Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[Equinoxe]

Ok I thought I'd give you some Inside info on this synth......seeing as most of us knew little about it till now

first off the Seq mode...


This kind of works like say a groove box type machine...

The sequencer mode is split into 8 tracks..(Main sequencer has 16)

Track 1-Kick
Track 2-Snare
Track 3-Hihat
Track 4-Perc
Track 5-Bass
Track 6-Seq 1
Track 7-Seq 2
Track 8-Chord







Each of these tracks can contain preset onboard phrases or you can make your own...

Each track can use any of the internal phrases,so for track 1 Kick,there are 400 or so different phrases you can use for the Kick,and the same with the other 7,so you can pretty much make unlimited amounts of pattern combination(If any of you have used any of the Yamaha QY series you'll know where I'm coming from on this)

You can also assign any sound to those 8 tracks,so if your Kick part needs an 808 kick instead of a 909 you can change it to suit...or you can use your own edited patches too

You can also Mute and solo any of those 8 parts,great for realtime song editing...




Another cool feature of this pattern assignment is that you can play them like an auto accompiament,using the Keyboard,so your not stuck with that particular bass phrase being in Cm ,or having to transpose it to fit your track..in seq mode keys C3-B3 are used for selecting the root chord of that pattern in realtime kind of like the One finger chord playing you get with Yamaha/Casio home keyboard machines...

Also tied in with the Mute function are the keys too,so the 8 parts can be muted using the Keys too you just press the Given key which corresponds to the 8 parts(this is labelled on the panel for easy visualisation,just simply press the key to Mute it and press again to unmute it....

Picture below shows the 8 numbered boxes(each one corresponds to the 8 Parts in seq mode, C KEY Box 1-track 1 etc) above the keys these are used for Muting by pressing the Keys and pressing again to unmute as described already,great for realtime playing and breakdowns/Build ups for live useage


The rest of the Keyboard can be played freely for melodies (Keys C3-C6.)


Once youve made Your patterns,you can store them into the User area and then assign those patterns into the song mode chaining them together to create sequences(Like Korg Electribes)...

Ok more to come once I've done a little more editing and learnt a bit more



Just some info about Jarres use....

Quickly flicking through the patterns,The choir part in 0xy 7 is preset phrase,he used both the onboard phrase and the choir sound for this...

And so is the melody (blade runner type)which is also a preset phrase

I'm certain there are more Phrases he used,theres just an awful lot to get through,but I'm sure I'll find some more....


More info to come plus some Audio samples

[Jon]

Interesting post, cheers for that. Its always good to hear or read about the various instruments that Jarre has used.

Good to see your getting to grips with 'The Raven'. Sounds a very intersting machine, though Im not overlly keen on its looks, I find it a bit bland. But looks is not everything.

[radek tymecki]

Tell me how it sounds I could have an occasion to test it but i had no time

[Equinoxe]

I will post some Audio tommorow when i have more time



After having a play on the preset patterns tonight....


I'm sure that several Parts in Oxy7 use the raven....I've built several of the phrases(Motives) into Jarres Oxygene 7 arrangement.

The patterns are in 4/4 at the moment I'm trying to find out if you can add swing to the patterns to give it the waltz feel like jarres,(Although jarre could have done this in Logic)


The bass pattern in part 2 is off the phrases,so is the Main melody,So too is the choir parts


As for the sounds

Choir-Raven
Seq Bass-Raven


I'm certain that the Arpeggio running under the Eminent in part 2 is sourced from the raven patterns too.Several Motives sound similar,its just whether i can alter there swing(will look in manual tonight)

Because of the Ravens internal workings and how much of Oxygene 7-13 seems to reflect that ,Jarre talked about travelling to different places whilst composing this album,using just one synth,given that he tried to stick to 8 elements,I wonder if that synth he talked about was "The Raven"

[Mogwai]

I always thought that "one synth" was the Korg i4S. Stange!? Ah, well, nobody has confirmed which synth its was. Could have been the Raven. Especially from what you've discovered.

Anyway. Thumbs up for your info and future sound examples m8. This synth has been a mystery to me. Glad that it's finally revealed.

Can't wait to hear more!

[Equinoxe]

Heres a little demo of the Raven,this is an Improvised Oxygene 7 snippet,everything apart from the Eminent is played from the raven...


The choirs/2 Bass parts/Drums are all patterns within the Raven,the 2 bass seqs are not exact to Jarres,but that mainly because there played in 4/4 with no swing ,I'm pretty certain once I've recorded those patterns into a sequencer and add a little swing they will sound exact as Jarres with a Triplet feel....as I'm certain Jarre lifted the preset patterns from the Ravens Motive banks


As i was saying about the Sequencer on the Raven,I'm adding the parts using the keys to unmute the patterns,this clip was done live,with me playing the Eminent and triggering the Sequencer parts on the Raven keyboard,its very flexible Live synth


the Quality of the recording may not be to your liking ,but it was recorded direct to the Multitrack with no eq or compression and proper Line levelling it was just recorded as is







http://www.supload.com/sound_confirm.ph ... 769060.wma


Now I have a full idea of what exactly was used within the track

Bass-Arp2600/Possibly doubled with Raven??
Seq Bass-Raven
Choir-Raven
Drums-TR808
Pads-Eminent
Noises-VCS/AKS?
Mellotron-JV Expansion board??

[Jakob BC]

I think the Mellotron was also used in the last part of Oxygene 7.

[Mogwai]

Very interesting. I really love those sounds!

Wonder how much of the Raven there actually are on Oxygene 7-13 then!?

[Nico_Noyau]

Wow, pretty damn excellent !
I always wanted one, I still want one now, but I'll have one one day

[jeremy]

Everybody wants one now

[Nico_Noyau]

Everybody wants one now

I wanted one before, nahanahanaha

And what about the choirs of this machine ? Are they many ?

[GeeJee]

Although JM used it for Oxygne 7's choir - It's not a choir-synth...

[Nico_Noyau]

Yes, sure, but it has excellent sounds

[PHASEREFFECT]

Ok, i cannot compare both devices, what about the Technox? I remember that mine had a Choir which also sounds exactly like the one in Oxygene 7 (i believe that i´ve stated this many years ago at the old Jarre.com-Forum). Isn´t the DSP-Engine on both devices somewhere the same?

Stef

[Equinoxe]

Everybody wants one now

I wanted one before, nahanahanaha

And what about the choirs of this machine ? Are they many ?

the raven is aimed mainly at the dance genre,although it has a pretty standard Sound set i.e it contains pretty much all types of sounds,not just dance leads or acid basses...it covers a wide pallet,the drums are pretty good too(good enough for Jarre on 07-13)covers most drums from Acoustic to 808/909 and just about everything in between

It has some nice choirs(jarre oxygene 7)and also a couple of mellotron emulations,it does nice pads in performance mode(stacked programs),and even for a dance machine of over 10 years old has a nice Piano...

Don't be put off by this machine supposedly being of the Dance fraternity,the seq mode is more aimed at that Genre and possibly utilised as remix or Live tool due to it flexibility in Seq/Pattern mode,but its capable of being used in any genre if you so wish..its what you make of it,it still has your DX7 FM pianos,Analog pads,TB303 basses,Juno leads/Moog basses/Dance stabs and more drums than you can shake a stick at.......you can always create your own presets anyway....

I'm impressed with its abilities and sounds,even though i Knew nothing of the synth(apart from Jarre used it)until a few days ago,and theres pretty much very little on the net about this synth,other than few users who have expressed there fellings about it,most of hte ones i read were well received and gave it a good review,mainly why i had to demo this one for myself,and having been mightly shocked how good it was,had to snap it up especially at the price!!!I've never showed much interest in Quasimidi before,but its certainly opened my eyes to a lesser estabilished(now no longer) synth manufacturer,its not just the Well know japanese brands that produce the best synths...I shall certainly be seeing what the Polymorph and rave o lution models have to offer if the Raven is anything to go buy..



it's an unusual synth but has plenty of scope and promise,I can see myself using this a lot in my future tracks.My only gripe with it 2 points,firstly the headphone socket(why did they put it on the top panel??? thats not a problem when i have it hooked up to the mixer,but I've been playing solely with the Raven the last few days to get to know it ,and having the headphone cable dangling over the Keyboard isnt really practical...(maybe it was design flaw!!!)
and secondly it would have been nice to have more than just 2 outputs!!!given it has a multitmbral setup it would be nice to able to route certain sounds to multiple outputs for further processing


I'm away from the studio until the weekend,I will then do a demo of the overall sounds so you can hear what it sounds like....