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Hello folks,

 

(Disclaimer: this rant pertains primarily to a live band gigging situation; not a Broadway-type of performance where you're hired and paid accordingly)..

 

Nor does it pertain to the studio work I do, where the budget and time frame are totally different...

 

I've been on this roller coaster of attempting to cover "every sound and situation available"...

This always translates to a potential cash outlay for equipment; a new learning curve every time, etc...

 

And yet the pay scale doesn't increase; the guitars and drum BARELY invest in new equipment.

 

Add to this the additional time and responsibilities to learn different parts (horns, strings, multiple layered synths..) and the whole thing seems a bit unbalanced!

 

I'm looking to simplify to just a few basic sounds -- Organ, Piano, Electric piano, Clav... a few basic strings and horns, a few basic synth sounds, and that's about it.

 

I think that's what missing..the "fun factor" is no longer fun when I'm running around like a mad scientist trying to cover all the bases.

 

Your insights are very much appreciated...

Tom

Nord Electro 5D, Modal Cobalt 8, Yamaha upright piano, numerous plug-ins...

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Do It!!!!

 

We had a friend sit in with us, she brought her keyboard and stand. We plugged her into the PA.

She used an organ sound and a piano sound for a set and half. Played her ass off, took some great solos, sang some backups, added without cluttering things up.

 

A school teacher so only available to a limited extent in the summer. Too bad, she's awesome.

 

None of us missed any of the umpty bajillion sounds that were available on her keyboard, if the music shines it doesn't matter.

 

As a guitarist/soloist/vocalist, I recently transitioned to more modern solid state/digital guitar amps with built in effects.

I bring one guitar, plug into the amp with one cord, plug a footswitch into the amp with one cord - done. If it's a bigger gig I plug a DI into the speaker simulated line out and run that to the PA, no mic on the amp.

 

I have a clean sound, can turn on a rotary speaker or a delay with tap tempo or get a lead tone. That's it, all I use, ever.

 

Super simple, small, light and not very expensive. Load in, load out is easy and fast.

 

You'll love it!!!

 

When we are playing live, we are selling "FUN". Futzing about with gear is usually not that fun. Just play, that's FUN!!!!!

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I've simplified my live rig a lot. I used to carry at least two keyboards, sometime a third one or at least a module/computer. Max I take out now is two instruments, often one. And most of time I can cover a gig with piano/ep/clav, clonewheel, basic strings/horns, and a few select synth comping tones and leads. For my two band gigs the sounds needed can be covered by my Nord Stage 3. I subbed in on a wedding gig the previous summer that had a wider range of material (more electronic, dance oriented songs), so I put my Kronos 61 above the Nord for that. But a Kross 2 would have easily done the job. I had the use of one of those for a series of 'lite rig' gigs in early 2019; liked it a lot - terrific 'bang for the buck' factor. You could put a synth like that above your Electro 5D and cover a lot of ground.

 

Some live gigs can become a real rat race, trying to take responsibilty for every part possible in a studio recording. While I will certainly learn the signature lines of songs, some acts push it too far trying to get keyboard players to cover every little studio part. I've had to put my foot down more and more in recent years, and prioritize signature lines and comping. I remember some country gigs where the part requests would get ridiculous; I'd be covering piano and B3, plus a signature string line (or fiddle lead), and a bandmate would point out a tiny part on banjo or steel and expect me to grab either or both at the the same time. And it was typically non-signature stuff. Some people should just become DJ's, or run backing tracks :laugh:

'Someday, we'll look back on these days and laugh; likely a maniacal laugh from our padded cells, but a laugh nonetheless' - Mr. Boffo.

 

We need a barfing cat emoticon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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When last in music school they taught a lot about how ears and understand music very cool topic. In performance class they got in to how little people pay attention that the audience really doesn't understand or want to they just want to have a good time. Also got into how little other musician even listen as much as they want to think they do. Sure the gear heads are going checkout your gear and talk crap about it, but band starts playing after about 5 or 10 minutes even the musicians are more interested in the hot person across the room or getting more to drink. Even big concert probably only a handful of gear nerds are paying attention once things get going.

 

So If you don't need all van full of gear to duplicate ever song from a record you're playing, if your sound is in the ballpark you golden. People want to think they are more critical but they aren't. Back when recording engineer too many times some producer would want to take one of our vintage Neumann microphone and sticking it front of a blast guitar on practically lay it on a drum head. Sometimes get the point we'd have to challenge them to a blindfold test if they could tell the difference we'd let them use the vintage mic', we never lost.

 

Go for a reasonable setup and play good and you're all set.

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I'm looking to simplify to just a few basic sounds -- Organ, Piano, Electric piano, Clav... a few basic strings and horns, a few basic synth sounds, and that's about it.

 

Do it. Seriously. Simplify everything you can! :) I don't know what songs you have to play -- covers, I'm guessing -- nor do I know what your band wants to sound like, your audience, etc. But that whole covering all the bases thing is, for me, not worth my time and effort (see my comments here for my thoughts on this).

 

I gigged for over ten years with just one 16-voice workstation on a X stand, two pedals, an amp, and DI box, plus my mic and cables. That's all I used. I had a second identical workstation with me as a spare, just in case. Only needed it once when a drunk guy came crashing onto the stage and knocked over my board, breaking three keys -- I'm pretty sure the bouncer broke that guy's nose. We covered every typical song that every last working cover band is forced to play, and 99% of the time, I used piano, elec pianos and organs. Sometimes a brass sound for some soul and funk stuff, and sometimes a few synth pads or a lead synth sound. That's it. Later, when I joined an all-original band, I did the same thing, except I used those same two keyboards. Organ and synths up top, pianos on the bottom. We sounded great as a band.

 

It's never about the equipment or how many sounds you have! It's about the players. Period. /end opinion

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So if you had great meat and potatoes sounds, you can call it a day, relax and just play the gig - and spend more focus on enjoying the music instead of live patch management and "choreography". Now that's something to get excited about.

 

Nowadays, options abound. Lots of great boards that will do just fine with what you're looking for - I'm going to guess every major manufacturer has something to offer you, and frankly the Electro you already own in your signature may handle most (all?) of it.

 

One note worth mentioning: There are the kinds of gigs where what separates the "men from the boys" (sorry, that's pretty antiquated and sexist) is how close one gets to the original patches; I've played in some of those kinds of bands (typically, tributes), but all my heavy money gigs aren't about that. Sounds like the gigs you're talking about aren't about that either, or you wouldn't have posted this (sorry for being Captain Obvious here).

 

Curious what you might end up configuring for this job. My long-standing live rig is a Kronos 73 and a Nord Wave. Both long in the tooth, but they make every sound I need for my not-so-slave-to-the-original gigs.

..
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My favorite band dynamic: Guitar player plays guitar, Bass player....bass, drummer plays drums....me: Piano, organ, string section, horn section, orchestral percussion, children's choir, flock of birds, yada yada.....here anymore I play piano, rhodes, b3, and clav. I also bring my tenor sax. If that ain't enough, the band needs to hire someone else.....
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Kronos 2 simplified everything for me. I can do about everything with one board. File management and sampling is whacked if you need to do that ... but if I can do it anyone can. I carry a second board just because I can but I don"t need it.

"It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne

 

"A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!!

So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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Simple is good. I spent many unproductive years chasing "that sound" for specific parts. What a waste as I was the only one thrilled when I finally nailed it.

 

So I sold it all, and went somewhat simple: a Nord Stage 3 Compact with a weighted controller. No external effects, just a pair of stereo outs (or mono only if needed). If I need stage amplification, I bring my uber-simple Spacestation CPS V.3. Many $$$ of gear now by the wayside as a result. Setup/breakdown in under 10 minutes. Song mode takes me from tune to tune with everything I need dialed in ahead of time: voices, effects, modulation, etc.

 

I now focus on playing as well as I can and enjoying myself. People love it. Other band members are starting to get into the same camp.

 

I think this reflects the reality of being in a local bar band in this town. People will come out to see you if you're good enough. Exactly the same number of people will come out to see you if you're freaking awesome. It's a finite market.

 

Your Nord Electro 5 is a good start for meat and potatoes. The sampled legacy synths are surprisingly useful.

Want to make your band better?  Check out "A Guide To Starting (Or Improving!) Your Own Local Band"

 

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If your party band sounds just like the record, chances are anyone listening (who cares) is just going to assume you"re playing to tracks. Damn, I"ve had knowledgeable musical mates come up to me after a jazz gig where I played LH bass and ask what setup I was using for the bass tracks!

 

My eccentric aesthetic here is that in a world where every solo performer is playing to tracks, make sure that your audience absolutely knows that you are playing live. Its your differentiator, and the only reason to hire a full band.

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If your party band sounds just like the record, chances are anyone listening (who cares) is just going to assume you"re playing to tracks. Damn, I"ve had knowledgeable musical mates come up to me after a jazz gig where I played LH bass and ask what setup I was using for the bass tracks!

 

My eccentric aesthetic here is that in a world where every solo performer is playing to tracks, make sure that your audience absolutely knows that you are playing live. Its your differentiator, and the only reason to hire a full band.

 

We always seem to have enough clams to dissuade anyone that we're playing to tracks :)

Want to make your band better?  Check out "A Guide To Starting (Or Improving!) Your Own Local Band"

 

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Thanks everyone!

 

So for years, I gigged with the Electro and a controller running MainStage. At times I'd bring a separate weighted piano.

With all the plugins I own, I can get virtually any sound I need.

 

I think it's more the "responsibility" than actually the work itself... to be blunt, I just don't think that the workload is fair among everyone in the band. They all have their respective "instrument" and I'm the orchestra, synths section, horns, etc.

 

But we all make the same amount of money...so...

 

In the last few months, I've really pushed the Electro hard and utilized its sample playback engine.

While not perfect, it has enabled me to cover just about anything this band does...reasonably close enough, sound-wise.

 

I still might keep MainStage and just control it directly from the Electro...maybe leave the other controller home.

 

Of course, in the studio, I use my MacBook Pro and it's a whole different ballgame...not covers...so I don't mind the extra work to get "that sound"...

 

Thanks for letting me vent...the jury's still not out on whether I will just use the Electro or still use MainStage.

Will keep you all posted...

Tom

Nord Electro 5D, Modal Cobalt 8, Yamaha upright piano, numerous plug-ins...

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Interesting how the evolution of keyboard players (and their sounds/instruments) have evolved over the last 4 or 5 decades.

 

There was a time when all you had (if you could afford it) was piano, organ, clav, and monosynth... and you had to purchase each one separately to have all of those sounds. Pretty damn impossible if you were a weekend warrior type of gigger. You had to make do with, say, a transistor combo organ (Farfisa, Gibson, Vox...), a cheesy electric piano (RMI, etc...), and that was about it unless you could afford a Minimoog or Odyssey. You WANTED the real sound of piano, Hammond B3... but you made do with what you could afford.

 

Then, come the 80s, with all the new studio production techniques, electronic drum machines, new synth sounds. If you were to be a keys player in any band that wanted to cover these tunes, you were now EXPECTED to have all of those tools at your disposal. By this time, a lot of it was becoming more affordable... but you had to have those tools. And then your job became more like a studio technician on-the-stage, rather than just a keys player.

 

Fast forward a couple more decades, and most weekend warrior types have just gone back to the basic keyboard sounds (maybe with some brass and strings). We can now really afford our gear, and we get the realistic acoustic piano and B3 and Clav sounds that we want, with much lighter weight, and all sounds can fit into 1 board... and still, a ton of more sounds are at your fingertips... but you son't want/need them anymore.

Kurzweil PC3, Yamaha MOX8, Alesis Ion, Kawai K3M
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It's interesting, I feel like a lot of the extra work we often wind up doing is self-inflicted, too. I know my experience is a little different from a lot of you who play in top 40/dance band situations, where your band members are requesting you to play things More Like the Record, but even in my original bands, I find myself going "I miss that string arrangement I did for the recording, so maybe a Mellotron with my right hand and keep comping piano with the left... man, I really like those synth overdubs I did doubling the guitar riff, I could do that on the organ pedals... I wounder if I can cover the glock AND the chimes on that outro when I'm already covering the piano and organ parts..."

 

And even when I'm not being asked to cover "keyboards and anything else," I *do* like to be like my bandmates and Just Play My Instrument. That means I prefer to have A Piano Board and An Organ and A Synth and sometimes A Clav and before you know it I'm getting to gigs an hour earlier than anyone else and still packing up when the drummer is getting in his car. Even when the guitarist started bringing an electric 12 string to gigs, and the drummer started bringing a sample pad, it didn't add nearly as much time or weight to their setup process.

 

I'm realizing through covid how exhausted I really was from gigging like that every weekend, and how much more energy I have for things now, and how I'll be handling things a little differently when things return to something resembling normal (though I'll still want to bring the Wurli and the clav out sometimes...).

Samuel B. Lupowitz

Musician. Songwriter. Food Enthusiast. Bad Pun Aficionado.

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That means I prefer to have A Piano Board and An Organ and A Synth and sometimes A Clav and before you know it...

Yeah, as I"m sure I've posted about before, it's hard to get down to two boards without compromise, even if you don't need a zillion sounds. You'd typically want a hammer action board for piano, a drawbar (pref. waterfall) board for organ, and a synth board with aftertouch and a other sound manipulation controls (pitch bend, mod, filter, envelope, etc.). And I like those controls on the synth, not just for live performance purposes (where a handful go a long way), but also to make it easy and quick to program the sounds in the first place (in which case you need a battery of 'em). The closest thing I've come to doing all that in two lightweight boards is something like a Casio PX5S + Nord Stage 3 Compact. Even that has its limitations (you're not going to get Yamaha-quality acoustic instrument emulations, for example, and the synth isn't my favorite to work with), but it ain't a bad rig at all.

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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The closest thing I've come to doing all that in two lightweight boards is something like a Casio PX5S + Nord Stage 3 Compact. Even that has its limitations (you're not going to get Yamaha-quality acoustic instrument emulations, for example, and the synth isn't my favorite to work with), but it ain't a bad rig at all.

I followed a very similar path, with a Yamaha P-121 on the bottom and Electro 5D on top. The Compact Stage 3 is much better, but more than I needed. I would also prefer the keybed on the E5D (and presumably the CS3) to be more Hammond-like in the two board setup. On the other hand, I think the keybed is a decent compromise when used as a single board.

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"I think that's what missing..the "fun factor" is no longer fun when I'm running around like a mad scientist trying to cover all the bases'

 

What a timely and relevant post!

 

Years ago I put my foot down with Music Directors and band leaders and said I wouldn't play exposed saxophone or lead horn parts anymore. If you want sax, hire a sax player. Same with violin etc.

 

As an MD/pianist I do a lot of work in the oldies concert business with some original artists from the 60/70/s (well at least before the pandemic I didâ¦) I can't mention names, but always thought it was an insult to the paying audience( and the music) to do that wretched, cheesy lounge fake sax/violin/trumpet thing - Just because promoters or bandleaders were too cheap to hire another musician. I even offered to take a cut in pay just so we could hire the real deal, and surprisingly most other band members were always willing to do the same. I"ll happily double horn parts with a real trumpet or sax player (which is a great thingâ¦) but if there isn"t - I"d rather just play those parts on organ instead. Same for corporate/wedding/top 40 gigs. For those gigs my rig was a slab piano on bottom, with a Nord stage and MainStage to cover everything else up top. After years of being expected to cover "other parts", I"ve grown tired of it. Not to mention having to program tons of stuff to pull it off- regardless of how good the samples are.

 

I rarely turn work down. Over last 3 years I started getting more calls to be 2nd auxiliary keys and B3 for concert and church gigs. The artist or MD/pianist does the heavy lifting, and I can actually have fun. I still have to occasionally cover some orchestral/string stuff. The gigs I love most tend to be mostly organ and wurli - which has led me to reevaluate what I wanted to do more of.

 

Luckily on these gigs they"ll usually backline real B3 and I"ll bring the Nord/Mainstage rig to cover everything else.

For gigs that can"t do real organ, I"ve decided to make the commitment to get a real double manual organ rig. I love the B3 experience of "sole purpose"... instead of trying to do splits or an external keyboard midi'd to the Nord with all the distractions, double keyboard stand etc. etc.. I just ordered a Hammond SKX knowing full well it"s piano and strings are probably sub-par, and is limited as a controller.. I don"t care. At least in this role, I love the idea of a cohesive two manual keyboard that does one thing well, and has some additional sounds that I"ll use less often when needed.

 

Apologies for veering off the OP- Being a 'second keyboardist' is a side topic in itself. But it"s given me a different perspective on not only being more supportive as a player, but also enjoying the concept of playing a single instrument as a part of the ensemble, rather than having to be the ensemble.

Chris Corso

www.chriscorso.org

Lots of stuff.

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I'm one of those people that wants to be able to cover virtually every possible kind of instrument when needed yet have it sound good. I also don't want to haul around a crap ton of equipment because I don't have help. For that reason I bought the 88-key version of the flagship (at the time) Yamaha, the Motif XF8. The reason being that to my ears it could approximate the majority of sounds out there even with presets, and with very good quality. That and it has lots of controllers and midi options, and I liked the keybed. I use it with a Korg Krome 61, but that's only as a midi controller for the Motif's internal sounds. This way I can have one line out (if it's a mono system) to the house, and have the flexibility to play piano, pads, left-hand bass, strings, brass, organ, and a shaker or tambourine assigned to a single key, all available at once if I need it. Two boards, a Z-stand, a sustain pedal, an expression pedal, and a monitor. All done. Easy on the sound guy, easy on me (aside from the Motif's weight but oh well). I only have to program one board, deal with two midi channels (one for the Motif, one for the controller), have a nice hammer action but also a nice light action for organ/brass/synths etc, and I can switch between songs like a set list using Master Mode. The only thing that could use some improvement is the Hammond organ, but I've done some editing and gotten a decent few sounds I can use when I need them, which isn't that often.

 

With that setup I'm pretty happy, and I've never once gotten a complaint or comment about the realism of my instruments (and I have had to cover electric and acoustic guitar, sax, brass, TONS of strings, fill in for the bass player, and even replicate Sitars, accordions, and other instruments - all things that keyboards can suck at). Never have I thought, "Man, that sounded cheesy and sucked." I can't get away with that on a Korg or a Roland, but I can with the Yamaha (but sounds are so subjective too). I enjoy playing, the church or audience enjoys it, the band enjoys it, we're good. Not high-stress at all with it anymore, now that I know how to run it solidly.

 

In my experience you're only going to be satisfied with a flagship model, because that's where the best sound quality is, and there will always be another ability you want to have, and that flexibility is usually left out on lower-end models. Just my thoughts.

 

So my recommendation would be a flagship workstation from the manufacturer of your choosing (my preference is Yamaha), and a midi controller with at least 61 keys on top. NOTE: you have to make sure that your flagship board lets you freely assign sounds to different midi channels or this will be a complete flop. The MONTAGE, MODX, and FA-06/07/08 don't, and there may be others. Don't dismiss previous-generation flagships if they sound good to you and do what you want.

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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If your party band sounds just like the record, chances are anyone listening (who cares) is just going to assume you"re playing to tracks. Damn, I"ve had knowledgeable musical mates come up to me after a jazz gig where I played LH bass and ask what setup I was using for the bass tracks!

 

My eccentric aesthetic here is that in a world where every solo performer is playing to tracks, make sure that your audience absolutely knows that you are playing live. Its your differentiator, and the only reason to hire a full band.

 

I've frequently been told that people thought our band was using tons of tracks, only to realize partway through the gig that I'm playing it all! I take it as a big complement. It all depends on whether they can see you playing and pay attention.

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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I can have one line out (if it's a mono system) to the house, and have the flexibility to play piano, pads, left-hand bass...Easy on the sound guy...I have had to cover electric and acoustic guitar, sax, brass, TONS of strings, fill in for the bass player

If you're covering bass, you really want to send the sound guy a separate feed for your LH bass sound. He needs to be able to bring the bass up or down (and possibly EQ it) relative to the drums, without worrying that changing the level of the bass is going to change the level of all the keys! Assignable out on your board is ideal (which the flagship boards have), but dual mono with panning can be an acceptable substitute with many boards.

 

 

NOTE: you have to make sure that your flagship board lets you freely assign sounds to different midi channels or this will be a complete flop. The MONTAGE, MODX, and FA-06/07/08 don't, and there may be others.

I'm pretty sure the FA-06/07/08 do let you freely assign sounds to different MIDI channels... what they don't do is allow you to restrict the key ranges. But as for whether the inability to freely assign MIDI channels OR key ranges for external triggering would make this approach a complete flop, I think it's only a semi-flop. ;-) Since your Kross lets you split/layer 16 external MIDI channels worth of sounds any way you want, these limitations can be accomodated... a Montage/MODX/FA could work just fine when your second board is flexible in its own MIDI capabilities. But yes, you do lose one attribute of your approach, "I only have to program one board" -- you'd have to program the splits and channel assignments into your second board instead of your primary. The total amount of work doesn't really change, but there is still a real potential down-side in that you're tied to that second board. The advantage of doing it your way is that, if you have some reason to want/need to swap in a different top board, you can toss almost anything else up there and instantly be up and running. That's a really nice perk of doing it your way.

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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I can have one line out (if it's a mono system) to the house, and have the flexibility to play piano, pads, left-hand bass...Easy on the sound guy...I have had to cover electric and acoustic guitar, sax, brass, TONS of strings, fill in for the bass player

If you're covering bass, you really want to send the sound guy a separate feed for your LH bass sound. He needs to be able to bring the bass up or down (and possibly EQ it) relative to the drums, without worrying that changing the level of the bass is going to change the level of all the keys! Assignable out on your board is ideal (which the flagship boards have), but dual mono with panning can be an acceptable substitute with many boards.

 

Thanks. I"ve mentioned that to him before, but tbh our groups are pretty small and I keep it at a consistent level from patch to patch currently. He doesn"t think it"s necessary. He also has to deal with a single mix output from the electronic drums. I"ve offered. On the other hand, in my case it"s often more to fill in the missing instruments and their frequency ranges than to have bass featured, so it works okay. An average group on Sunday (pre-COVID) might be an acoustic guitar, the drummer, me, and a couple of singers, hence I do more to keep the band from sounding hollow than anything else when it comes to layering guitars and basses. I do find that the 5-band EQ in Master Mode can come in very handy.

 

NOTE: you have to make sure that your flagship board lets you freely assign sounds to different midi channels or this will be a complete flop. The MONTAGE, MODX, and FA-06/07/08 don't, and there may be others.

I'm pretty sure the FA-06/07/08 do let you freely assign sounds to different MIDI channels... what they don't do is allow you to restrict the key ranges. But as for whether the inability to freely assign MIDI channels OR key ranges for external triggering would make this approach a complete flop, I think it's only a semi-flop. ;-) Since your Kross lets you split/layer 16 external MIDI channels worth of sounds any way you want, these limitations can be accomodated... a Montage/MODX/FA could work just fine when your second board is flexible in its own MIDI capabilities. But yes, you do lose one attribute of your approach, "I only have to program one board" -- you'd have to program the splits and channel assignments into your second board instead of your primary. The total amount of work doesn't really change, but there is still a real potential down-side in that you're tied to that second board. The advantage of doing it your way is that, if you have some reason to want/need to swap in a different top board, you can toss almost anything else up there and instantly be up and running. That's a really nice perk of doing it your way.

 

Fair enough, I forget that it"s a partial setup there. Still it would be a flop if someone wanted a really simple setup. And like you said it"s nice to be able to sub just about any keyboard for the upper controller.

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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I think the simplified palette bread and butter sounds for piano, Hammond B3, Rhodes, Wurly, Clav are mostly played in rock music of the 1960's and 1970's, blues and jazz and a few other genres, but less so for the mainstream music of the last 30 years. This is just a generalization and not a blanket statement covering all types of music. I have to cover a lot of ground like Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake, Maroon 5, Gwen Stefani and Katy Perry for my weekend warrior bar gigs.

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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