I’m pretty sure had Alex been alive in the 60’s he would have been Senior Sound Director for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, smoked a pipe and worn a bowtie. Keep on being awesome, Mr Ball, your videos are the finest of their class.
@AlexBallMusic hi I love your videos there so great. I'm a big fan but can you please add more instruments in your videos that are not synthesizers please I want to see more instruments plus I believe it could be better sense younger generations would learn about something from back then.
@@adrianarencibia2716you’re on thin ice, bub. Coming in here and asking for LESS synth? You know what kinda beating we gave guys like you in the service?
How on earth you manage to take a flawed instrument that sank a company, and turn out a bunch of tunes with it that are all commercially viable as pop songs, is really quite astonishing! You really have far too much talent, Mr. Ball!! 🙂 Great video as always!
High school jazz band, ca. 1982. We had an Odyssey MkIII and I saw photos of the Avatar. It inspired my first build as "Silent Knight Productions" of a bass guitar interface to control an Arp MSL. Perfect project for a high school electronics nerd, a zener diode "gate" to trigger the envelope, and a home-brew freq-2-volt converter for CV in. Impressive as hell to the backline when we played "Chameleon", not so impressive to our director. Damn, that was over 40 years ago! Plenty of gear out there now doing a better job of it. Thanks for this great demo, by the way! Ah, the memories...
I wandered into a guitar shop in 1977 and wasted a half hour of the salesman's time looking over this thing. Really wanted one, but he was so pissed off when I said that the oscillator was all but useless; but that hex fuzz had a sound that's stayed with me all these many years since. Thanks for showing it to us again! And by the way; I just cannot figure out why the hex fuzz effects on my Roland VG-99 don't come anywhere near this great sound. Something missing that I simply cannot figure out...
The Avatar, driven by an ARP sequencer, is the sound of EBM legends Deutsche Americanische Freundschaft. Nice to hear what it sounds like as a guitar synth, as I've only ever heard it used as a kind of module version of the Odyssey.
The same combo is on Escape from New York! Thanks for the tip off, I didn't know about DAF. The guitar synth is a whole other side of it that really hasn't been showcased a anywhere before. I was determined to get it repaired and find out what it does.
well, i didn´t know that - i bought me a second hand arp axxe in the very early 80s and although the plastic keys were really bad and clumsy, i always liked the powerful filters and the sound of it in general (cool bass for instance) - when DAF came out, i liked them a lot and even saw them live (as a duo) and wondered how they managed to get their typical synth sound, which reminded me of my good old axxe - now i just read this here and had to smile, when i read, they actually used an arp synth, haha... btw.: a while ago i bought me a retro arp 2600 plug-in by arturia - it´s a digital synth, ok, but it does have the typical arp flavour... :-) second btw.: the arp axxe had an audio-in plug and we always put a cheapy, cheesy "tiger" organ into that, so we could play that synth polyphonically, hmmm, almost - i only put in a guitar once, just before that synth broke down completely, and i never used that feature for my voice - that idea came too late....... thank you for the information, i´m still smiling... :-) love and greetings from germany
Wasn't it an arp and an SQ10? If you are correct it would make some sense as the SQ10 is a brutal sequencer to play live as the tuning is so fiddly and changing melodies would kill!
@@piynubbunyip I think they used the ARP sequencer, which has a pitch quantise function. They also had a Korg MS20 and the MS50 expander. The MS20 was pretty much a standard piece of equipment in the Neue Deutsche Welle bands of the time, while the MS50 looks very similar to the SQ10 sequencer. They often had a female friend of the band who pretended to operate the Korgs when they played live, but in reality used a backing tape with Robert Gőrl playing drums live.
@@chriswareham Much more logical in reality. Reminds me of listening to polygon window and hearing the sequenced tom tuning and presuming Richard had cv on his TR-808 but in reality it was just an R-8
A bit ambitious for it's time perhaps.... still cool! Taking this opportunity to say RIP Vangelis. His work influenced my synth journey from the late 70s onwards - hugely inspirational with the awesome world building he created with electronic sound :) blew my young mind when everything was orchestra and wah wah guitar pedals!
Attempted several years too early, yes. A range of Hex effects without the synth would probably have been the way to go, but that's easy to say with hindsight. Vangelis - indeed. One of a kind.
I owned one back in 1978-1979. It came with a great book which was an introduction to synthesis called "Learning Music with Synthesizers" by Alan Pearlman. The knobs on each slider were always cracking in half and breaking off. I'm surprised to see the knobs are in one piece on yours. I sold mine to buy a Roland GR500 system along with GS500 guitar controller. They each had their own kind of charm.
@@AlexBallMusic I loved the Hex Fuzz and used that a lot. But the synth just couldn't track properly. That why I sold it for the Roland GR500. Which again couldn't track properly. Eventually I gave up on the idea of guitar synths and ended buying a Korg MS-20 & SQ-10 Sequencer and a Roland 808. At time I really didn't think much of the MS-20 or even the Roland 808 I owned. I kick myself all the time when I see how much all those old synths and effects I once owned sell for these days! There are only 2 synth I wish I still owned, Roland Jupiter 4 (sold) and the Roland MC-202 (someone stole from me). I contacted ARP about those plastic knobs that were constantly breaking and they sent me a whole bag filled with them. I must of had 200 or 300 of those knobs back in the day! You really brought me back in time with this video. Thanks for the trip down memory lane! Here's a link to the book I mentioned. You can even download it as a pdf file. This book taught me Synthesis! "Learning Music with Synthesizers" by Alan Pearlman thesnowfields.com/manuals/LearnMusicWithSynths1974.pdf
First off, kudos: "Right Back Round" is just chock full of energy and FUN! Not to mention, great lyrics! Second, everything I hear from the "hex" stuff and the envelope follower are total ear candy for me. Those sounds would have been enough of a product on their own, IMO. Anyway, thanks for the great Friday vibes, Alex!
Thank you Rob! Yes, the guitar sounds are really cool and the synth sounds are really cool. Just not when they're combined. Almost two separate products in one box.
Love that opening composition. Reminds me of the early 80’s movies I so love. 🥰🎸🎹👍 Your channel is UA-cam at its best. Amazingly informative, highly creative, and thoroughly entertaining.
@@AlexBallMusic Yeah lol but honestly it sounds like an intro to some late 70s snooker or darts TV coverage. Sideburns, cigaretes, guys in their early 30s looking like 50 year olds and so on...😂😁
In theory you could get a Roland GK unit and pickup with the associated cables, harvest a suitable plug and wire it to a set of six basic fuzz circuits (possibly harvested from those tiny Mooer or Donner pedals) running in parallel. If you want to go down the digital emulation route you'd need an audio interface with six inputs and a custom cable but it's possible
I bought one of these back in the day! It was my first real synth. I brought home a brand new Avatar and a Roland Space Echo. It was like being in heaven.
I love the song at 7:53. It sounds like something from a random japanese electronic album released in 1983 that just got popular through youtube. Stellar video per usual Alex
I was actually daydreaming this morning about having a hex guitar setup and suddenly this fantastic video appears. Hexaphonic guitar processing seems like such an underutilised territory in music. The riff at 4:33 is so cool. The song at the end was a banger as well!
Yeah, I feel like it could be great for 8 string players who tune really low. If they were running the lowest strings through a hex setup you could easily improve the definition on those strings and stop them mushing up a high gain sound with too many overtones that would otherwise clash with the middle register like happens with regular guitar distortion.
I have a strat-style guitar Casio put out in the mid '80s with a hex pickup and midi output. It has the same variable lag problem, but it can still be useful live for sounds with slow attacks like strings and pads. In a recording situation it doesn't matter so much because the midi data can always be quantized or nudged around if needed. The thing I find strangest with it is that while it can make the guitar have the tone of practically any instrument, it doesn't sound 100% convincing a lot of the time because the performance is still limited by what chord voicings can actually be pulled off on a guitar. I can connect it to best piano patch ever made, but a lot of the time the result wouldn't sound like a part a pianist would actually play. On the other hand, if you're looking for a different way to approach voicing a part, especially for more abstract synth patches, then it's definitely something cool to experiment with
Very interesting! This is the first time I've seen the Avatar used as I guess the designers intended. I even owned an Avatar and used it for years as a module Odyssey.
I’ve waited ever since the internet was invented for this video. Thank you! It was perfect. That song was AMAZING! I have an Avatar as well, though it is missing the pickup. I have modified mine for the tone being so it can use a standard 1/4” input. I’m missing out on the stereo text fuzz though. I bought a hex pickup to install on a guitar but I let that project pile up on the back burner. This video was the inspiration I needed!
Another Avatar warrior! I salute you. Yes, worth getting the Hex stuff going. I hope you manage to find the time and that it cooperates. I've actually got a breakout box coming for mine made by Series Circuits that is 6 jack inputs to 6-pin Din so that I can run any six signals through it!
@@AlexBallMusic I had initially planned to make my own breakout box as well, but not with the inputs like you're talking about. That sounds very cool! My plan was just to have a guitar with a hex pickup (I found an unusual source for them, cheap, btw), going to a breakout box that will simultaneously split the signal to a mixer circuit to pan each string to stereo outputs, send them to direct outputs and to send the 6 signals to the Avatar as well. I might try to see about making a box like this, which will take an input from my old Roland guitars (G-505 and G-707), but finding a connector would be impossible, without having to scavenge one off a US-2 that I have, but never use.
Wow that Hex fuzz sounds so good. Brilliant video Alex, I’m a big ARP fan so it’s great to see this instrument being used fully. That song at the end was pop perfection as well 👌🏻
I feel the strongest purpose of any "instrument" is to be the thing that it was designed to be... I never realised it until about 1 year ago, but with all the synthesiser I've owned over the years, I've been yearning for the sound of a Rhodes piano & while many synthesisers do an admirable job at creating a facsimile, they're not a Rhodes piano... I understand why companies/people recreate popular instruments, or modify one instrument to be like another, but I feel that every instrument wants to be (for the most part) itself... * No instruments were anthropomorphised in the writing of this comment.
It's a good point. One thing I forgot to mention is that a string doesn't vibrate consistently - it bends sharp on attack and then gradually shifts back as it slows. When an oscillator tries to track that it sounds all wobbly, like it needs servicing. An keyboard (analogue or digital) gives it a solid fixed voltage. Another reason why the two don't gel so well. But the Hex stuff and envelope follower are really great. It's kind of two separate products in one box.
I feel the opposite way about instruments having a sound vs synths... people used to use a metal or glass slide to turn their guitar into a synth. You were trying to make your synths sound like a Rhodes, and I was using the Rhodes sound on my digital piano as a "synth oscillator", with fx to make it sound completely different. I don't think the Rhodes sound is any kind of natural archetype. Culturally, it is, definitely - if the synth can make a good Rhodes sound, then they'd better include it as an early preset. I just imagined, though, from the viewpoint that for every instrument there's a sound that is its purest expression... then a physical modeling synth would be like an abomination, a Frankenstein monster of an instrument. Yet I keep running into stories about people who kept the same patch on their synth forever. One was a famous Buchla user😂! I suppose they found the sound their synth was meant to make. I still like relic-ing my "normal" instrument sounds. Oh well. Horses for courses. The initial pitch wobble from strings of the electric guitar reminds me of the EaganMatrix's "round initial" feature. It works as advertised on the playing surface (it rounds your first touch to the nearest scale tone, and then you can bend pitch from there), but I don't know whether there's a way to integrate that feature with a guitar as input device, either via MIDI or CV. In 2022, there must already be a perfect guitar/synth interface, no?😮😂
@@GizzyDillespee the unique sound of the Rhodes is the strange single coil magnetic pickup picking up the sound of piano strings ( which is believe are a different gauge than a standard piano string ) going through a fender style tone capacitor. No active electronics or preamps involved. A synthesizer can come somewhat close to it, but those passive magnetic pickups picking up the piano strings is a very unique sound. Synthesizers can't really replicate the harmonic distortion of them. A synth can probably get about 95% there
@@knives_on_static Not quite but close, there were no strings in the Rhodes, it used metal tines which were a bit like tuning forks, these would be hit by the hammers and the vibration would be converted into an electronic signal by the pickups. it was the tines that gave the Rhodes it almost bell-like sound.
Very interesting video/demo! I didn't know much about the Avatar, let alone its guitar side. Thanks for taking the time to show it to us! Then end song "Right Back Round" is pretty darn good, with a Rush/Yes flavour from the eighties. Pure delight. Thanks Alex!
Thanks Alain, I thought it would be a fun one to cover as nobody has ever done it! Understandable given the fact that the guitar peripherals are often lost. Song - thank you. Been a fan of Alex Lifeson for a long time, but can't play like him.
Wonderful music! The Arp Avatar is not on my wish list, but I really appreciate videos that cover all of these old cool pieces of gear. Excellent job as always.
Great job! I still have the ARP Avatar in-store advertisement with the flexidisk. It made my teenage mind VERY excited about where things were going. Then...
Loving all the jams in this video 🤘 This machine gives me such Roxy Music/David Bowie Heroes vibes. A shame it was a failure for Arp, but they managed to get the pitch tracking more accurate than what I can manage with the MS20 external input, so there's that going for it lol.
Fantastic demo Alex. This is the first time I have ever heard an ARP Avatar played with a guitar like it was originally intended. I borrowed one from a friend, but it was never used with a guitar. The Avatar was treated like an ARP Odyssey expander to partner an ARP Axxe using the CV and Gate. It sounded great for Jean Michel Jarre style sequencing when controlled by a Roland TB303 Bassline used as a sequencer.
That was the most complete and honest video about the Avatar I have ever seen! Back in the days I did not have the budget to buy a questionable novelty, which also required modding my guitar for a hex pickup. So instead I bought the Korg Pitch to CV converter, which even had more issues than the Avatar. A pitch follower is not accurate and stable, in the end it was an affordable failure, haha!
Thank you! Yes, I was determined to get to the bottom of this one. I've used the Korg X-911 and it was quite weird, yeah! But it was small and inexpensive as you say! The Avatar was really expensive, which also helped kill it.
What an incredible sounding machine. I can't believe I hadn't heard of this before. Too bad about the problems it has, because it's sooooo rad sounding.
I've read about the Avatar so many times over the years, and I can't believe I finally get to hear it in such a great way. This is a truly excellent demo, and I really appreciate you taking the time to do this!
I don’t know why but this reminded me a bit of a Roland guitar synth controller I used to see a guy play live with in the late 80’s. Bizarre sounds but fun. I’d love to see you play one. Also, RIP Vangelis :( Great vid as always.
Heard all of the outro song, it has an amazing production quality of recording, arranging and composing, man you´re very talented!! The ARP sounds amazing on this video also.
Another most fun and insightful clip 🤗. What a charmingly awkward piece of gear. You definitely gave it a chance to shine its little light out into the world. Well done! 😊 I'm in love with the feature song, and if I may add, the vintage photos (of what I assume was their initial presentation/demonstration of the Avatar) during the climax were so beautifully placed that I had a little tear in my eye.
I watch this kind of videos for their content but the music always leaves me unimpressed. The intro piece, on the contrary, is a wonderful piece of music, thank you, the counterpoints are beautiful, you are great.
Sounds like the pitch-to-CV delay is due to it waiting for two full waves of the input signal to use in its calculations, which yes, REALLY laggy-a standard low E on the guitar has a period of less than 20ms, so to get double that delay is a big ouch. If they had the Roland GR-300's pitch-to-voltage system, it would turned out a lot better, IMO.
Correct as said .Low E on guitar is tuned @ 82Hz which translates to {1/82} 12mSec time and all analog pitch-to-CV systems need AT LEAST two cycles {24mSec lag} to "decide" what is the period .This is the VERY best case scenario normally yo need double even more due to guitar string physics .Also Avatar fundamental extractor needed to "decide" which one of the six strings is having priority and pick only this one to "send" this info to the CV/VCO route that was only one and not six as in the Roland gr300.It was very sophisticated in theory but they had to "blank" the initial string's {two cycles} pick event to have a fairly stable CV to use .Its a very complicated schematic and i think extractor part is missing from the service manual AFAIK but i love these vintage machines and the "mojo" in them playing ^:} Roland didn"t make the same {CV extraxtion per se} "mistake" and went on different route where even using the string"s initial "spit" IS sound on its own hence the famous speed .It can be done if someone spends time and money as i tried last 11 years ago but guitarists tend to appreciate a fuzz box that sells for 70$ or so and don't like to adapt their playing style and open their mind .My two cents FWIW ^:}
Dear Alex, great video as usual but more important to me: great music! I love the songs you write and often listen to them (Spotify). I first saw and heard the ARP Avatar in use by a dutch guitarist named Frank van der Kloot at a live gig in the Netherlands, probably in '79 or '80. It triggered my interest in synths (as a guitarist) and a year later my girlfriend (still my wife now) bought an ARP Axxe that I still have among other old analog gear.... Thanks for the music!
Thanks for the story Frank, I've not heard of Frank van der Kloot. I'll have to look him up! Axxe - they're fun little monos those! The black and gold one is particularly good looking too!
And a BIG "thank you Mr Ball" for your efforts and wonderful productions. Also for the numerous responses to posts that you do. Its pretty special when "Alex Ball" responds to you. Imho.
Sounds just like my GR300 with G303 guitar, not sure if that s a good thing or not, esp the HEX fuzz. Guess I was expecting a slightly different sound from it being controlled by a guitar.
Alex could have easily been in an 80's new wave band that we were all fond of. Make up one, or take your pick of those available. Forty years from now someone out there will likely be making a documentary about this guy.
Hello Alex: Firstly, I really liked the F1 reference. I thought some of the guitar fuzz sounded like Pete Townsend. Then I remembered that he was in ad's for the 2600, so he would have at least tried one of these. Stay well and safe.
I’m pretty sure had Alex been alive in the 60’s he would have been Senior Sound Director for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, smoked a pipe and worn a bowtie. Keep on being awesome, Mr Ball, your videos are the finest of their class.
Sign me up.
He has a more second era Radiophonic Workshop vibe the first crew were way weirder
@AlexBallMusic hi I love your videos there so great. I'm a big fan but can you please add more instruments in your videos that are not synthesizers please I want to see more instruments plus I believe it could be better sense younger generations would learn about something from back then.
@@adrianarencibia2716you’re on thin ice, bub. Coming in here and asking for LESS synth? You know what kinda beating we gave guys like you in the service?
How on earth you manage to take a flawed instrument that sank a company, and turn out a bunch of tunes with it that are all commercially viable as pop songs, is really quite astonishing! You really have far too much talent, Mr. Ball!! 🙂 Great video as always!
Thanks. The unwanted stuff is sometimes ahead of its time or overlooked. There's fantastic sounds in the Avatar.
Cheers Alex.
Sometimes being a pioneer means dying in the sand with arrows in your chest, and this looks to be the story here.
A good analogy.
Sometimes you gotta charge into battle headfirst to get the rest to follow
High school jazz band, ca. 1982. We had an Odyssey MkIII and I saw photos of the Avatar. It inspired my first build as "Silent Knight Productions" of a bass guitar interface to control an Arp MSL. Perfect project for a high school electronics nerd, a zener diode "gate" to trigger the envelope, and a home-brew freq-2-volt converter for CV in. Impressive as hell to the backline when we played "Chameleon", not so impressive to our director. Damn, that was over 40 years ago! Plenty of gear out there now doing a better job of it. Thanks for this great demo, by the way! Ah, the memories...
I wandered into a guitar shop in 1977 and wasted a half hour of the salesman's time looking over this thing. Really wanted one, but he was so pissed off when I said that the oscillator was all but useless; but that hex fuzz had a sound that's stayed with me all these many years since. Thanks for showing it to us again! And by the way; I just cannot figure out why the hex fuzz effects on my Roland VG-99 don't come anywhere near this great sound. Something missing that I simply cannot figure out...
As entertaining as always, Alex is a great presenter
Cheers Steve. :)
It's obvious a ton of love and work went into this, absolutely first rate Sir.
It did! Three years of struggle trying to find out how to get all the parts and fix it. We're finally there.
The Avatar, driven by an ARP sequencer, is the sound of EBM legends Deutsche Americanische Freundschaft. Nice to hear what it sounds like as a guitar synth, as I've only ever heard it used as a kind of module version of the Odyssey.
The same combo is on Escape from New York! Thanks for the tip off, I didn't know about DAF.
The guitar synth is a whole other side of it that really hasn't been showcased a anywhere before. I was determined to get it repaired and find out what it does.
well, i didn´t know that - i bought me a second hand arp axxe in the very early 80s and although the plastic keys were really bad and clumsy, i always liked the powerful filters and the sound of it in general (cool bass for instance) - when DAF came out, i liked them a lot and even saw them live (as a duo) and wondered how they managed to get their typical synth sound, which reminded me of my good old axxe - now i just read this here and had to smile, when i read, they actually used an arp synth, haha...
btw.: a while ago i bought me a retro arp 2600 plug-in by arturia - it´s a digital synth, ok, but it does have the typical arp flavour... :-)
second btw.: the arp axxe had an audio-in plug and we always put a cheapy, cheesy "tiger" organ into that, so we could play that synth polyphonically, hmmm, almost - i only put in a guitar once, just before that synth broke down completely, and i never used that feature for my voice - that idea came too late.......
thank you for the information, i´m still smiling... :-)
love and greetings from germany
Wasn't it an arp and an SQ10? If you are correct it would make some sense as the SQ10 is a brutal sequencer to play live as the tuning is so fiddly and changing melodies would kill!
@@piynubbunyip I think they used the ARP sequencer, which has a pitch quantise function. They also had a Korg MS20 and the MS50 expander. The MS20 was pretty much a standard piece of equipment in the Neue Deutsche Welle bands of the time, while the MS50 looks very similar to the SQ10 sequencer. They often had a female friend of the band who pretended to operate the Korgs when they played live, but in reality used a backing tape with Robert Gőrl playing drums live.
@@chriswareham Much more logical in reality. Reminds me of listening to polygon window and hearing the sequenced tom tuning and presuming Richard had cv on his TR-808 but in reality it was just an R-8
A bit ambitious for it's time perhaps.... still cool! Taking this opportunity to say RIP Vangelis. His work influenced my synth journey from the late 70s onwards - hugely inspirational with the awesome world building he created with electronic sound :) blew my young mind when everything was orchestra and wah wah guitar pedals!
Attempted several years too early, yes. A range of Hex effects without the synth would probably have been the way to go, but that's easy to say with hindsight.
Vangelis - indeed. One of a kind.
I owned one back in 1978-1979. It came with a great book which was an introduction to synthesis called "Learning Music with Synthesizers" by Alan Pearlman. The knobs on each slider were always cracking in half and breaking off. I'm surprised to see the knobs are in one piece on yours. I sold mine to buy a Roland GR500 system along with GS500 guitar controller. They each had their own kind of charm.
Ah cool, I know that book!
What did you think of the Avatar at the time? Did you use it much before moving it on?
@@AlexBallMusic I loved the Hex Fuzz and used that a lot. But the synth just couldn't track properly. That why I sold it for the Roland GR500. Which again couldn't track properly. Eventually I gave up on the idea of guitar synths and ended buying a Korg MS-20 & SQ-10 Sequencer and a Roland 808.
At time I really didn't think much of the MS-20 or even the Roland 808 I owned. I kick myself all the time when I see how much all those old synths and effects I once owned sell for these days! There are only 2 synth I wish I still owned, Roland Jupiter 4 (sold) and the Roland MC-202 (someone stole from me).
I contacted ARP about those plastic knobs that were constantly breaking and they sent me a whole bag filled with them. I must of had 200 or 300 of those knobs back in the day! You really brought me back in time with this video. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
Here's a link to the book I mentioned. You can even download it as a pdf file. This book taught me Synthesis!
"Learning Music with Synthesizers" by Alan Pearlman
thesnowfields.com/manuals/LearnMusicWithSynths1974.pdf
@@louisvanzandt This is the most safe-for-work story I've ever heard about someone being sent a bag of knobs.
Hex Fuzz for the win! Sounds amazing and the musical examples are brilliant as always.
Thanks Philip. Yep, digging that stereo Hex fuzz!
First off, kudos: "Right Back Round" is just chock full of energy and FUN! Not to mention, great lyrics! Second, everything I hear from the "hex" stuff and the envelope follower are total ear candy for me. Those sounds would have been enough of a product on their own, IMO. Anyway, thanks for the great Friday vibes, Alex!
Thank you Rob!
Yes, the guitar sounds are really cool and the synth sounds are really cool. Just not when they're combined. Almost two separate products in one box.
Yeah it’s a great song. My favorite Alex song since the songs from his 80s chord voicing videos
Love that opening composition. Reminds me of the early 80’s movies I so love. 🥰🎸🎹👍
Your channel is UA-cam at its best. Amazingly informative, highly creative, and thoroughly entertaining.
Thanks Christopher. It certainly has the sound of a period in time! All part of the fun!
As always great to watch! And the best thing, a synth demo with real music, not just the ususal bleepy bloopy arpegiator stuff! Awesome!
Thanks. I try to keep my bleeping under control. 😉
Musicality, Knowledge, History, Creativity, Problem-Solving. All in this one video. 👍Hat Off🎩 to You, Sir Alex!
Thanks very much!
The intro track sounds like a mix of ABBA and early Gary Numan. So essentially mid to late 1970s. Great work!
ABBy Numan?
@@AlexBallMusic Yeah lol but honestly it sounds like an intro to some late 70s snooker or darts TV coverage. Sideburns, cigaretes, guys in their early 30s looking like 50 year olds and so on...😂😁
That Hex Fuzz is nuts. I'd absolutely buy a modern module just for that and use it on my tracks.
It would be ace to have a modern Hex pickup into a compact analogue Hex fuzz box with stereo outs and string panning.
In theory you could get a Roland GK unit and pickup with the associated cables, harvest a suitable plug and wire it to a set of six basic fuzz circuits (possibly harvested from those tiny Mooer or Donner pedals) running in parallel.
If you want to go down the digital emulation route you'd need an audio interface with six inputs and a custom cable but it's possible
I bought one of these back in the day! It was my first real synth. I brought home a brand new Avatar and a Roland Space Echo. It was like being in heaven.
I'll have to run mine through a tape echo. Sounds dreamy.
I love the song at 7:53. It sounds like something from a random japanese electronic album released in 1983 that just got popular through youtube. Stellar video per usual Alex
I live in 1983, so it may well make it onto a random Japanese electronic album.
@@AlexBallMusic Is that an original? it really is fantastic.
I was actually daydreaming this morning about having a hex guitar setup and suddenly this fantastic video appears. Hexaphonic guitar processing seems like such an underutilised territory in music. The riff at 4:33 is so cool. The song at the end was a banger as well!
Yeah, I feel like it could be great for 8 string players who tune really low. If they were running the lowest strings through a hex setup you could easily improve the definition on those strings and stop them mushing up a high gain sound with too many overtones that would otherwise clash with the middle register like happens with regular guitar distortion.
Anyone ever wants to hear this in another context, the Avatar is all over Genesis' album And Then There Were Three.
I have a strat-style guitar Casio put out in the mid '80s with a hex pickup and midi output. It has the same variable lag problem, but it can still be useful live for sounds with slow attacks like strings and pads. In a recording situation it doesn't matter so much because the midi data can always be quantized or nudged around if needed. The thing I find strangest with it is that while it can make the guitar have the tone of practically any instrument, it doesn't sound 100% convincing a lot of the time because the performance is still limited by what chord voicings can actually be pulled off on a guitar. I can connect it to best piano patch ever made, but a lot of the time the result wouldn't sound like a part a pianist would actually play. On the other hand, if you're looking for a different way to approach voicing a part, especially for more abstract synth patches, then it's definitely something cool to experiment with
Very interesting! This is the first time I've seen the Avatar used as I guess the designers intended. I even owned an Avatar and used it for years as a module Odyssey.
Yep, nobody uses it from guitar! It's half of what it does so it's a shame not to use it.
I’ve waited ever since the internet was invented for this video. Thank you! It was perfect. That song was AMAZING!
I have an Avatar as well, though it is missing the pickup. I have modified mine for the tone being so it can use a standard 1/4” input. I’m missing out on the stereo text fuzz though. I bought a hex pickup to install on a guitar but I let that project pile up on the back burner. This video was the inspiration I needed!
Another Avatar warrior! I salute you.
Yes, worth getting the Hex stuff going. I hope you manage to find the time and that it cooperates.
I've actually got a breakout box coming for mine made by Series Circuits that is 6 jack inputs to 6-pin Din so that I can run any six signals through it!
@@AlexBallMusic I had initially planned to make my own breakout box as well, but not with the inputs like you're talking about. That sounds very cool! My plan was just to have a guitar with a hex pickup (I found an unusual source for them, cheap, btw), going to a breakout box that will simultaneously split the signal to a mixer circuit to pan each string to stereo outputs, send them to direct outputs and to send the 6 signals to the Avatar as well.
I might try to see about making a box like this, which will take an input from my old Roland guitars (G-505 and G-707), but finding a connector would be impossible, without having to scavenge one off a US-2 that I have, but never use.
Brilliant demo and tunes, mate.
Something of a gold-standard.
Thank you!
Where can we get your music?
Wow that Hex fuzz sounds so good. Brilliant video Alex, I’m a big ARP fan so it’s great to see this instrument being used fully. That song at the end was pop perfection as well 👌🏻
I feel the strongest purpose of any "instrument" is to be the thing that it was designed to be... I never realised it until about 1 year ago, but with all the synthesiser I've owned over the years, I've been yearning for the sound of a Rhodes piano & while many synthesisers do an admirable job at creating a facsimile, they're not a Rhodes piano... I understand why companies/people recreate popular instruments, or modify one instrument to be like another, but I feel that every instrument wants to be (for the most part) itself...
* No instruments were anthropomorphised in the writing of this comment.
It's a good point. One thing I forgot to mention is that a string doesn't vibrate consistently - it bends sharp on attack and then gradually shifts back as it slows. When an oscillator tries to track that it sounds all wobbly, like it needs servicing. An keyboard (analogue or digital) gives it a solid fixed voltage.
Another reason why the two don't gel so well.
But the Hex stuff and envelope follower are really great. It's kind of two separate products in one box.
I feel the opposite way about instruments having a sound vs synths... people used to use a metal or glass slide to turn their guitar into a synth. You were trying to make your synths sound like a Rhodes, and I was using the Rhodes sound on my digital piano as a "synth oscillator", with fx to make it sound completely different. I don't think the Rhodes sound is any kind of natural archetype. Culturally, it is, definitely - if the synth can make a good Rhodes sound, then they'd better include it as an early preset.
I just imagined, though, from the viewpoint that for every instrument there's a sound that is its purest expression... then a physical modeling synth would be like an abomination, a Frankenstein monster of an instrument.
Yet I keep running into stories about people who kept the same patch on their synth forever. One was a famous Buchla user😂! I suppose they found the sound their synth was meant to make. I still like relic-ing my "normal" instrument sounds. Oh well. Horses for courses.
The initial pitch wobble from strings of the electric guitar reminds me of the EaganMatrix's "round initial" feature. It works as advertised on the playing surface (it rounds your first touch to the nearest scale tone, and then you can bend pitch from there), but I don't know whether there's a way to integrate that feature with a guitar as input device, either via MIDI or CV.
In 2022, there must already be a perfect guitar/synth interface, no?😮😂
@@GizzyDillespee the unique sound of the Rhodes is the strange single coil magnetic pickup picking up the sound of piano strings ( which is believe are a different gauge than a standard piano string ) going through a fender style tone capacitor. No active electronics or preamps involved. A synthesizer can come somewhat close to it, but those passive magnetic pickups picking up the piano strings is a very unique sound. Synthesizers can't really replicate the harmonic distortion of them. A synth can probably get about 95% there
@@knives_on_static Not quite but close, there were no strings in the Rhodes, it used metal tines which were a bit like tuning forks, these would be hit by the hammers and the vibration would be converted into an electronic signal by the pickups. it was the tines that gave the Rhodes it almost bell-like sound.
Your arrangement is absolutely amazing and hearing the guitar tone through the Arp Avatar was super unique
Worth the wait! It's taken three years to find all the parts and someone who can fix it.
Definitely love the hexfuzz. Does have a very Jeff Lynne quality to it!
So satisfyingly 70s!
As a kid, I learned so much about electronics from the repair manual and schematics for this device.
I don’t know why but “pidgin on a unicycle” almost made me spit out my coffee. Great video as always!
🐦🚲
Very interesting video/demo! I didn't know much about the Avatar, let alone its guitar side. Thanks for taking the time to show it to us! Then end song "Right Back Round" is pretty darn good, with a Rush/Yes flavour from the eighties. Pure delight. Thanks Alex!
Thanks Alain, I thought it would be a fun one to cover as nobody has ever done it! Understandable given the fact that the guitar peripherals are often lost.
Song - thank you. Been a fan of Alex Lifeson for a long time, but can't play like him.
Cool cool cool... But can we just take second to appreciate the sick jam at 7:54 🤤
Hex Fuzz sounds like harmonies on a Queen record.
It's great.
My thoughts exactly. I wondered if Brian ever got to try one at the time, and what he would have thought if not.
Wonderful music! The Arp Avatar is not on my wish list, but I really appreciate videos that cover all of these old cool pieces of gear. Excellent job as always.
Cheers. Yes, a niche item these days!
That thing sounds absolutely amazing… Probably the best demo songs of any video too!
that was quite a friday treat
Great job! I still have the ARP Avatar in-store advertisement with the flexidisk. It made my teenage mind VERY excited about where things were going. Then...
That hex fuzz is amazing.
Yep!
Loving all the jams in this video 🤘
This machine gives me such Roxy Music/David Bowie Heroes vibes.
A shame it was a failure for Arp, but they managed to get the pitch tracking more accurate than what I can manage with the MS20 external input, so there's that going for it lol.
Such a 70s sound, yeah.
...and yes, the tracking is an impressive attempt given the era, but falls someway short of being usable.
Grwar video. Love the song at the end - a cool Be-Bop Deluxe vibe.
One of the original inspirations for the passion and perils of guitar synth. Thanks for another great review and rediscovery :)
The passion and the perils indeed!
Very cool story, 40 years of synths never saw one before. Thanks.
Came for the synth nerding, stayed for the music.
Fantastic demo Alex. This is the first time I have ever heard an ARP Avatar played with a guitar like it was originally intended. I borrowed one from a friend, but it was never used with a guitar. The Avatar was treated like an ARP Odyssey expander to partner an ARP Axxe using the CV and Gate. It sounded great for Jean Michel Jarre style sequencing when controlled by a Roland TB303 Bassline used as a sequencer.
Probably the best guitar synthesizer I've ever heard.
That was the most complete and honest video about the Avatar I have ever seen!
Back in the days I did not have the budget to buy a questionable novelty, which also required modding my guitar for a hex pickup.
So instead I bought the Korg Pitch to CV converter, which even had more issues than the Avatar.
A pitch follower is not accurate and stable, in the end it was an affordable failure, haha!
Thank you! Yes, I was determined to get to the bottom of this one.
I've used the Korg X-911 and it was quite weird, yeah! But it was small and inexpensive as you say! The Avatar was really expensive, which also helped kill it.
wonderful video as always, but the closing song in this one is extra special.
Thank you!
Oof, that hex fuzz demonstration had some serious Ratatat vibes going on: thank you for giving this quirky piece of gear a definitive video!
What an incredible sounding machine. I can't believe I hadn't heard of this before.
Too bad about the problems it has, because it's sooooo rad sounding.
A remake with a modern pitch-to-cv would be rad!
I've read about the Avatar so many times over the years, and I can't believe I finally get to hear it in such a great way. This is a truly excellent demo, and I really appreciate you taking the time to do this!
Thank you! Yes, I was equally fascinated as to what it actually sounded like with guitar. So glad to be able to find out.
Oh my gods I love "Right Back Round."
Thanks Mike!
I don’t know why but this reminded me a bit of a Roland guitar synth controller I used to see a guy play live with in the late 80’s. Bizarre sounds but fun. I’d love to see you play one.
Also, RIP Vangelis :(
Great vid as always.
The GR-500 had some similar ideas and then the GR-300 just straight up have Hex fuzz! Which one did you have?
RIP Vangelis indeed!
@@AlexBallMusic I didn’t have one sorry, but I knew a guy who did. We used to refer to it as a ‘box full of dragons’. It might have been the 300.
I like how you had multiple verses and choruses in the contextual song. I always feel disappointed when there's only one chorus!
Oh my God!, the sound is epic!!
Cool isn't it!
Months later I’m still coming back to listen to that last demo song…
Cheers!
those panned 3 low 3 high spread outputs sound mad! Great video as always mate.
Let the world be filled with Psychedelic Resonance. Mr. Ball you rock! So nice to see one of these again…
I'm in love with the clean fuzz! It's how I always wanted the fuzz to sound but it never did. Until now. That's so beautiful 😍
Great video! Exceptional song at the end, one of the most complete with full lyrics!😁👍
Great video! I liked the Minneapolis Funk thing you had going with the sequencer. The Hex Fuzz is awesome, too. Thanks for posting!
Comes alive with the sequencer, too laggy to funk without it!
This song is hot really! The sound with the 135/246 strings on L/R is massive. Thanks for the video.
You are just so damn good at this Alex! Truly! ❤
Thank you!
Heard all of the outro song, it has an amazing production quality of recording, arranging and composing, man you´re very talented!!
The ARP sounds amazing on this video also.
Another most fun and insightful clip 🤗. What a charmingly awkward piece of gear. You definitely gave it a chance to shine its little light out into the world. Well done! 😊 I'm in love with the feature song, and if I may add, the vintage photos (of what I assume was their initial presentation/demonstration of the Avatar) during the climax were so beautifully placed that I had a little tear in my eye.
Another fantastic video- thank you!
In the "together mode", it sounds great! the hex fuzz has more "space" to the sound (good going on the S2400 videos of course!)
An amazing video Alex. Brilliant musicianship and so informative too.
Thank you!
What a killer studio.
Sounds amazing. Wish my guitar skills were good enough to use it how you do. Great demo and narration Alex
Thanks!
I remember your video on Escape from New York and seeing these used.
Yes! Two of them rocking away.
I watch this kind of videos for their content but the music always leaves me unimpressed.
The intro piece, on the contrary, is a wonderful piece of music, thank you, the counterpoints are beautiful, you are great.
Thank you very much!
Alex you are the most musically creative genius man on the internet! Loved watching this! :)
Thank you sir.
That 6x isolated hex fuzz. Omg it sounds good!!🤩
Absolutely fantastic! Thank you very much for sharing.
Cheers!
Wow, you nailed it again. Great story and the music at 10 mins in and the finale are sublime ❤️
Thanks Lee and thanks to your widgets too.
F@@king stunning Alex. Very enjoyable and again your skill over rides the inadequacy of the tech
Sounds like the pitch-to-CV delay is due to it waiting for two full waves of the input signal to use in its calculations, which yes, REALLY laggy-a standard low E on the guitar has a period of less than 20ms, so to get double that delay is a big ouch. If they had the Roland GR-300's pitch-to-voltage system, it would turned out a lot better, IMO.
Correct as said .Low E on guitar is tuned @ 82Hz which translates to {1/82} 12mSec time and all analog pitch-to-CV systems need AT LEAST two cycles {24mSec lag} to "decide" what is the period .This is the VERY best case scenario normally yo need double even more due to guitar string physics .Also Avatar fundamental extractor needed to "decide" which one of the six strings is having priority and pick only this one to "send" this info to the CV/VCO route that was only one and not six as in the Roland gr300.It was very sophisticated in theory but they had to "blank" the initial string's {two cycles} pick event to have a fairly stable CV to use .Its a very complicated schematic and i think extractor part is missing from the service manual AFAIK but i love these vintage machines and the "mojo" in them playing ^:} Roland didn"t make the same {CV extraxtion per se} "mistake" and went on different route where even using the string"s initial "spit" IS sound on its own hence the famous speed .It can be done if someone spends time and money as i tried last 11 years ago but guitarists tend to appreciate a fuzz box that sells for 70$ or so and don't like to adapt their playing style and open their mind .My two cents FWIW ^:}
>I wake up
>New Alex Ball video
>I smile
Morning. I'll put the kettle on.
You are doing the Lord's work, sirrah. Thank you.
Fun and informative video, Alex. And some really adept chord changes in Right Back Round. Great performances too! Cheers.
Cheers! Funnily enough I had to adapt and change chords to work with the Hex fuzz. It was a two way writing process between me and Mr Avatar. 😀
Dear Alex, great video as usual but more important to me: great music! I love the songs you write and often listen to them (Spotify). I first saw and heard the ARP Avatar in use by a dutch guitarist named Frank van der Kloot at a live gig in the Netherlands, probably in '79 or '80. It triggered my interest in synths (as a guitarist) and a year later my girlfriend (still my wife now) bought an ARP Axxe that I still have among other old analog gear.... Thanks for the music!
Thanks for the story Frank, I've not heard of Frank van der Kloot. I'll have to look him up!
Axxe - they're fun little monos those! The black and gold one is particularly good looking too!
superb as always Alex!!!! thank you
I have one. My Dad got it for me from a swap meet for $50. Now I have a dozen guitar synths including Yamaha G10.
Excellent demo. I quite want one!
Duuuuude
CLEAN FUZZ
This is what I've always dreamed of ❤
And a BIG "thank you Mr Ball" for your efforts and wonderful productions. Also for the numerous responses to posts that you do. Its pretty special when "Alex Ball" responds to you. Imho.
Thanks for stopping by Michael.
Lol
Totally cool, Alex! Super awesome tune!
Cheers Rik!
Dude... beautiful❤️
That jam at the end was 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🧨
Cheers!
Fantastic song at the beginning!
Sounds just like my GR300 with G303 guitar, not sure if that s a good thing or not, esp the HEX fuzz. Guess I was expecting a slightly different sound from it being controlled by a guitar.
Alex could have easily been in an 80's new wave band that we were all fond of. Make up one, or take your pick of those available. Forty years from now someone out there will likely be making a documentary about this guy.
That FUZZ 🤯 Fantastic vid, thank you.
Another cracking video and performance. Nice one Alex.
Hello Alex: Firstly, I really liked the F1 reference. I thought some of the guitar fuzz sounded like Pete Townsend. Then I remembered that he was in ad's for the 2600, so he would have at least tried one of these. Stay well and safe.
Ending song remembers me of a band i love called Everything Everything. Really cool synthy art pop rock
Lovely song at the end there! Well done.
Cheers!
I played with one when they first came out on the market, I was blown away! Love the hex fuzz sound.
The guitar world wasn't ready for this back then in 1977.. maybe Korg or Behringer should bring this back to life