Ozrics Synth Players

[Todd Madson <crash@waste.org>]

Well, the first Ozrics synth player was Joie Hinton and he basically
had a bunch of synths, samplers and sequencers.  I know the sampler
in the early days was an old Akai, they used the D50 by Roland, the
Wavestation by Korg, an old Putney VCS3 (I believe), a WASP, an 
OSCAR and more.  Check out the homepage that Mike Werning put together
for these guys and all of their synth gear is laid out in details.  I
know they're using one of the Korg virtual modeling synths now for
ethnic instruments.

When I saw them live, there were like 9 synths onstage at the same
time (Ed had 3 in a stand up rack, the remainder was played by the
new guy).

The current guy, Seaweed (I think his real name is Chris Lenox-Smythe)
and is so named because his synths frequently sound like they are under
water and his hair is in big huge dreads that look like seaweed too..he
has a similar rig to Joie (in fact, even bought an old synth off of him
too) but in some ways is just as impressive.  He sounds like the second
coming of Hi T Moonweed.  He actually came across as being somewhat 
more impressive than Ed (the frontman)..

I definetely heard at one point an arpeggiator going through a long 
delay with a ducker going so he could create what SOUNDED like complex
polyphonic sequences but actually were complicated, played patterns
done via arpeggiator and into a delay for even more madness.

I've since tried this on my old Korg Poly61 through the Lexicon Vortex
and it's a great trick.  Just change one note in a five note chord or
make something go from major to minor and it really changes the whole
atmosphere of a track.  It's kind of like the delay trick that Albert 
Lee uses on guitar - he plays straight 8th notes with two repeats and
creates the illusion of ridiculously fast, even 16th note runs.  Here
an arpeggiator is in play so the notes never let up and create a very
hypnotic effect, especially if you have oozing pads with synth bass
underneath.

Anyway, search for that Ozrics page to get the full scoop on their gear-
it's a pretty impressive selection of stuff.

As for straight, conventional looping - I don't think I've ever quite
heard it on any of their recordings, but I would check out the title
track of "Arborescence" to check out how ethereal they can get.