:app_id or fb:admins in order to provide administrative authority for your pages within the Open Graph. While fb:app_id (A...

For the most part I play badminton with bare feet. This may draw gasps of horror from some players, who question whether I end up with blisters and burns and twisted ankles, but I have never had any of those things. In fact, the last time I put my badminton shoes on, I quickly ended up with a sprained ankle due to the higher centre of gravity and less-stable platform provided by padded footwear. At the risk of stating the obvious, playing badminton barefoot is not the same as playing with shoes. It's not possible to simply plant a foot and rely on the mechanical grip of the sole to begin a change of direction. It's also imperative to keep legs flexed and weight forward so that contact with the floor is primarily through the forefoot, as landing on, or striking the floor with heels is not to be advised. A light step and swift footwork are required to move effectively around the court. While sliding and heavy landings are precluded, jumping and agility at the net are gre...