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Anybody Taurusing?

#21
Rickengeezer said:
Yeah, but Geddy was playing keyboards at the time (mostly). There, I can see the need for bass pedals. In contrast, I've seen Chris Squire use Taurus-like pedals. But, hey Chris, you've got a keyboard player standing over there, I bet he could play those notes better with his fingers than you can with your feet!

Mike Rutherford also used bass pedals, but he was usually playing guitar at the time.
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Both Geddy and Alex used the Taurus simultaneously in those years. Actually a lot of times the Taurus was used to trigger higher register notes. For example, in the guitar solo in limelight you can hear an underlying synth drone in a high register. Live, that is the Taurus. Same deal for Freewill....the Taurus was used for higher notes. but having said that, the punch of the low Taurus register mixed with the quicker, piano like attack of an electric bass do not get in eachothers way at all.
 
#22
I use a Roland PK-6 to trigger a Roland Jupiter-80. When I need sequencing, out comes the laptop to control them both (not often, I avoid this because computers are less reliable at live shows than synths these days).

This is great for a variety of applications. Obviously Rush songs would be one of them. Key textures in original songs are great, given that we don't have or need a keyboard player. Loops and triggers are all there too, if you want to get into that.

I have a friend who does the loops and triggers thing for his one-man-band act. It's pretty cool.

As for the Taurus pedals, the reason Rush moved away from them originally was that they would go out of tune over time. By switching to digital triggers midied to workstations like the Roland Phantom series, the performance capabilities skyrocketed and the intonation issues vanished. Modern versions of the Taurus pedals have corrected the unstable intonation (I've read). If you're an analog freak, then Moog is the stuff. For me, I can get practically all that with a good digital synth plus all the rest.
 
#23
jim777 said:
I would definitely be interested in 'cheap' midi pedals to use to trigger my synths. The handful I've seen seem outrageously expensive for simple controller units, even ones designed to be stepped on.
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Do you need the notes to always be in the same place? Some midi footcontrollers meant for patch control can be made to send midi notes, but they tend to be limited to only enough pedals for a major or minor scale.
 
#25
Max Blasto said:
......As for the Taurus pedals, the reason Rush moved away from them originally was that they would go out of tune over time. By switching to digital triggers midied to workstations like the Roland Phantom series, the performance capabilities skyrocketed and the intonation issues vanished. Modern versions of the Taurus pedals have corrected the unstable intonation (I've read). If you're an analog freak, then Moog is the stuff.
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Correct. The new Taurus 3 and Minitaur synths use thermally-regulated real analog oscillators, under digital control. All the tone of the original Taurus-1, with rock-solid intonation.
Geddy has a set of the new T-3s, but they get home & studio use only - he (and Alex) still uses a digital bass pedal setup for live performance.

My T-3 has MIDI in & out, so they can be used for playing Taurus, for triggering loops & drum sounds, and for controlling other analog (and digital) synthesizers.
I mainly use them for higher melody & string-like sounds, growling bass and synth intros, and to help fill out the low end during guitar solos on songs where the bass lines are fairly busy.
 
#26
-Asdfgh- said:
Do you need the notes to always be in the same place? Some midi footcontrollers meant for patch control can be made to send midi notes, but they tend to be limited to only enough pedals for a major or minor scale.
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Many of the controllers (including the Roland & Mcmillen controllers) can be transposed for any tuning desired, and the DigiKick pedals can even be programmed to play entire chords with the press of a single pedal - very cool.

Controllers meant primarily for patch-change control are best suited for controlling MIDI-based guitar rigs, while the ones I mentioned above excel as pedal synthesizer controllers.
 
#27
superdick2112 said:
Many of the controllers (including the Roland & Mcmillen controllers) can be transposed for any tuning desired, and the DigiKick pedals can even be programmed to play entire chords with the press of a single pedal - very cool.

Controllers meant primarily for patch-change control are best suited for controlling MIDI-based guitar rigs, while the ones I mentioned above excel as pedal synthesizer controllers.
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What I meant is that you can use things like the Zoom B9 to trigger notes with, but it's only enough for the notes in a major or minor scale, so transposing is a necessity rather than a option. There are only 9 foot buttons on the Zoom and you need one to turn it off being a pseudo-taurus, so not ideal.

The McMillen stuff looks great. The interface/mixer is also beautiful (if off topic).
 
#28
-Asdfgh- said:
What I meant is that you can use things like the Zoom B9 to trigger notes with, but it's only enough for the notes in a major or minor scale, so transposing is a necessity rather than a option. There are only 9 foot buttons on the Zoom and you need one to turn it off being a pseudo-taurus, so not ideal.

The McMillen stuff looks great. The interface/mixer is also beautiful (if off topic).
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Yes you could, but I think you'll end up pulling your hair out in frustration if you use anything less than a 13-note controller.
IMHO, the Mcmillen or Roland pedal controllers are the way to go if you are building a modular pedal synth setup.
 
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#29
Absolutely. I have a B9 so if I desperately needed on one song to stick three or four repeated notes in I might use it, but otherwise it would shorten my life too much. Its main use is for standing in front of the mirror pretending to be Geddy, though.
 
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#30
I use my 13-note DIY MIDI pedals along with a 61-key controller in our Rush tribute band. Lots of fun! For sounds I run Apple's Mainstage on an older MacBook and it sounds great. The software has the flexibility to assign each pedal as a different patch of you wanted to, play more than one synth at once, trigger prerecorded bits, sequences, etc. As much as I'd love a set of T3's, I very happy with my setup--and the pedals cost about $100 to build. The McMillen 12Step is a great product too, I've got a set of those as well.
 
#33
I wasnt a fan of standing in place on one foot to play the pk5 so I started using a digitech jamman to sample parts and I used it more so to add keyboard parts and sound effects. Just sold it because I had the old one and am trying to get rid of the wall warts on my board to make room for more pedals later but plan to upgrade to a new version, which can be powered by pedal power supplies
 

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