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Rig/Band migration


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I'm sure we've done this before, but a quick search only turned up the "Dig my Rig" thread. Brother Tony's been posting pictures of keyboards on FB walking through everything he got since his first keyboard, but what's missing is the correlation to what kind of band and music was being played at the time other than a few references regarding his first organ. If somebody comes across this topic in an older thread, go ahead and post it here. But maybe some folks weren't round for it.

 

Don't have to list everything you've owned, more interested in bands you played in from your first to present and what rig you used. I'll start.

 

High School I played with a few guys but we only played a few parties and stuff, not really a gigging band. I had a Korg Polysix and Casio CZ-101, so obviously nothing even velocity sensitive much less piano sounds or anything like that.

 

First paying, gigging band was maybe around 90-91 and the condition for hiring me was that I had to get a better keyboard. They let me borrow a D20 for a while but I eventually got a Roland JV-30 and also picked up a Casio VZ-8M on a blowout.

 

That band dissolved and the guitar player and I started a duo. Same rig for that, but used an IBM laptop to play sequences through the JV-30.

 

My next band roughly 2000 was an 80s band (not the one you guys might know me from). They wanted keys and bass. I thought I was auditioning on keys but they had me leave them in the car and just bring in my bass. Somehow I made the band. By this time I got a Sound Canvas which was the same sound set as the JV-30 and played it with an A70 controller. I replaced the Polysix with a Jupiter 6 which ran through a dedicated Boss SE-50 effects. I used an Alesis Datadisk to set up all my sounds for each song.

 

Next band was "That 80s Band", which you can guess from the name what it was. That rig was an Alesis Fusion 6HD and Korg Triton Pro, which lasted my whole 7 or so years with them gigging every weekend.

 

Left them and joined a classic rock band, That rig is what my rig has basically been ever since - Korg Kronos 61 (bought when it first came out -had to get a floor model from a store in Chicago because they were all backordered) and an A70 on the lower tier.

 

Only addition since then is my current Progressive Metal band which is the same rig with the addition of an MFB Dominion 1.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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I just play acoustic piano and Hammond organ (clones) with a little EP thrown in, so I just upgrade those as better sounds and actions come along. :idk:

 

I like hearing about your stuff though, Dan (gear, playing, and programming). It reminds me that there's a whole other world out there as far as what can be done with keyboards.

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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My story started with a Roland Alpha Juno-2. Lovely action, but limited sound palette. Added a Yamaha EMT-10 module and MIDI-ed the two together, that got me through school bands.

 

At college, I had a Roland JX-1 - silly hexagonal shape but a resonant filter - and a Kawai K1. Joined a 60s cover band - didn't much enjoy it. Those boards taught me to not buy cheap.

 

My first "pro-level" board was an Ensoniq KS32. Loved that board, but it was heavy (astonishingly good AP patch in 1MB of sample memory), so I bought a SQ1+ as well. Joined a rock covers band, and am still in touch with the guys (and some of the girls) after 26 years. Added a Roland PC180 4-octave controller MIDIed in to give me a second tier, later upgraded to a Viscount/Oberheim MC1000/76. I swapped the Ensoniq for an Alesis QS6.2 after a while, and finally retired my crappy X-stands and bought an Ultimate Apex.

 

Current rig is a Nord Stage 2 (not EX, not 3) compact that I've had almost 8 years, paired with a controller (commonly a Nord Stage classic HA76, sometimes a Yamaha NP30 for those awkward gigs). That's got me through American rock bands, soul/R&B horn bands, disco/soul/funk bands, blues gigs, jam sessions, festivals No great desire to buy anything further-although if Yamaha, Casio, Kawai etc release a budget-ish 7x-note hammer-action slab piano with a MIDI socket at under 25lb, I might well jump. (Yamaha P121 - so close!)

 

The other big change over the years (and I suspect Dan that you may have inadvertently inspired me back in the day) is the move to IEMs. Rolls PM351 is a standard fixture in my rig.

 

Cheers, Mike.

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My first gigging band was country. Only a Wurly 200a.

 

Next was '81 - '85. Started out with just the Wurly and a Model-D minimoog. Over the months that followed built the rig to include Arp Omni2, Crumar T1 organ and MemoryMoog. Sold the Wurly and bought a CP-70b.

 

Then followed various cover bands and various rigs. Most were some subset of DX7, ESQ1, Matrix6, Memorymoog+, Roland RD250s, and midi rack stuff.

 

1989 - '92 played with a R&B / top40 / dance band. Rig was KX-76, ESQ1 and a rack with EPS-M, Roland piano module (forget the number), and Matrix-6R.

 

'92 - 2014 pretty much took a break from music. Current rig Arturia Keylab-88B and a Kronos2-61and misc VSTs.

 

...Next band was "That 80s Band"...

No de-rail, just a quick side bar: Any relation to the same name from Cleveland? I still follow those guys.

 

~ vonnor

Gear:

Hardware: Nord Stage3, Korg Kronos 2, Novation Summit

Software: Cantabile 3, Halion Sonic 3 and assorted VST plug-ins.

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Aussies gear story in Sydney (the early years for me). I think i have this in order. As its hard to remember precisely as ive been thru so much gear but First band around late 70s (typical aussie late teens party band) i joined as a singer with my cousin as drummer.

 

I eventually said guys we need keys as i knew my singing was shit and I needed a way to reinforce my singing or hide it. Hee hee. I had years of piano as a kid but my dad was a singing teacher so i loathed to do what my dad did so as soon as i could convince him to let me drop piano lessons i did. Boy no more of those silly piano lesson recitals. No more riding my bike for miles to lessons..FREEDOM

 

 

Ok so a quick self relearning and practise had me tentatively playing good enough to fake it for tgis band and i mean fake it.

 

So i added a new yamaha CP30 piano (from Greg at Hutchings keyboards aussies will know this great shop) and added on top a Vox Jaguar organ using Dexion racking at back to make a keyboard stand ( i believe from New Zealand band Toy Love who went back to NZ).

 

Joined another band from mates I knew from church camps and being lead singer they named the band after me because my name has a funny twist. Eventually guys left and we ended up with a shit hot blues guitarist who i learned later went on to BIG things. Things soon tightened up and we put our heads to the grindstone.

 

He lived opposite Sydneys biggest Cemetary and late at night after band practise wed leave his place and see some strange shit going on in the distance in that cemetary. STRANGE SHIT.

 

He kept saying my CP30 sounds like a carnival ( a great feeling keybed with lousy sounds) so i replaced it with an Arp 4 voice which i LOVED (it seems to get a bad rap on here) also purchased from Hutchings Keyboards but with a no warranty clause. Being young i just wanted it and didn't really consider the no warranty but in those days i never experienced needing warranty buying stuff).

 

I found it had an intermittent problem and pulled it apart to simply find an earth wire had come adrift (fixed it my first foray into fixing gear). It was although a large keyboard so much lighter than the CP30 and i much preferred the sound. It had a great "new smell" im guessing the acres of vinyl or tolex like material.

 

As i was becoming a gear head my next keyboard was the rare in Australia Korg Trident a beast of a Synth i again bought from Hutchings Keyboards (hutchings was the other side of Sydney to me but he was a great guy and shop so it was an exciting trip). Id considered a Poly Six but wanted to split and layer in one synth. I was ahead of my time as i understood the beauty of this in one instrument. It had 3 engines each could be split or layered with the others.

 

This Trident was 3 months old and still expensive as it was Korgs Flagship. I remember Greg saying the original owner (trade in i believe) brought it back to his shop on a motor bike. I still to this day cannot figure out how this could be done. The keyboard is a large heavy beast.

 

Anyway i remember playing this in this band at a large concert in a town hall. I was playing it solo on stage (strings/synth sounds not piano.) as a walk on introduction for rest of band. It sounded massive in that hall. The walk on took a while so I got great solo time.

 

I got my only compliment from that guitarist (who was the only decent muso in the band) he said "that was brilliant why cant you play like that all the time?: A compliment but a backhanded one at that. But i knew finally i was finding my ground.

 

Anyway that Korg went into my next band which was my first professional band which I formed with the singer/rhythm guitarist. We both wrote songs and sung so the new band became your typical Aussie "originals" pub band (in the times when Aussie pub rock was becoming famous) We got a fair bit of work and a bit of a following up the Blue Mountains amoung orher areas. That was a good chain of pubs to play.

 

 

This is where i found synthesis suite originals far more than covers at the time which were piano organ and strings because covers were mostly songs from the past. This new band opened me to synthesis because we wrote most of the songs i was free to contribute how i liked. We still did covers but often those were up to date covers so again the synth was needed as much as piano.

 

Ill end it here with the weirdest addition on top of the Trident. Always looking for something extra. There was enough room actually sitting directly on the top of the Trident to add a small keyboard with supports at the back without an extra tier.

 

Now this is a gear purchase that is weird. I was in the local piano shop run by the most famous or infamous piano salesman of Sydney ("have a musical day") where i found some small yamaha "bomchikka" keyboard which had one strange sound on it which i instantly thought suited one of our originals.

 

Because this piano guy sold the cheapest pianos and home keyboards i grabbed it just for one song but was able to make use of it for extra sounds on top of the korg.

 

Buying a keyboard albeit a chintzy home keyboard for one song sounds crazy but heres the kicker i kept it for a year and sold it for 5 bux more or was that less than i bought it new. How could it be possible i could sell it for what i paid for it. Well years later we heard this shop had a run in with the powers to be. Thats as much as ill say. Put it this way it looks like a lot of buyers did get the best piano deals there.

 

The stories can go on but this is a good place to end it.

 

 

So endeth the secong reading. Copies of this speach can be obtained in the foyer.

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...Next band was "That 80s Band"...

No de-rail, just a quick side bar: Any relation to the same name from Cleveland? I still follow those guys.

 

No, this one started in St. Louis early 2000's and is still going strong. We quickly found lots of other "that 80s bands" around the world popping up. We even at one point thought about trying to franchise it and pool resources for things like promotional materials and what-not. Turns out I think the one in Detroit had rights to the name. But there were "that 80s Bands" all over the place for a while. Not surprising since it was about the time that "That 70s Show" was on TV.

 

To be honest, I'm not sure I ever came across the one in OH. Back then it seemed like the bigger ones were in Denver, Detroit, and I think there was one in NY. Don't know if any of those are still around. There was one in Australia with the same logo and outfits as us that seemed at least from their web site to be doing ok but I don't think they were around long.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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My first gig rig was simply a Rhodes 73 Mark I. I then added a Farfisa V.I.P. 345. My dad made a wooden brace that went around the perimeter of the plastic 'shell' covering the harp of the Rhodes which allowed me to stack the Farfisa on top of it. I then added an Arp Omni 2 which fit perfectly on top of the Farfisa. Badass.

 

My next rig, about 3-4 years later, was a paradigm leap forward. Swapped out the Rhodes with a CP-70B, which made an excellent stand for a Korg CX-3 and Prophet-5. My band was crazy popular, I and was making more money than a 21-year-old kid knew what to do with.

 

I could continue my gear evolution story, but it's much more boring and predictable, especially when the DX-7 was introduced.... :facepalm:

 

Really no major band migration stories, until recently. Although there have been some side projects, including a surprisingly prominent one with which I'm currently involved, we're still together some 40 years later.

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

- George Bernard Shaw

 

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My first rig in high school was the bomb diggity in 1987.

 

Lower tier: Korg DW-8000

Middle tier: Roland JX-8P

Top tier: Moog Rogue

 

Plus a Korg Poly 800 with a guitar strap as a keytar.

 

Sold the DW-8000 for a Casio FZ-1 sampler which was kind of cool at the time.

 

90"s to mid 2000"s lots of Roland gear - RD pianos, V-Combos

 

2005-2017 went all Nord and started buying vintage stuff when I could find it. Nord era was fun. I was Chuck Hollis before he was Chuck Hollis. :-)

 

Over the last 5 years - Kurzweil Forte, some Roland, a good clone, and VSTs which will be the future for me.

Yamaha U1 Upright, Roland Fantom 8, Nord Stage 4 HA73, Nord Wave 2, Korg Nautilus 73, Viscount Legend Live, Lots of Mainstage/VST Libraries

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My first gigging rig (long time ago '79 â '80) was:

 

⢠Hammond C3 / 122 + tone cabinet

⢠ARP Odyssey

⢠Roland RS-202 String Ensemble + Roland Phase 5

⢠Roland SH-1000

⢠Mini Moog & Maxi-Korg (both for a short while)

 

The C3 was too much for us to lug around, so I sold it and picked up an M3 / 147. My rig changed to:

 

⢠Hammond M3/147

⢠ARP Odyssey

⢠Roland RS-202 String Ensemble + Roland Phase 5

⢠ARP Explorer

 

Sold the M3 to lighten the load further and and picked up a Crumar T1 clonewheel.

 

After those full time clubbing days, I switched things up when the DX7 hit the streets:

⢠DX7 + chorus pedal

⢠Juno 6

⢠TX81Z

 

Downsized further and changed to a single keyboard rig:

⢠DX7 + chorus pedal

⢠TX81Z

⢠Korg EX800

 

Added a Korg DW8000 to that a short while later.

 

Later on I added:

⢠Roland D70

⢠Akai X7000

⢠2 â Ensoniq ASR-10"s

⢠Yamaha AN1X

 

Changed the rig again several times to include variations of:

⢠D70

⢠TX81Z

⢠TX7

⢠DW8000

⢠ASR-10

⢠JV-1080

⢠Motif ES rack

⢠DX7-IID

 

 

Currently I"m using a lot of soft synths, but I still have and use:

⢠D70

⢠FA-07

⢠JV-1080

⢠Motif ES rack

⢠2 â ASR-10"s

⢠X-7000

⢠EX-800

⢠EX-8000

⢠Hammond XK1 / Organ Grinder / Ventilator

⢠TX-802

⢠TX7

⢠Marshall tube amp combo

⢠Various pedals and outboard FX.

 

No weighted piano keyboard in any of my rigs, but I do have an acoustic piano which I play way more than anything else.

 

If I had to ditch everything but one, I"d go with the acoustic piano for sheer playing enjoyment.

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wow, those are some serious rigs!

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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This is going to be long and boring. I'm going to use this as an opportunity to dig up as much as I can remember (some of which I had repressed) and write it down before I forget it entirely. FWIW, all these from the very first were gigging bands - house parties, high school dances, fraternity parties.

 

1967: The Elusion. My first - Jr High band during the Summer of Love. Doors, Shadows of Night, Kingsmen, Electric Prunes, Iron Butterfly

 

Rig - Doric combo organ with a Jordan amp.

 

61TT2a.jpg

 

1968: Prophets of Sound. Graduated to a better set of musicians a year or two older than me. Rascals, Stax, Hendrix, Cream

 

Rig: Farfisa Combo Compact (red, baby!) with Sunn Sentura II amp.

 

1969: Prussian Blue. Not the hottest players in school but good guys and one of the booking agent's favorite bands to book. Still playing radio rock and soul.

 

RIg: Still had the red Farfisa, but acquired a leslie 45 that I drove with the Sunn tube head. Painted the leslie dayglo colors.

 

http://www.hotrodmotm.com/images/gallery/farfisa.jpg

 

1970-72: Revolver. Back to the hot players in school. Started with the Farfisa, used a Gibson 101 for awhile that one of the guitar players owned, bought a Farfisa Professional which didn't scratch my Hammond itch enough, so I bought my first console - a B2. It was a road dog painted black with decorative tacks, musical notes painted on the fall board along with the name "Tommy Dean." I looked him up years later, turns out he was a bit of a historical figure. I also bought my first electronic piano, an RMI.

 

http://campber.people.clemson.edu/deanie.html

 

We played a lot of Jethro Tull, Argent, Three Dog Night, Lee Michaels, and still doing the soul stuff.

 

1972-73: Slaughterhouse. This was the band that almost got signed. Four bands from our area of the midwest were being courted. Three were signed - Kansas, Starcastle, and Head East. We were working with a young Irv Azoff, who was a promoter in St. Louis. Instead of being signed, we broke up over internal band malfeasance. This was the peak of my musical career in terms of being a rock star. We played mostly original music, but had to slip in some Allman Brothers love. I would describe our music as southern twinged boogie rock. I heard others describe it as stadium rock, but whatever.

 

Rig: Hammond B-2, various Wurlitzer, Clavinet, or Pianet pianos, EML-101 ElectroComp synth (replaced with home built E-MU modular.) High power custom leslie with JBL and Gauss driver/speakers - I cannot remember what I was playing piano and synth thru.

 

http://www.hotrodmotm.com/images/gallery/ribbon2.jpg

 

Whew, only up to 1973. I'm pooped, maybe later!

Moe

---

 

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These are all the 'boards I've used over the past 30 years. I have an aversion to purchasing/learning how to use new gear. I gigged with that terrible SY-22 for way too long.

 

- Yamaha DX9

- Roland W30

- Yamaha SY22

- Kurzweil SP4-7

- Korg Krome 61

- Korg KingKorg

- Korg SV-1 88

 

The last three on the list are all still on active duty. I scale my rig up and down to suit circumstance, the Krome gets the most use of my current 'boards.

 

I also have an aversion to changing bands, it seems. My first blues band lasted for about 6 years through various reinventions, I've been in my current tribute act for 7 years and the pop/rock covers band I'm also in has been going for about 23 years at my best guess (I don't have the greatest memory).

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