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The Keyboard Corner

Synths, pianos, software, analog, digital, modeling, virtual instruments, programming tips - this is the place on the web for discussions, debates, opinions and assistance...and the occasional sports thread.

 

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Subforums

  1. Repairs and Mods

    Repairs, modifications, tips, tricks and other suggestions for ailing keyboards and synthesizers.

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66,784 topics in this forum

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  1. Bose L1 Model 2 vs Compact

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  2. Lead sheets, where?

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  3. My Ventilator just died!

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  4. What causes this?

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  5. This one seems legit

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  6. broken zx-a1

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  7. Νord 5d bass or Mainstage?

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  8. Electro 5D Grand Piano

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  9. Half-Damper pedal

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  10. The Linux development

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  11. Yamaha P121

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  12. Korg Forum???

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  • Trending posts on MPN

    • I've been on the receiving end of that type of band situation - where the songwriter gets more and more particular about how the song ought to be played by each instrumentalist.   In my case the songwriter was right most of the time.  😀  I didn't quite have the creativity and skills of a Skunk Baxter.   The interview inspired me to look more into Doobie history.  Baxter had them doing recording sessions for other artists like Carly Simon, to level up their musicianship.  Patrick Simmons seems to have written his most harmonically and rhythmically adventurous songs - eg. "Rio", "Living On the Fault Line", "Chinatown" around this time.  
    • Both! One thing to know is you should listen to that rig from audience distance to judge the sound. In the room it’s better than on the stage most of the times. 
    • It's been a while since I've gigged with a synth, but before COVID, after trying several synths, I went with the Minilogue XD. It was small, had built-in effects, and the interface was excellent for live tweaks. I've been tempted to use an iPad with Korg Gadget and small controller to take care of synth needs, but if I had the budget I'd probably use the upcoming KingKorg Neo.
    • For the majority of my local gigs, I still get away with my Nord Stage 2 EX Compact. Pedal board under my feet, L to R: Ventilator extension pedal, FC-7 expression pedal plugged into Nord expression input and used for organ and volume morphing, sustain pedal. Nord outputs 1 (and 2 if stereo) into Key Largo input 1  that sits on another pedal board either to left or right of keyboard stand depending on stage location/room. Organ section routed mostly to output 3 which then goes into a Holy Grail Nano reverb, Lounsberry Tall & Fat, finally Neo Ventilator (all on the second pedal board). Output of Vent whether mono or stereo to input 2 of KL.    I also use a NS3 Compact for gigs where there is more of a set list (Song Mode very useful!) and it is wired in the same way.   I augment either NS2 or NS3 rig with a Korg Kronos 2 for when I need the additional fire power, like the Paul McCartney tribute and David Bowie tributes I am involved in. That also gets routed to the Key Largo.   Some gigs I play acoustic or electric guitar - output of acoustic works just fine through the KL. For electric guitar I built a small pedal board with a tuner, a multi-effects and a Joyo AC guitar amp pedal. I don't play lead, just rhythm on a few songs here and there so I don't feel like my tone is so important that I need to bring a separate amp. The beautiy is that it too goes right into the Key Largo, so I am in control of my mix and can send just a L/R to FOH.   A little trick you can do with the Key Largo  if you need more than the 3 inputs is to use the effects loop as a separate input. I've done this when I'm using the Nord into inputs 1 and 2 (organ), Kronos in 3 and guitar in effects loop. I don't use outboard effects for these gigs, so no problem.   KL Largo monitor out to usually just one QSC monitor that sits by my side. Lately I've been doing more in-ears, and the little Behringer wired pack I use takes two inputs, so I take a feed from the KL monitor out and another from FOH. Yeah, it's keys on one side and FOH mix on the other, so not the greatest but works in a pinch. If I trust the FOH, I'll just get a stereo feed directly from them.
    • My webpage has the details, it will be updated as my stage system is currently going through a change.  The diagram below shows the new system.   My Andromeda is starting to show its age by crashing in the middle of a song so I am replacing it.  Anyone who knows the Andromeda knows this is a tall order, and I refuse to use a laptop or mobile on stage.  That's the change I am going through now.   I played a lot of genres over the years so I decided to divide strategic components into separate racks: Base analog rack Kurzweil rack Minimoog rack Polysynth rack Polysynth Effects rack This creates a modular system such that I only carry the components I need for the genre.  IE if I'm playing blues or R&B, I don't need the synth racks.  It also keeps the weight of the racks reasonable.  This also minimizes the keyboards I use onstage (I'm down to two keyboards and a set of bass pedals).  Another goal was to minimize cabling so with the exception of the Hammond all cabling between keyboards and racks is MIDI.  The cabling is 25ft so I can set the racks offstage (I do not need to access the racks while playing).  I built this in 2016, it has worked so well that I wish I had built it a long time ago. A convention is my stage system is my Universal Effects System Anyway, the synths: Moog Voyager RME.  Used for classic rock or prog synth solos.  Minimoog is hard to beat for solos.  This is the closest thing in a Minimoog with MIDI in a rack format.  I also use it for sound FX.  The RME has its own Universal Effects system. Moog Minitaur.  I've used Moog Taurus bass pedals with some bands.  Until the Minitaur, I had never been able to get the Taurus growl and solid low end out of any other synth.  I worked with a sound guy who loved to pump the Minitaur through his sub woofers to shake the room.  I retrofitted a set of Taurus II controller bass pedals (no synth engine, controller only) with MIDI so I can play the Minitaur (or other MIDI gear) with my feet.  No effects needed, the Minitaur sounds so huge. Many of the Andromeda patches I used onstage were 70s/80s analog and bread-n-butter sounds.  I noticed that the typical layer/split I used on the Andromeda consisted of 2 or 3 Oberheim based patches and 1 Moog based patch. So to replace the Andromeda, I selected two Oberheim OB-X8 and one Sequential Trigon-6 all in desktop module formats.  The desktop modules are too wide for standard 19" rack mounting so I am ordering a rack case to accommodate the modules which will be mounted on drawers. The Andromeda only has a single digital effect, other patches often needed other effects.  I used to route separate splits to the AUX outputs of the Andromeda then to two sets of my Universal Effects System - that was a powerful and flexible polysynth.  To duplicate this convention, I configured one OB-X8 as stereo eight voice, the other is configured as split with each split routed to separate L/R outputs then to the dual Universal Effects System.  The Trigon-6 does the Moog polyphonic patches and already has internal digital effects.  While the OB-X8 in eight voice mode doesn't use any effects, the random stereo panning creates a nice stereo effect. That's how I replaced my Andromeda.  The solution isn't smaller but a modern hardware clone of the Andromeda is not likely today.  The solution doesn't have the deep feature set of the Andromeda for patches, but I covered 90% of what I used on stage. Other non-synth sound modules: Kurzweil 1000PX and 1000AX ROMplers.  Great samples of bread-n-butter sounds that aren't possible on the polysynths.  Each ROMpler has their own digital reverb. Alesis DMPro drum ROMpler.  Besides the excellent drum library, it includes a very good effects system and has four AUX outputs.  If I need to, I can configure six separate outputs for kick, snare, cymbals, percussion, then stereo pair for effects and everything else. All this is controlled from my master MIDI controller.  For every song, my Kurzweil MIDIBoard has MIDI configurations for patch, volume, etc of each MIDI device and split/layer of its keyboard.  I have yet to find a MIDI controller with the features of the MIDIBoard.  The Hammond has a dual role, I can use it to play organ (also configured via the MIDIBoard), or with CANCEL preset selected the Hammond becomes a MIDI controller for the polysynths. I used to play in an 80s top40 band (Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, etc) using a drum machine and I played bass synth with my left hand.  I wanted to plan for that genre so I included an Alesis Datadisk to play back MIDI drum/bass sequences to the drum module and Minitaur.  I may be exploiting that in the near future.    
  • In MPN’s GEARLAB

    • My trusty Typhon can:   "Audio over USB -Typhon gets recognised as Audio/USB device. This feature enables Typhon to act as an audio input and be recorded from a computer directly without the use of a sound card. This feature got implemented to support the previous described feature so as the user doesn’t have to connect the physical audio out to his sound card, and so on create a ground loop, which cause a constant buzzing at Typhon’s audio."   https://www.dreadbox-fx.com/typhon/  
    • Ipad, yes, but from my experience with the Modx that is due to being able to set the Modx as the audio interface in the audio app(s) I used.  In other words, unlike sending analog audio to a mixer or speaker where the sending unit doesn't care or know what is connected, I had to set the Modx as the destination or it wouldn't have sent anything. I'm not sure if a synth that can send audio over usb would be able to do so with another keyboard, unless it had a way to do the same...never thought about it though (which synths can send audio over usb?)  
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