Noble Synth The Eighties

It's kind of a badge of honour for musicians. You align yourself to a particular instrument brand and find yourself defending it as a Holden fan would against a Ford fiend. Paul Noble has been a professional musician for around 25 years. He has played some big gigs with John Farnham and Pseudo Echo, to name just a couple, and by day is a product education specialist for a keyboard company. His chosen brand, the one he believes in, is Casio. It's the company which came to prominence in the '80s for producing hi-tech family keyboards. The same family keyboards which are showing up so often today on the latest hipster's albums. More recently however, Casio has belied it's dinky keyboard image and put some serious time, effort and money into the development of performance grade synthesisers. The result of their toil is the recent release of two powerful and affordable instruments, the XWP1 and XW G1, and indeed, these are pioneering times for Casio.

Speaking to Casio's Paul Noble, you get the impression he has some pride in working with these synths, can chat at length about them and more importantly,  speak in truth about them. Not that anything pre-dating the XWP1 or XWG1 was not talkworthy, it's just that there seems to be a genuine buzz around the company for this gear. Paul's association with Casio goes back a long way. His first ever synth purchase was another brand, an Ensoniq ESQ1, quite a hi tech buy first up. Then soon after, he acquired a Casio CZ1000, the famous 80s model … he'd caught the Casio bug.

With such an ingrained perception of what their keyboards are known for, it was a tough ask for Casio's development team to come up with something the pro players would stand up and take notice of. Paul believes they've got things right with the new synths and hopes people open their eyes and ears to give them a go.

“I would say that people are going to be quite surprised when they experience these things because that isn't traditionally Casio's reputation,” he said. “Especially when you look at the package you get with these synths and you consider the fact that they are both under a thousand dollars, you would expect them to be sub-pro market product, as I did to be honest. However, to play them, I honestly believe they would cut it anywhere on any stage. They are absolutely brilliant.”

Paul loves the '80s sounds these keys have to offer and uses them to the max when he can. Noble's current music projects include Gener8tor, an originals band and also Gold Chisel, a Cold Chisel tribute act. “I am a classic '80s Muso,” Paul said of his influences, and he finds it easy to emulate those sounds with these new Casio releases. “I love all the Polysynths… that typical sawtooth type sound or anything clavinet-like. So I'll get a clavinet sound and you can add up to 200 DSP effects to any sound onboard and you can multi layer the DSPs too. You can layer up to six at a time.”

It's not only the '80s sounds on the XWP1 and XWG1 which Paul is impressed with. “The versatility is huge and also the ease of use is outstanding,” he said. “There are some classic, big fat 80s analogue sounds as well as having all the modern day digital samples on them too.,” he tells.

“There are two models,  the XWP1 which is what we call the Performance synth. For real players, guys who are quite skilled who want great sounds, the P1 is the go. It features multiple sound engines which I think would appeal to any pro musician. You have a six oscillator, monophonic analogue synth. Then you have a Hex layer polyphonic synth which allows you to lay  up to 6 different patches at one time and mix and control each individually. You have a drawbar organ sound engine, with nine drawbar organ sliders, as well as fast and slow Leslie, percussive effects, all the stuff that you might see on something like a Nord Stage keyboard. then you have all your PCM based stuff as well, all the gig-ready stuff, piano, strings, brass sounds, as well as all your percussive stuff, drum kits, electronic kits, ethnic kits, everything you would expect to find on a pro keyboard.

“It also gives you features like the step sequencer, which allows you to put grooves together really quickly and easily. It has a phrase sequencer, which you can sequence a phrase into and then loop. You can key assign, so you can trigger it to play in any key by simply touching a piano keyboard. You can use that or any sound in conjunction with the onboard arpeggiator. It's a powerful instrument and you have realtime control over everything, your envelopes, frequency cut off, and decay.”

Noble is equally excited about the XWG1. “With the groove synth. We probably see a bit of an integration into the DJ market. The way I use this synth is in integration with things like the iPad, iPhone, computers. It actually has a rubber pad on the side of it where you can sit your iPad or iPhone. The big feature with that model is the sampler. It has the ability to take ten samples internally, without adding extra memory which you can do easily by adding a SD card, they take up to 32 gig. So it can store up to ten samples at full quality, each up to 19 seconds long.

“What you hear go in is exactly what you hear come out. With your computer, you can sample a drum loop, then you can add through the sampler, some realtime parts which you might play in yourself… then record in some vocals. You get this great integration between your audio parts with your live keyboard performance.”

It's rumoured that there will be a special edition gold version of Casio's new synths landing in limited number prior to Christmas and don't be surprised to see new releases soon. Casio is committed to the new direction they have taken.

As for Paul, try to catch him at a Cold Chisel gig at a club near you soon.