Focus (Cynic Album)
''Focus'' is the debut studio album by American metal band Cynic, released September 14, 1993 through Roadrunner Records. A remastered version of the album was released in 2004. Overview and musical approach After years of being hailed as a promising act in Florida's death metal scene, Cynic recorded ''Focus''. The result was an album combining their love of death metal with other influences, notably jazz. Instead of choosing the brutal and hard-hitting approach to metal like most of their contemporaries, ''Focus'' takes an experimental stance to music. The album features a hoarse, guttural, growling vocal style, provided by keyboardist Tony Teegarden. Lead singer Paul Masvidal said he was in danger of losing his voice at the time and thus did not perform the harsh vocals himself. As a result Masvidal recorded his own vocals using a vocoder, giving his voice a synthesized, robotic quality. Individual players The guitar parts of Masvidal and Jason Gobel intertwine, which Masvi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cynic (band)
Cynic is an American progressive metal band formed in Miami, Florida in 1987 and later re-formed in Los Angeles, California in 2007, where the sole surviving member, Paul Masvidal remains to this day. Cynic incorporates elements of progressive rock, alternative, and metal. Their first album, ''Focus'', was released in 1993. Cynic disbanded in 1994, but they reunited in 2006 and released their second album in 2008. ''Traced in Air'' was released through French label Season of Mist, followed up by an EP titled ''Re-Traced'' in 2010 and an EP titled Carbon-Based Anatomy in 2011. Their third studio album, ''Kindly Bent to Free Us'', was released in 2014. In December 2017, after two years of an uncertain future, founding member Sean Reinert confirmed his split from Cynic. Reinert died at the age of 48 in January 2020. Longtime Cynic bass player Sean Malone died at the age of 50 eleven months later, leaving Masvidal as the only remaining original core member. History Demo era ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jason Gobel
Jason Göbel is an American musician. He is best known for being a member of the technical metal band Cynic and playing guitar on their album ''Focus''. Life and career Gobel joined Cynic in 1988, playing guitar on their demos and album ''Focus'' He has also played with Portal, a lighter side project of the band Cynic, Gordian Knot, a band formed by Sean Malone, also a former Cynic member. Prior to this he played on Monstrosity's album '' Imperial Doom'' alongside future Cannibal Corpse vocalist George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher and future Malevolent Creation guitarist and bassist Jon Rubin and Mark Van Erp. He took a long break from the music industry The music industry consists of the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, ... starting in 2004. He lives in Miami with his two children. References ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sean Malone
Sean Malone (April 12, 1970 – December 7, 2020) was an American musician who played primarily fretless bass guitar and Chapman Stick. He was most famous for his work with progressive metal band Cynic, in which he developed a strong partnership with the drummer Sean Reinert. Malone and Reinert played on several records together outside Cynic, making them one of the most favorable modern progressive rhythm sections. Malone also did a number of session jobs for various bands and musicians. Career Music Early in his career, Malone played as a session member for groups ranging from latin jazz and bossa nova to British pop music. His first high-level experience in metal music was in 1993 with the progressive metal band Cynic from Florida. Malone became Cynic's bassist quite unexpectedly; the band had a scheduled recording of their debut album, ''Focus'' in a studio in which Malone was working as an assistant engineer, and session musician. The band had suddenly parted ways with ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and frequency modulation synthesis. These sounds may be altered by components such as filters, which cut or boost frequencies; envelopes, which control articulation, or how notes begin and end; and low-frequency oscillators, which modulate parameters such as pitch, volume, or filter characteristics affecting timbre. Synthesizers are typically played with keyboards or controlled by sequencers, software or other instruments, and may be synchronized to other equipment via MIDI. Synthesizer-like instruments emerged in the United States in the mid-20th century with instruments such as the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer, RCA Mark II, which was controlled with Punched card, punch cards and used hundreds of vacuum tubes. The Moog synthesizer, d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pick Up (music Technology)
A pickup is a transducer that captures or senses mechanical vibrations produced by musical instruments, particularly stringed instruments such as the electric guitar, and converts these to an electrical signal that is amplified using an instrument amplifier to produce musical sounds through a loudspeaker in a speaker enclosure. The signal from a pickup can also be recorded directly. Most electric guitars and electric basses use magnetic pickups. Acoustic guitars, upright basses and fiddles often use a piezoelectric pickup. Magnetic pickups A typical magnetic pickup is a transducer (specifically a variable reluctance sensor) that consists of one or more permanent magnets (usually alnico or ferrite) wrapped with a coil of several thousand turns of fine enameled copper wire. The magnet creates a magnetic field which is focused by the pickup's pole piece or pieces. The permanent magnet in the pickup magnetizes the guitar string above it. This causes the string to generate a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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MIDI
MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and related audio devices for playing, editing, and recording music. The specification originates in the paper ''Universal Synthesizer Interface'' published by Dave Smith and Chet Wood of Sequential Circuits at the 1981 Audio Engineering Society conference in New York City. A single MIDI cable can carry up to sixteen channels of MIDI data, each of which can be routed to a separate device. Each interaction with a key, button, knob or slider is converted into a MIDI event, which specifies musical instructions, such as a note's pitch, timing and loudness. One common MIDI application is to play a MIDI keyboard or other controller and use it to trigger a digital sound module (which contains synthesized musical sounds) to generate sounds, which t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roland Corporation
is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment, and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on 18 April 1972. In 2005, its headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It has factories in Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, and the United States. As of 31 March 2010, it employed 2,699 people. In 2014, it was subject to a management buyout by its CEO, Junichi Miki, supported by Taiyo Pacific Partners. Roland has manufactured numerous instruments that have had lasting impacts on music, such as the Juno-106 synthesizer, TB-303 bass synthesizer, and TR-808 and TR-909 drum machines. It was also instrumental in the development of MIDI, a standardized means of synchronizing electronic instruments manufactured by different companies. In 2016, ''Fact'' wrote that Roland had arguably had more influence on electronic music than any other company. History 1970s Having created Ace Electronic Industries Inc in 1960, Ikutaro Kakeh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Electric Guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic guitar exist). It uses one or more pickups to convert the vibration of its strings into electrical signals, which ultimately are reproduced as sound by loudspeakers. The sound is sometimes shaped or electronically altered to achieve different timbres or tonal qualities on the amplifier settings or the knobs on the guitar from that of an acoustic guitar. Often, this is done through the use of effects such as reverb, distortion and "overdrive"; the latter is considered to be a key element of electric blues guitar music and jazz and rock guitar playing. Invented in 1932, the electric guitar was adopted by jazz guitar players, who wanted to play single-note guitar solos in large big band ensembles. Early proponents of the electric guitar on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Steinberger
Steinberger is a series of distinctive electric guitars and bass guitars, designed and originally manufactured by Ned Steinberger. The name "Steinberger" can be used to refer to either the instruments themselves or the company that originally produced them. Although the name has been applied to a variety of instruments, it is primarily associated with a minimalist "headless" design of electric basses and guitars. History The first Steinberger basses were produced in 1979 in Brooklyn, New York by Ned Steinberger, essentially alone. While attempting to source materials in an industrial area of New York City, he visited Lane Marine, a lifeboat builder, where he met with Bob Young, an engineer with deep knowledge of carbon fiber. Though Young was more than twice Steinberger’s age and had no experience with musical instruments, he joined forces with Steinberger after getting great feedback from his son, Gary Young, a recording engineer and the original drummer for Pavement, who to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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King Crimson
King Crimson are a progressive rock band formed in 1968 in London, England. The band draws inspiration from a wide variety of music, incorporating elements of classical, jazz, folk, heavy metal, gamelan, industrial, electronic, experimental music and new wave. They exerted a strong influence on the early 1970s progressive rock movement, including on contemporaries such as Yes and Genesis, and continue to inspire subsequent generations of artists across multiple genres. The band has earned a large cult following. Founded by Robert Fripp, Michael Giles, Greg Lake, Ian McDonald and lyricist Peter Sinfield, the band initially focused on a dramatic sound layered with Mellotron, McDonald's saxophone and flute, and Lake's powerful lead vocals. Their debut album, '' In the Court of the Crimson King'' (1969), remains their most commercially successful and influential release, with a potent mixture of jazz, classical and experimental music. Following the sudden simultaneous de ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Adrian Belew
Robert Steven "Adrian" Belew (born December 23, 1949) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. A multi-instrumentalist primarily known as a guitarist and singer, he is noted for his unusual and impressionistic approach to his guitar tones (which, rather than relying on standard instrumental tones, often resemble sound effects or noises made by animals and machines). Widely recognized as an "incredibly versatile player", Belew is perhaps best known for his long career as singer and guitarist in the progressive rock group King Crimson between 1981 and 2009. He has also released nearly twenty solo albums for Island Records and Atlantic Records in a range of blended or alternated styles including art rock, New Wave, Beatles-inspired pop-rock, progressive rock and experimental noise. In addition, Belew has been a member of the intermittently active pop band the Bears, and fronted GaGa in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Belew has worked extensively as a s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946) is a British musician, songwriter, record producer, and author, best known as the guitarist, founder and longest-lasting member of the progressive rock band King Crimson. He has worked extensively as a session musician and collaborator, notably with David Bowie, Blondie, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Daryl Hall, Midge Ure, Talking Heads, and David Sylvian. He also composed the startup sound of Windows Vista operating system, in collaboration with Tucker Martine and Steve Ball. His discography includes contributions to over 700 official releases. His compositions often feature unusual asymmetric rhythms, influenced by classical and folk traditions. His innovations include a tape delay system known as Frippertronics and new standard tuning. Early life Robert Fripp was born in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England, the second child of a working-class family. His mother Edith (''née'' Greene; 1914–1993) was from a Welsh mining family. Her earnings f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |