Hello I play in a three piece band. I'm a huge Rush fan, but we don't play any Rush, hehehe. Our band has a great singer/guitarist/keys player. Unfortunately, he can only play guitars or keys individually. He's only human after all I know that Geddy used to play keys using Taurus pedals to trigger the synth. I am wondering if there is something along those lines in modern technology that I could buy so that I could add some synth beds to our music. Could anyone please give me info on what to use, how to set it up etc... I know the keyboard fairly well, but want to get some footpedal kind of setup. Do I need to buy a synth, or just a module etc... Any advice would be great, friends..
A MIDI foot controller like this: http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i-ROL-PK5.html MIDI'ed up to a synth or rack synth module. For a Taurus-like sound I'd go for an analog or virtual-analog synth (I hear the Alesis Ion/Micron have a Taurus patch on 'em, but I haven't heard it myself.) Man, there's nothing like those classic Taurus pedals. I love that sound! For my own home studio use, I made a Taurus-like patch in my Arturia Minimoog softsynth that I kick in here and there when I want that "bwwwaaaaaarrrrmmmmmmmmmmmm...."
Here are a few others from Fatar: http://www.zzounds.com/cat--Keyboard-Pedal-Controllers--2689 A friend of mine had the cheaper FATAR unit, it felt a little cheesy but it worked great for what he wanted it to do.
There's a guy that sells 'em on ebay too. There's even a "Saurus" pedal that uses a true analog synth, similar to the Taurus. As far as affordable sound banks go, the Alesis NanoBass has a pretty good Taurus patch on it... as well as some other nice synth patches.