Bela Fleck & The Flecktones

[Rozard]

Last night, I went to my birthday present (No, not a hooker): a Bela Fleck and The Flecktones concert. The first one of the year, no doubt Man! I'd never heard them live before, but now I must urge everyone to do so. It was so fucking amazing. Some highlights of the show were:

· New song "Over The Top"
· Future Man's 15 minute Drumitar/Percussion/Synthesizer solo
· Victor Wooten playing a soloing by using delay pedals to create an infinite loop
· Jeff Coffin playing a tenor and alto saxophone at the same time in "Circles In The Sand"
· Bela Fleck's 10 minute solo medley, including the Peanuts theme, The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" and a Baroque piece
· Onstage antics, such as measure-long trade-off solos meant to mess up the next player, Vic and Bela slapping each other's strings while playing trade-off solos
· Future Man singing (I guess) Future scat, and having Bela manipulate/playback on his banjo

If you get the chance to check out The Flecktones in concert, do it. You won't regret it

[Chaos Angel]

Happy Brithday, Roz.

I've never heard of them myself. How would you describe them?

[Zerophite]

Rozard...I'm envious...and I hate you j/k Happy Birthday.

[Rozard]

Mwahahahah!! I'd have to say they're jazz/bluegrass. It may seem like a very odd combination, but trust me when I say it rocks. If you get the chance, check them out in concert. Victor Wooten is arguably the best bassist alive. Future Man created his Synth-axe Drumitar (sorry for the shitty picture):

This technology has been brought back from the future allowing the Flecktones to take advantage of cutting edge technology. Futureman has used current devices to create a working drum set. His main instrument was a SynthAxe once owned by Lee Rittenour. Just about all the original electronics have been stripped from the instrument and piezo triggers have been added to the body and neck of the Synthaxe to create what we now know at the Synthaxe Drumitar. There is only one!

The trigger impulses are carried from the instrument through a multipair cable, to his rack. The trigger information is converted to MIDI information in the Alesis D-4 and Alesis D-5. The MIDI information is then routed to a Roland TD-7 as well as two Roland S-760's. The D-4, D-5, and TD-7 contain preset sampled sounds. The S-760's are hooked up to a Ramteck D545. This is a hard drive unit that allows Futch to load an infinite number of sampled sounds.

Each trigger on the Synthaxe Drumitar can be assigned to a different sample via MIDI channels. These samples can range from a snare sound to a kick sound to any percussive sound. Also the samples can be whistles, voices, train horns, buzzers, anything Futch can visualize. Some of the sounds reproduced are a blend of sounds from the different samplers. For example, the one snare sound is a blend of snares from several of the factory sounds as well as imported samples.

[Cardinal.jpg]

That looks like an amazing intsrument. Anyone who creates their own gear gets an instant cred upgrade in my books.