Dave Kersner: Sampling THE CONCERT for Barbra

"The Barbra Streisand gig happened actually as a result of doing some custom sampling for a Madonna tour. For Madonna's Girlie Tour I had met the guys who do Madonna's midi and keyboard set up. They told me they had 9 Akai 3200s which was unheard of back then. I convinced them to make one of them just dedicated to piano which was sort of a new concept. This was just before there were "Piano Theme" sample libraries out. So, I sampled this beautiful Yamaha C7 grand over at Milagro Studios in Glendale. I did a custom 32 meg version of it for the tour as well as some other sounds. They loved it. By the way, there is a version of this piano in Sonic Synth. Anyway, later on I get this phone call from one of those guys. It's Peter Wiltz and he's calling from Japan. He asks me if I would do him a favor and go audition some sampling trick for some singer under their company name, Auditory Illusions. I am thinking this is going to be some lame gig they can't be bothered to do. But, it turned out it was for Barbra Streisand and this really prestigious show at the MGM Grand in Vegas for New Years. Peter asked me to do it because they were in Japan with Madonna but didn't want to lose this gig. So, I went down to Sony where they were rehearsing, auditioned and got the gig. What did you end up having to do for that gig in Las Vegas with Streisand? Well, it was what you'd call "flying in samples". I basically had to sample dialog from recorded actors and play them from a keyboard live. She had this little skit in between songs where she would talk to an analyst from the stage. She had these couches set up and would stop the song and say "What's wrong with me?" and a doctor's voice from off stage would answer her. I was the one who triggered the doctor's voices. She didn't want to have the actors there for the show each time because she couldn't predict how it would come off with them not being in front of her. So, I was "wizard behind the curtain" on that gig. There's some funny stories about that whole thing that I've talked about on the Sonic Reality/Sampletank forum at www.kvr-vst.com.

Original Article: http://www.sampletank.com/Main.html?STSonicRealityInterview