SynthAxe: Difference between revisions
From Allan Holdsworth Information Center
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The SynthAxe is widely covered in numerous interviews on this site. Here are the main points, see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SynthAxe: | |||
The SynthAxe is widely covered in numerous interviews on this site. Here are the main points: | |||
==What is the Synthaxe?== | ==What is the Synthaxe?== | ||
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==The SynthAxe in interviews== | ==The SynthAxe in interviews== | ||
Allan's use of the SynthAxe alienated a large part of his audience, which consisted of a large number of guitar players. Still, it was a major topic in interviews, especially from 1985 to 1990. This means that there is a lot of material, which should ideally be categorized further. The remainder of this article simply quotes all articles where Allan talks about the Synthaxe | Allan's use of the SynthAxe alienated a large part of his audience, which consisted of a large number of guitar players. Still, it was a major topic in interviews, especially from 1985 to 1990. This means that there is a lot of material, which should ideally be categorized further. The remainder of this article simply quotes all articles where Allan talks about the Synthaxe. | ||
=SynthAxe quotes= | =SynthAxe quotes= | ||
__TOC__ | |||
==[[Reaching For The Uncommon Chord]]== | |||
'''SYNTHAXE''' | |||
The Synthaxe is not a step beyond that (to me) [referring to guitar synths] — it's a giant leap beyond. It's a MIDI controller, it's very accurate, and it works. It's a very strange instrument to play at first because it's got two sets of strings. It will drive any synthesizer capable of handling all the MIDI information that the Synthaxe puts out. It puts out more information than a lot of keyboards would. You can hook it up to Oberheims, and that works really well. With the Synthaxe you have the problems of coping with a new instrument in as much as it feels different - you're playing a different set of strings with each hand, and the fret spacing is completely different, but it doesn't take very long to get used to. I only played it a couple of times, and each time I played it, I got more into it. To me the Synthaxe is a fantastic achievement. I find it amazing that someone went to these lengths to create this instrument. | |||
==[[Allan Holdsworth (Guitarist 1985)]]== | ==[[Allan Holdsworth (Guitarist 1985)]]== | ||
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==[[Allan Holdsworth: Synthaxe (Guitar Player 1985)]]== | ==[[Allan Holdsworth: Synthaxe (Guitar Player 1985)]]== | ||
Among the first to use a '''SynthAxe''', Allan Holdsworth has just released Atavachron [Enigma (dist. by Capitol), 72064-1], on which he uses the synthesizer controller extensively. A prominent display of the instrument under Holdsworth’s control, "Non Brewed Condiment," from Atavachron, appeared as a '''SynthAxe''' demonstration on the flipside of Guitar Player’s January 1986 Soundpage. | Among the first to use a '''SynthAxe''', Allan Holdsworth has just released Atavachron [Enigma (dist. by Capitol), 72064-1], on which he uses the synthesizer controller extensively. A prominent display of the instrument under Holdsworth’s control, "Non Brewed Condiment," from Atavachron, appeared as a '''SynthAxe''' demonstration on the flipside of Guitar Player’s January 1986 Soundpage. | ||
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==[[HUMBLE GUITAR MASTER ALLAN HOLDSWORTH ALWAYS STRUGGLES TO PAY THE RENT]]== | ==[[HUMBLE GUITAR MASTER ALLAN HOLDSWORTH ALWAYS STRUGGLES TO PAY THE RENT]]== | ||
For his three Town Pump dates, Holdsworth will be focusing on material from his new album Atavachron. Named after a word he heard in a Star Trek episode, the new LP features a newly developed instrument called the Synth Axe. “It’s like the next generation of machines that guitarists can play to control synthesizers,” says Holdsworth. As well as his trusty Synth Axe, Holdsworth will be joined on stage by drummer Chad Wackerman, bassist Jimmy Johnson, and keyboardist Billy Childs (formerly with saxman Freddie Hubbard). | For his three Town Pump dates, Holdsworth will be focusing on material from his new album Atavachron. Named after a word he heard in a Star Trek episode, the new LP features a newly developed instrument called the '''Synth Axe'''. “It’s like the next generation of machines that guitarists can play to control synthesizers,” says Holdsworth. As well as his trusty Synth Axe, Holdsworth will be joined on stage by drummer Chad Wackerman, bassist Jimmy Johnson, and keyboardist Billy Childs (formerly with saxman Freddie Hubbard). | ||
==[[Castles Made Of Sand (Guitarist 1987)]]== | ==[[Castles Made Of Sand (Guitarist 1987)]]== | ||
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IM - There was also a double-necked Steinberger which I saw you using at a gig last year. Are you still using that? | IM - There was also a double-necked Steinberger which I saw you using at a gig last year. Are you still using that? | ||
"I used it on one gig as an experiment. I only did it once because I didn’t like the guitar. | "I used it on one gig as an experiment. I only did it once because I didn’t like the guitar. '''SynthAx''' (sic) loaned me that guitar because the expense of doing the tour was so much that I went home and lost money. It wasn’t done like normal tours, we had to pay for our own hotels and transportation, so by the time it was over we lost money. | ||
IM - That was the Guitarist Tour wasn’t it? | IM - That was the Guitarist Tour wasn’t it? | ||
"Yeah. That’s why this year was a bit of a disaster as well because none of the guys who were normally in the band could do that tour and then I got this opportunity to do this thing with Level 42, which was perfect, because I couldn’t do a tour and then we had one gig to do, a guy asked if we could bail his out a little bit and help him with the finance thing which was the only reason that we would do it and I said yes. But obviously I would be doing it for free, but they wanted Gary to do it for free and I couldn’t accept that so I said no you have to pay him and they were paying for the other two guys to come over from the States the day before the gig, meaning that they would get in totally jet lagged and then we would have to do the gig without a rehearsal and the guy said, ‘oh well you can rehearse at the gig’, but that never happens, even if we got there at like 10 a.m., those guys are not going to want to get up that early and it was a big gig, like a London gig with no rehearsal, so as far as I was concerned it had to be knocked on the head. But what really did it is he started threatening me with giving me a hard time in his magazine, so up until that point I had only decided in my mind that I didn’t want to but I was hovering on it because I knew the reason why we had decided to do it in the first place was to help them out, but when he said that a release valve went and I said no, we’re not doing it. It was the wrong thing for me, the exortationate expenses were such that I couldn’t bring the | "Yeah. That’s why this year was a bit of a disaster as well because none of the guys who were normally in the band could do that tour and then I got this opportunity to do this thing with Level 42, which was perfect, because I couldn’t do a tour and then we had one gig to do, a guy asked if we could bail his out a little bit and help him with the finance thing which was the only reason that we would do it and I said yes. But obviously I would be doing it for free, but they wanted Gary to do it for free and I couldn’t accept that so I said no you have to pay him and they were paying for the other two guys to come over from the States the day before the gig, meaning that they would get in totally jet lagged and then we would have to do the gig without a rehearsal and the guy said, ‘oh well you can rehearse at the gig’, but that never happens, even if we got there at like 10 a.m., those guys are not going to want to get up that early and it was a big gig, like a London gig with no rehearsal, so as far as I was concerned it had to be knocked on the head. But what really did it is he started threatening me with giving me a hard time in his magazine, so up until that point I had only decided in my mind that I didn’t want to but I was hovering on it because I knew the reason why we had decided to do it in the first place was to help them out, but when he said that a release valve went and I said no, we’re not doing it. It was the wrong thing for me, the exortationate expenses were such that I couldn’t bring the '''SynthAx'''. I brought my consul [sic] and '''SynthAx''' supplied me with a '''SynthAx'''. I brought one synthesizer and two TX7 modules which are emergency machines really. We couldn’t afford to rent the Matrix 12, which was what I would normally use, because they were too expensive. I had this idea of having this double-neck made so I could play all of the music that I had done on '''SynthAx''' on guitar. The problem was that although I really love the Steinberger I didn’t like that one. Since then I have had another made but it had similar problems. But I found the regular guitar was suffering on the double neck so they made it longer to give it a bit more top, make it a little bit ‘brighter’ sounding. It’s not really happened, I don’t think it’s going to be a success. The huge guitar that I was talking to you about is a complete success but it’s just tuned like a regular guitar but really long." | ||
==[[No Secret (Guitar Extra 1992)]]== | ==[[No Secret (Guitar Extra 1992)]]== | ||
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==[[Blinded By Science (Guitar Player 1993)]]== | ==[[Blinded By Science (Guitar Player 1993)]]== | ||
The Wardenclyffe Tower features several cuts with Synthaxxe (sic) guitar synthesizer, but Allan says he’s retired that instrument from live performance, possibly even from recording. In its place, he’s dabbling with a new controller developed by Starr Switch. "The instrument has unbelievable potential," he beams. "It’s different than a guitar. It looks like a small keyboard. It’s laid out with 24 ‘strings,’ which are actually keys, and 23 frets or keys. It’s like a two-dimensional keyboard. You can play it vertically as well as horizontally, and play chords on a single ‘string,’ I had him design me one that’s like a guitar neck, where the different-colored keys are like the dot markers on a guitar." | The Wardenclyffe Tower features several cuts with '''Synthaxxe''' (sic) guitar synthesizer, but Allan says he’s retired that instrument from live performance, possibly even from recording. In its place, he’s dabbling with a new controller developed by Starr Switch. "The instrument has unbelievable potential," he beams. "It’s different than a guitar. It looks like a small keyboard. It’s laid out with 24 ‘strings,’ which are actually keys, and 23 frets or keys. It’s like a two-dimensional keyboard. You can play it vertically as well as horizontally, and play chords on a single ‘string,’ I had him design me one that’s like a guitar neck, where the different-colored keys are like the dot markers on a guitar." | ||
==[[Creating Imaginary Backdrops (Innerviews 1993)]]== | ==[[Creating Imaginary Backdrops (Innerviews 1993)]]== | ||
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"That’s what I see with a complicated instrument like the '''SynthAxe'''. It’s still a tool. Music, the sound that it makes, is what’s important. What makes it is completely irrelevant. | "That’s what I see with a complicated instrument like the '''SynthAxe'''. It’s still a tool. Music, the sound that it makes, is what’s important. What makes it is completely irrelevant. | ||
==[[One Of A Kind (Guitar Shop 1995)]]== | ==[[Allan Holdsworth: One Of A Kind (Guitar Shop 1995)]]== | ||
“You won’t find me playing '''SynthAxe'''s much anymore, either. I quit playing one because the company went bust and I worried about owning a dinosaur that I could never get fixed. So I sold everything, including two '''SynthAxe'''s and a bunch of synthesizers. But then a few months ago, I started missing it, so I traded a guy I know two guitars for his one. It has some problems, though. I also don’t use guitar synth live anymore. It was getting more expensive to tour, and the biggest expense of all was transporting equipment, especially if we were going to a different country. We’d spend more money on that than we’d make at the gig. Plus, at one point I was using the '''SynthAxe''' for 50 percent of the material, and if it didn’t work for some reason, there went half the show. So it became a liability, even though I love the instrument. On Hard Hat Area, I only used it on the title cut and a solo in “Postlude”. I haven’t tried any other guitar synthesizers, either, like the Roland. I think that making pitch control a synthesizer is completely wrong. I’ve heard people do really great things with that approach, but it’s just not for me. I like the '''SynthAxe''' because it’s a controller that I can drive a synthesizer with, but when you stick a pickup on a guitar, the synth responds to all the tuning problems, and that gets to be a real pain. And overall guitar players seem to look at guitar synthesizers as a novelty, whereas for me – who never wanted to play the guitar in the first place – it was like a way to escape from it. And with the '''SynthAxe''' I could hook up to a wind patch and play chords on it, which was really great. I really love the instrument, but unfortunately, it didn’t last. People even used to leave notes on my amps between sets telling me to go back to playing regular guitar. Now I get notes asking me to go back to guitar synth!” (laughs) | “You won’t find me playing '''SynthAxe'''s much anymore, either. I quit playing one because the company went bust and I worried about owning a dinosaur that I could never get fixed. So I sold everything, including two '''SynthAxe'''s and a bunch of synthesizers. But then a few months ago, I started missing it, so I traded a guy I know two guitars for his one. It has some problems, though. I also don’t use guitar synth live anymore. It was getting more expensive to tour, and the biggest expense of all was transporting equipment, especially if we were going to a different country. We’d spend more money on that than we’d make at the gig. Plus, at one point I was using the '''SynthAxe''' for 50 percent of the material, and if it didn’t work for some reason, there went half the show. So it became a liability, even though I love the instrument. On Hard Hat Area, I only used it on the title cut and a solo in “Postlude”. I haven’t tried any other guitar synthesizers, either, like the Roland. I think that making pitch control a synthesizer is completely wrong. I’ve heard people do really great things with that approach, but it’s just not for me. I like the '''SynthAxe''' because it’s a controller that I can drive a synthesizer with, but when you stick a pickup on a guitar, the synth responds to all the tuning problems, and that gets to be a real pain. And overall guitar players seem to look at guitar synthesizers as a novelty, whereas for me – who never wanted to play the guitar in the first place – it was like a way to escape from it. And with the '''SynthAxe''' I could hook up to a wind patch and play chords on it, which was really great. I really love the instrument, but unfortunately, it didn’t last. People even used to leave notes on my amps between sets telling me to go back to playing regular guitar. Now I get notes asking me to go back to guitar synth!” (laughs) | ||
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AH: I tried the early Roland synth and loved the idea of the sounds, but it didn’t really work for me. Tom Mulhern at Guitar Player magazine recommended the '''SynthAxe''' and that was where that relationship started. Also guitar-wise, I played Charvels for a while, and later discovered the Steinberger. That was it. I just thought it was amazing. It was real hard to switch back to any other guitar. I became friendly with Ned Steinberger. He would send me the guitars without any frets, and then I would send them to a luthier by the name of Bill DeLap and he would flatten the fingerboard, and take out the relief. I like the neck to be absolutely straight. We would put Jim Dunlop 6000 fret wire in it. I had quite a few of these. Also, Bill built me a few baritone guitars. He made me a regular length wooden Steinberger and basically I’ve been playing that till I hooked up with Carvin for this new custom guitar. I play about 80% of the time now on the Carvin and 20% on the Steinberger. It’s still nice to switch back and forth. I love headless guitars. I think the new Carvin is an excellent guitar. | AH: I tried the early Roland synth and loved the idea of the sounds, but it didn’t really work for me. Tom Mulhern at Guitar Player magazine recommended the '''SynthAxe''' and that was where that relationship started. Also guitar-wise, I played Charvels for a while, and later discovered the Steinberger. That was it. I just thought it was amazing. It was real hard to switch back to any other guitar. I became friendly with Ned Steinberger. He would send me the guitars without any frets, and then I would send them to a luthier by the name of Bill DeLap and he would flatten the fingerboard, and take out the relief. I like the neck to be absolutely straight. We would put Jim Dunlop 6000 fret wire in it. I had quite a few of these. Also, Bill built me a few baritone guitars. He made me a regular length wooden Steinberger and basically I’ve been playing that till I hooked up with Carvin for this new custom guitar. I play about 80% of the time now on the Carvin and 20% on the Steinberger. It’s still nice to switch back and forth. I love headless guitars. I think the new Carvin is an excellent guitar. | ||
==[[One Man Of | ==[[One Man Of 'Trane (Jazz Times 2000)]]== | ||
The '''SynthAxe''' was a particular favorite tool for Holdsworth through the ‘80s in that it helped him get closer to the legato sax style that he had been emulating since hearing Coltrane recordings for the first time back in the ‘60s. | The '''SynthAxe''' was a particular favorite tool for Holdsworth through the ‘80s in that it helped him get closer to the legato sax style that he had been emulating since hearing Coltrane recordings for the first time back in the ‘60s. | ||
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I don’t know. I haven’t seen anything. I’ve never seen anything that came close to it. Nothing. Having the keys on it and just the whole way the whole thing worked was just really amazing. I felt like I could get inside it, it felt like part of me. And most of the other ones you know, they don’t work. You have to make it work with a guitar sound, mix the guitar sound with the synth sound and half the notes are missing, you know. With the '''SynthAxe''', that doesn’t happen. | I don’t know. I haven’t seen anything. I’ve never seen anything that came close to it. Nothing. Having the keys on it and just the whole way the whole thing worked was just really amazing. I felt like I could get inside it, it felt like part of me. And most of the other ones you know, they don’t work. You have to make it work with a guitar sound, mix the guitar sound with the synth sound and half the notes are missing, you know. With the '''SynthAxe''', that doesn’t happen. | ||
==[[Don’t you know | ==[[Don’t you know? The Lost Words (Oneiric Moor 2003)]]== | ||
OF: Allan, since the eighties you have been the greatest Ambassador of the '''SynthAxe''', but it is only now you decide to make a complete album with it... Why ? | OF: Allan, since the eighties you have been the greatest Ambassador of the '''SynthAxe''', but it is only now you decide to make a complete album with it... Why ? | ||
AH: In the past I had thought about it, but I was focusing on Group projects, so although I wanted to do it, I just never had the opportunity. When I found myself with the time to do it between projects, I went for it. | AH: In the past I had thought about it, but I was focusing on Group projects, so although I wanted to do it, I just never had the opportunity. When I found myself with the time to do it between projects, I went for it. | ||
==[[Patron Saint (Guitar Player 2004)]]== | ==[[Patron Saint (Guitar Player 2004)]]== | ||
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Yeah, the '''SynthAxe''' made me think a whole lot differently about the guitar, and at one point I was considering not playing guitar at all. I initially wanted to play a wind instrument, and when I used a breath controller with the Synth-Axe, it allowed me a certain amount of expression that I was unable to get from the guitar, particularly the ability to make notes loud and then soft and then loud again, and to change the sound of the note after it had been struck. On the guitar you can shape notes a little bit, but not as much. When the '''SynthAxe''' company went out of business, however, I decided that I’d better go back to the guitar. | Yeah, the '''SynthAxe''' made me think a whole lot differently about the guitar, and at one point I was considering not playing guitar at all. I initially wanted to play a wind instrument, and when I used a breath controller with the Synth-Axe, it allowed me a certain amount of expression that I was unable to get from the guitar, particularly the ability to make notes loud and then soft and then loud again, and to change the sound of the note after it had been struck. On the guitar you can shape notes a little bit, but not as much. When the '''SynthAxe''' company went out of business, however, I decided that I’d better go back to the guitar. | ||
==[[Allan Holdsworth - Jazz Fusion Guitarist (Musicguy247 2017)]]== | ==[[Allan Holdsworth - Jazz/Fusion Guitarist (Musicguy247 2017)]]== | ||
R.V.B. - You toyed with electronics a lot and eventually started using the '''SynthAxe'''. It enhanced the sound of the guitar but did it change the way you approached playing the guitar? | R.V.B. - You toyed with electronics a lot and eventually started using the '''SynthAxe'''. It enhanced the sound of the guitar but did it change the way you approached playing the guitar? | ||
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People used to write notes on my amp, asking me to stop playing the '''SynthAxe''' and play the guitar instead. But now people often ask me, “We’d love to hear you play the '''SynthAxe'''—did you bring it?” I rarely play it onstage anymore because it’s too costly to take on the road and it requires a lot of equipment. | People used to write notes on my amp, asking me to stop playing the '''SynthAxe''' and play the guitar instead. But now people often ask me, “We’d love to hear you play the '''SynthAxe'''—did you bring it?” I rarely play it onstage anymore because it’s too costly to take on the road and it requires a lot of equipment. | ||
==[[The Allan Holdsworth Interview | ==[[The Allan Holdsworth Interview (Musoscribe 2017)]]== | ||
Early on in your solo career, you became very closely associated with the '''SynthAxe'''. What piqued your initial interest in that instrument? | Early on in your solo career, you became very closely associated with the '''SynthAxe'''. What piqued your initial interest in that instrument? | ||
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Briefly, but it was a few years ago. But it was like a step backwards for me; if I have to go from the '''SynthAxe''', the thing is going to have to be absolutely, incredibly remarkable for me to want to make a jump. | Briefly, but it was a few years ago. But it was like a step backwards for me; if I have to go from the '''SynthAxe''', the thing is going to have to be absolutely, incredibly remarkable for me to want to make a jump. | ||
==[[Interview_with_Allan_Holdsworth_(Jazz_Italia_2005)]]== | |||
ALEX: In your opinion, why has no one else in the guitar synth world proposed a valid alternative to Roland's hexaphonic pickup, which is not very faithful, apart from SynthAxe and Yamaha, which have a virtually error-free system? | |||
ALLAN: I do not know ... because probably many guitarists, when I did some clinics, they asked me: "well, can you make it sound like a Strat?" and I would answer "why do you want to make it sound like a Strat? Why take a guitar synth with all these sounds and then play it like a guitar? You already have a guitar!" But I think that most guitarists want to play the guitar so they do not want to waste time managing it from a technical point of view. The reason why nobody has done another is because it is very complex to make the sound of a guitar. As with a keyboard, driving a synthesizer is simple, you just have to switch on a switch or not, with the guitar it's hard. Yamaha has made a great system, the strings are very low. The problem, in this case, is that if you do bending you may have precision defects since it is calculated at the bridge level ... The SynthAxe was completely different. Each key was separated on each string and the sensors were inside the strings themselves - they are like microphones so it makes sense the movement of the string as well as knowing how long the string is and then know when bend is possible if you play more towards the neck and how much if you play more towards the bridge. It's all programmed, a great machine. But they are very delicate, I have one that works well and one that does not work. At the beginning they were very reliable but now I would fear to take another one. [Machine back translated.] | |||
