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Aidan

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About Aidan

  • Birthday 08/09/1962

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  • homepage
    http://www.goldstraw.com/
  • occupation
    Freelance musician and journalist
  • Location
    Stoke-on-Trent, UK

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  1. The main takeaway for me is that I might now be able to afford to trade up from my Tyros 5 to an original Genos!
  2. Not bought anything since the YC88. Actually considering thinning the ranks, ditching the MODX and Tyros, neither of which get much use anymore. But then I would probably end up buying a good 88 controller as I increasingly rely on software.
  3. I recently bought an M1 iPad Pro mostly for a useable alternative to hauling around sheets and sheets of music, but I also justified the considerable cost (including a Magic Keyboard) on the basis that for me it could also effectively replace my aged Macbook Pro. I have found that to be the case for everything bar music so far. Besides Garageband, I also downloaded a ton of other stuff such as Beatmaker 3, Korg Gadget, Drambo and Koala. They were fun to play around with but felt a bit basic and clunky. The iPad version of Logic looks like it might finally get me at least using the iPad as a serious scratchpad while I’m away from home. With the line between Mac OS and iOS blurring further by the moment, I’m confident we’ll see the big plug-in makers enter this space in the wake of this announcement. I don’t care much for subscription plans either, but let’s face it, you’d struggle to buy a nice dinner for two these days for 50 bucks, so it doesn’t strike me as exorbitant. I’m pretty sure I can write it against tax. Dave Keys, I believe the reason you only saw 500 quid off the last tax bill is that those new boards are classed as capital assets and so the expenditure is amortised over several tax years. I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t write a subscription off fully against tax as it’s comparable to, say, your mobile phone bill. Frankly, I’d be more worried that Apple may be considering shifting to subscription on Mac OS Logic. I think it would be suicidal if they did, but… I think they see this as a way of getting extra revenue for those who want the specific convenience of creating on iPad. With regards to Final Cut making an appearance on iPad, I can only hope it bucks Blackmagic up into releasing a fully functioning (without shortcut wrangling, at least) version of Davinci. As it happens, I have a short holiday booked at the end of this month at an isolated country cottage. I was going to take the creaking MBP with me to make some music, but instead I shall download Logic iOS and see how I go.
  4. Jeff, don’t know if you still visit here but be aware someone is trying to get into your FB page by hitting up your contacts on Messenger, myself included. I told him where to go, of course.
  5. Thanks Threadslayer! Still pushing through with that project several years on. I don’t get chance to post here as often as I once did but still visit and skim through quite a bit. Hope everyone is doing good!
  6. I used to play underneath my mum's grand piano while she practised. At the age of five, I climbed up off the floor and on to the stool and demanded lessons. I was that rare child who had to be told: "That's enough practice for now, Aidan." And yes, I did the John Schaumm books with my first teacher. I didn't realise they were somewhat looked down on by the mainstream educators here in the UK, for some reason, but I personally loved them, and still have two of my books.
  7. I should have got around to posting this a few weeks ago, but life has been hectic. Anyway, this year I clocked up the big 60 here on Planet Earth, and for a birthday treat, I got taken to the famous Tower Ballroom in Blackpool for afternoon tea – and then got the chance to play the mighty Wurlitzer... It's an amazing instrument, so powerful and innovative. I got to go down and up through the stage floor too (the Wurlitzer is so heavy you crash rather than land!). The whole experience took me back to the 70s, when I became the proud owner of a home organ, and it reawakened an itch I've had for some time to get a vintage organ for the studio. I can't afford, nor have space for, a B3 etc, so I began looking at what was going really cheap (or being given away) on eBay and the like. Part of me really wanted a Yamaha D85 (with the cool mono synth third keyboard) or a Lowrey Symphonic Holiday (which I fell in love with in an organ showroom in the 70s but could never hope to own at the time, seeing as it cost nearly as much as my parents had just purchased their home for). However, lack of in-depth electronics knowledge and the age of these behemoths prevented me from hitting the 'buy' button. I wanted something to play, not a 'project'. So I started looking at recent Yamahas and Hammonds, thinking these might be a better bet, even though I might have to pay a modest amount to acquire one. And then I found her... A Yamaha HX1 from 1987. Basically two DX7s slammed together (same keybed, I believe) but with eight-op (16 in monophonic section) FM, plus WM, plus AWM samples. Oh, did I mention a 20-note velocity and after-touch sensitive pedal board. And two expression pedals? This thing is a beast. It was top of the line back then, with a price tag of around £10,000 I believe (around 23k in today's money). This example also comes with a couple of tone expansion modules and RAM packs. This choice has several distinct advantages. Firstly, it breaks down for reasonably easy transport and will fit in my car. Secondly, the relative youth of the unit and Yamaha reliability should ensure I get my money's worth out of it. And finally, thanks to MIDI, it will also make an awesome controller for Hauptwerk and other plug-ins. Picking it up on Saturday – I'm beyond excited! Fire up that Rhumba right now!!
  8. I've owned two of these and advised a choir I'm associated with to buy a third. Unfortunately, they've all suffered the same fate – that scissor action soon gets slightly out of kilter and bends and becomes increasingly difficult to fold in and out. I've not bought a third – I'd go with an 18950. Yes it's a fair bit heavier but bombproof compared with the 18880.
  9. Apologies if this has already been seen here before, but it's new to me and I just fell about laughing. As you know, I've been known to 'do a Bert' in the past but this is sheer brilliansh! I shall never look at my Superknob in the same way again...
  10. This is a bit belated as I've been busy with other things, but I couldn't not mention the passing of Alan Hawkshaw last week. Sadly, he had been ill for some time after suffering a stroke. A superb Hammond player and composer of so much well-known library and TV music which created the soundtrack of my generation. Latterly, Alan's work was sampled by the likes of De La Soul, Ariane Grande and Nicki Minaj. "I had to ring my daughter up and ask her who this 'Jay Zed' character was!" he once recalled. Much of Alan's work has been posted before on the forum but here's one of my favourites, a collaboration with Brian Bennett (another remarkable musical polymath, happily still with us)... [video:youtube] If you've never heard the name before, this obit in The Guardian will enlighten you: Clonk Farewell, Alan, and thanks for all the music.
  11. Yep, I'm still very pleased with mine, for me it's about the ideal combination of protection vs weight.
  12. Thanks for this, Pete. I'm very interested in the 520 â a choir I work with has an ageing Korg DP which sounds pretty bad and is also heavy, and they have tasked me with recommending a replacement. It needs to be a self-contained unit, as they don't usually want to fuss around with external amplification, and it needs to be light enough for ladies of a certain age to move around if necessary, so I'm thinking the Kawai might well fit the bill here. Just need to find chance to play one now!
  13. For those interested in the global shipping crisis, I recently conducted an interview with freight giant Hapag Lloyd on this subject for a trade magazine I edit. Clonk
  14. Grey, there are no words adequate for this, but I am thinking about you and your family, and praying for you all.
  15. Given you have the B3 side covered already with the NS3C, and given the budget and versatility needed, my vote would be MODX too, as the latter is really its only major failing. Enough bread and butter to get you through any gig on its own if something did go awry or the Nord was pinched, plus some really wacky out there stuff with the FM etc. It has vocoder capabilities too, and the Live Set feature makes it easy to go from song to song in a setlist with a single button press.
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