brenner13

Late last year I happened on a great deal for a Subsequent 37. Awesome synth, but dry, dry, dry…had to do something. I’ve got a set of five Digitech iStomps…really liked the red dual tune Coral…does an amazing chorus. But couldn’t get the reverbs to sound quite how I hear it in my head. Stumbled into little local music shop a couple towns over, during holiday shoppings and wound up with a UA Del/Verb pedal. Holy SMOKES that thing is about as fun to tweak as the Moog is. Dead simple to operate…Heck it only has one knob for Reverb, but it sounds fricking great! Well it does on the Moog, anyway. Haven’t used it live yet. Agreed that most synth/stage/workstation presets overkill the effects and they must be tweaked to sound better too my ears. Yep, my MODX stage piano has the super knob turned almost Off. If we happen to find ourselves in a super dry room, I can twist the knob to about 10 or 11 o’clock and, there ya have it… Tonight I played around with GSI’s Genuine Sounds on iPad and simply pulled back the levels of the delay and verb on the Model D Rock present and had a grand time dinking around tonight. Those preset levels are just to let you know they have effects and stock levels purposely show them off a bit. Pulling them back to under 20% really cleaned up the tone yet still lets it breathe. Good stuff. No verb is boring. Too much verb is annoying. Just a taste is all it needs sometimes.

F.U.N.!!!

I thought this was a resurrected thread… Depends on the one I’m currently playing and having fun with. When I just wanna blow off some steam and rip some gnarly bass and searing leads…Subsequent 37 is my first reach. Tied for second place are MiniFreak and HydraSynth Explorer. They both have so many different types of synthesis. Love to get drones, arps, or sequences going with those and get the Moog to really sing on top of ‘em. Better than therapy. When I need to try out some new iOS app or sound libraries, Numa Compact 2X is a dern good controller. It’s a decent board to practice for gigs on too. Speaking of gigs: VR-09 is my main board. I’m currently doing organ for a local blues band and having the time of my life. MODX7 supports the gigs with better piano’s and hornz. If I have the house to myself, and a little of that rare stuff called free time, sometimes I like to get out the melodica and work on my breath technique. An empty house is mandatory for this instrument, though…😝

I’ve been researching for a while to finally replace my 11 year old VR09. Delaware Dave nailed what I’ve decided on when I get the funds together: Mojo 61 with the optional lower manual. Still gotta figure out the case sitch, though.

Freakimus Maximus!

Roland AX-Edge will keep your stage presence mobile. The sharp angles of the shape and black color scheme might fit well, too?

Love that guy.

I’ve no real hands on experience with Nord other than a few minutes at the brick and mortar, and my Kawai is the older ES100, but my MODX7 has Rhodes and Wurly’s and even passable organs that are far superior than what’s in the Kawai. Although ES100’s piano is the best in my arsenal, even the polarizing Roland VR09’s EP’s vastly outshine are are more enjoyable to play that the ones in the Kawai. If ya can swing it, anther vote to get the Kawai for piano and keep the Nord for everything else. Of course ya gotta have decent amplification…Alto TS-series are arguably the bang for the buck winners ‘round these parts, but many other good options mentioned here. I love the power and clarity I get with my first gen QSC K12 on top of a JBL PRX 15…have never been in want of more stage volume at any venue I’ve done so far. I don’t think I’ve ever even come close to maxing out this rig’s headroom. And at lower volume, my stack provides crystal clear sonics.

I had my MODX7’s tuning go wonky a few years ago after I installed a third party PF library from SynthCloud. After uninstalling that library, my synth’s tuning returned to normal…until last night’s gig. Ugh! My custom made piano patch stayed somewhat stable for most of the night, but the layered hornz on that same patch were about a half-step flat and every other patch I tried was whacked out of tune as well. I tried a factory initialization but did not help…actually lost my custom piano and the factory one suffered the same half-step flat-ness. Got on the yamahamucisians forum this morning to find some owners had successful fixes by cleaning the pitch wheel pots and the connector that plugs into the circuit board. Since my MODX is several years out of warranty, and I’ve changed out many Roland pitch paddle assemblies, ‘thought I’d give it a try on this board. MODX is quite simple to get open, just remove all of the screws on the bottom, and the top flips up fairly easy. Just have to be cautious of the ribbons connecting the circuit boards. After removing both wheels, the pots seemed to be rather sealed so I did not bother removing them from the brackets. A couple of quick blasts of compressed air and I put them back in. Getting it all back together and hooray…no more pitch problems. I wonder if simply unseating the pitch/mod lead from the circuit board and reseating it may have been the action that fixed it? I’m just a hack and do not even resemble anything close to a technician, but super glad to have my MODX7 functional again. Thought I’d share in case there are other MODX users with this problem on their out-of-warranty synths. It’s a pretty easy fix. BTW, be sure you back up your libraries to a thumb drive before a factory reset. I had a pretty recent back up and it reinstalled painlessly. I’m not sure I really did much to fix it, so will always have a second board when gigging with my MODX for the foreseeable future. We’ll see how long the fix lasts.

Ugh! MODX7 failed me at last night’s gig. The pitch went whacky on nearly all of the sounds…weird that my custom piano patch stayed mostly in tune for most of the night, but the hornz layer on the same patch was about a half-step flat. I had concerns that the ancient rural downtown bar has sketchy power, but trying it out today at home and every sound is off, even my custom piano patch that limped though the gig. Some folks on the yamahamusicians forum seems to have best results by taking the thing apart and cleaning the pitch wheel pot and circuit board connector. This to be done ONLY if your board is out of warranty and all other troubleshooting have been tried…firmware update to the latest one, checking all tuning menus, disabling PB, resetting to factory with a total system initialization, etc. So here we go… I opened it up and took both wheels out, but the pots looked pretty well sealed so didn’t bother removing them from the brackets. Got it back together and it works! No more pitch problems…YaY! Could it be that simply unseating and reseating the circuit board connector fixed the issue?

I was a Roland fan boy since my JX10 that I nabbed in 1986. It was my first board with a pitch bender and what I learned on. To this day, my pitch bending is best with the joystick, but never did like the sprung mod of the mechanism. However, I’ve had to change out the paddle assembly several times on every Roland I’ve ever owned because as mentioned here several times, they do wear out and eventually won’t return to center, get that big dead spot in the middle, get jumpy on the sweep, or all three. It used to be no problem to swap them out with new ones; $40 factory fresh and about 30 minutes turning screws. But Roland stopped selling parts directly to the public a little over five years ago, leaving us subject to the used market where unscrupulous sellers can unload already worn out parts…ERG! Happened to me a couple of times. Still pissed at Roland for this and stopped buying their products for a long while because of if. While I’m very glad they are there, I agree with the general consensus here that Studiologic’s tiny chrome sticks are a bit difficult to use with precision. Takes a while to get use to them, but they work. Wheels for me are fine for pitching, but I never could get them as accurate and still cannot do the quick warble that I can with a stick. Some wheels are better than others in my experience and might be subject to the location and ergonomics. Yamaha SY77 was my first wheel experience, and a good one at that…three of ‘em…one sprung for pitch, an unsprung mod with smooth long travel, and then the third assignable unsprung wheel with a notch in the middle. They are on the end, but within easy reach on the 61-key board. Yamaha EX5 has the same wheel config but with rubberized material and short little sideways assignable pressure strip that can be set to spring back or not. It’s a 76’er but still reasonably comfortable to reach. The MODX7’s wheels are above the keys and appreciatively make the length of the board shorter, but oddly are a bit of a reach and I have a hard time with them as the bottom board in my live rig. The best wheels in my collection are on the DeepMind 12. Perhaps it’s just because of the short reach of a 49-key board, but they are really smooth and the mod matrix is immense. So much fun. Moog Subsequent 37’s wheels are a close second…very smooth and precise. I’ve only tried the Nord Stage pitch paddle in the store a couple of times, but recall a nice experience with the ergonomic angle. Have yet to own one, though.

Maybe I just don’t know what I’m missing, but I’ve never played any vst’s from a desktop or a laptop. Heck, I’ve been several years without a functioning PC. However, I’ve been actively using iPad and iPhones for synths, drum machines, and light DAWs since 2013. Some of my favorite compositions have been 100% iPad. That said, I am definitely one that likes knobby synths with sliders and much prefer the immediacy and tactile experience of hardware. Absolutely love my Korg MS2000, DeepMind 12, JX08, Minifreak, and especially the Subsequent 37 for making music. Really like the HydraSynth Explorer too, but the button-push-menu-diving to access all of the parameters with only the four knobs can kind of diminish my experience a bit. Still a well thought-out machine. However, the sounds that can come out of the ASM can quite easily be mistaken for analog when listening back to my tracks. Truly amazing. Heck, even the somewhat limited functions of the sliders for synths on the VR09 and Numa Compact 2X provide just enough interaction to keep me giddy with the expressive goodness that can also sound deceptively analog. Love my hardware, and now that I have a couple of true analog synths to compare to my digital ones…makes little difference to me which are what as long as I can get the sounds out that are swimming around in my head. Gotta say though…that dang Moog just blows my mind every time it gets turned on. So thick!

Good golly! Just gigged last night with the Vox Mini Go 50 on top of a QSC K12. The stage was one of the smallest we’ve done in a little one-horse town…maybe 10’x15’…five of us crammed up there. Drums, bass, guitar, keys, and a conga/harmonica player. I normally gig with either a Numa Compact 2X or a MODX7 under a VR09 on a OnStage 2-tier Z stand, running to a little mixer into a QSC K12 stacked on a JBL PRX15. That’s a pretty powerful yet lightweight rig with a fairly small footprint, but just no room in this particular juke joint. Decided to go with my practice rig: a tiny double braced x-stand holding the VR09, running directly into the QSC K12, but added the little Vox on top of that. This is a blues group that I do 90% organ for, so really didn’t miss the slab piano too much. I even bypassed the little mixer and plugged directly out of the VR09; L into the QSC / R into the Vox. Since I only played organ all night, I chose to use the Deluxe CL amp model instead of the line input to give a little more character to the organ. I could not have been more pleased with the sound! Clean and sweet with the expression pedal pulled back and a fantastic crunchy punch when swelled to full volume. I think this may be my new speaker stack from now on. Might try the JBL in place of the QSC next time for a little more bottom end. Just giddy about this little Vox amp.

I had that happen with both a JBL PRX15 and a QSC K12. Turns out whenever I sent a signal out of the speakers to FOH that was sending phantom power back into my speakers, they would overheat and shut down. There was some cool-down time required before they’d fire back up. Maybe not the same thing? BTW still gigging those same speakers over a decade later.

Tried out the Vox Mini Go 50 for about an hour today…seems to have a bit of natural mid-range boost over the Acoustic A40; mostly noticeable with the AUX in. Running a Studiologic Numa Compact 2X through a Boss RT20 into the Vox provides a surprisingly loud punch. AC piano is nice and crisp; EP’s bark nicely and a blast to dial in some of the amp models; organ is mid-range-punchy and should cut through nicely. It’s quite light on the low frequencies but that should allow lots of room for a bass player at rehearsal. Dialing up the bass knob fills it up well enough, but makes it kind of muddy. Backing it off to about 1 or 2 o’clock seems to be the sweet spot for me. About half the size and weight of the Acoustic A40, I’m quite pleased with the Vox Mini Go 50. No Bluetooth and the microphone input being only 1/4” are the only quibbles so far. No line-out is a bummer, too. Whoa! Tried out the cellphone battery pack on it and it works great! Perfect busking amp to pair with Roland VR09 running on 8 AA’s. Just gotta keep one of those XLR to 1/4” thingies around if a microphone is to be used.