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Jazzmammal

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About Jazzmammal

  • Birthday 11/14/1945

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    Tax Accountant
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    Music
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    Southern California

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  1. O.M.G Surfing around Youtube this morning listening to some great jams and I see a title about this in the list. This is the first death of a great musician that grabbed me hard. I'm really in shock almost like it's a family member. I've always been an organist first since the 60's and followed everybody who was really good and when Joey hit I was totally blown away. Awesome isn't a good enough word to describe his talent. This isn't supposed to happen, I'm 76 and he passes at 51? He's only a few years older than my oldest daughter. This just sucks so bad. I have saved every single vid with him that's up on YT and I listen to them a lot. Can't imagine how Papa John feels. As I'm writing this I still can't believe it. Bob
  2. Well put, I agree with all of that Kuru. You notice I don't jump into political related things too often and I try to avoid making blatant partisan comments. I'm basically a right leaning centrist and I have a friend who watches OAN all the time, I've maybe watched it for a total of 15 minutes over the last two years it's way to right wing for my tastes. I never make comments about OAN with him, I've known him for years and I will not risk losing friends much less relatives over politics, he can watch whatever he wants. As for Twitter, Musk has already shaken things up quite a lot from what I've read. He's implementing some of his policies now which is one reason why I've said this deal is going through, all this posturing is him simply getting the best deal he can but it's going through regardless. Many senior people have left including one who, according to reports, was one of the main people who wrote the algos that did the banning. Like you, I like this forum because as a musician this is a good place to be. I'm having a problem right now with getting my Mojo updated, I've been asking about it on the Keyboard Corner and people are very helpful. Bob
  3. Banning someone trying to overthrow the government is not free speech. Hippies and radicals (Weather Underground, Black Panthers, etc) did that all the time back in the day and the news totally covered it. I also completely agree Twitter is a business not the government so free speech rules do not apply but they are probably the single biggest influencer on the planet and somehow free speech rules 'should' apply but legally I don't think it's possible which brings in Musk. Craig, your point about all the conservatives that have been posting on twitter for years without getting banned is correct but it misses the point. The point is a clever liar will tell the truth 95% of the time to build credibility and then drop the bomb at the precise moment for maximum impact. In this case it's presidential elections, Supreme Court nominees and COVID information. Hunter Bidens laptop story in the NY Post is the biggest example I can think of. That came out in September of 2020 60 days before the election. Twitter banned it due to "unverified information". Look at the story now. But it doesn't matter if that turns out to be correct or it finally winds up going nowhere. The point is it was a legitimate news story with some back up information that was still being run down by various news organizations and Twitter banning it right before the election shows conservative bias, simple as that. Are all the current tweets about Supreme Court justices home addresses being released and protesters going to their homes ranting about the upcoming Roe v. Wade decision banned? No. It's clearly illegal to do that, there are specific federal statutes about harassing federal judges with 10-20 year prison terms. Why are those tweets not banned due to "promoting illegal acts" or whatever? Understand all I'm doing is pointing out Twitters hypocrisy, under the First Amendment all of that is allowed as speech but as soon as someone physically shows up at a justice's house, they should be arrested. As for Musk you guys should not be posting stuff about Musk's finances and his ongoing purchase of Twitter without watching CNBC every morning like I do. First, twitter stock just had a 12% gain today to $40 a share. Not that it means much, the market is very volatile right now, don't read anything into the stock price. Second, Twitter had their board meeting today and when reporters asked the CEO if the takeover was discussed he said it wasn't, it would be discussed at a later meeting. Really? What's that old cliche, "Things that make you go hmmmm"? As for Musk's finances he upped his cash share of the purchase to 33.4b and is asking for an additional 3.5b in financing. He already has about 7b in financing he'll get that little bit extra no problem. He's not hurting for anything and remember the smart invester's mantra about Other Peoples Money? He's just going for as much as he can get, he's perfectly capable of doing it all himself. It's the same as the old joke about getting a bank loan. You have to prove you don't need it before they give it to you. I still think this is all about renegotiating the price using Twitters SEC filing as leverage with a ton of publicity to go with it. The rest of it like his tweets is just him messing around and having fun. Or my crystal ball remains broken. Still. Bob
  4. Yes, I used Chrome because I got an error with Firefox. Mdenriet, good idea but the install didn't work. It starts out ok, click on the downloaded file, it opens with the Windows Permission question, click Yes, the next box asks English? Yes, the next box is Install, Uninstall, Exit. That's where the problem is, all those choices are not active. When I exited that box I get a Windows popup asking if I want to try Compatibility Mode. I click on that and all it does is repeat the same process as above with the same box with no active choices. Brad, thanks for chiming in. I believe you said the unit was updated to the time I got it from you meaning it should be above V1.1 correct?
  5. Not yet, I'm hoping I'm missing something simple that someone here could point out. Meanwhile I'm still testing some IOS stuff, the unit plays fine with whatever version I have it's just annoying to discover this update problem. I'm a big believer in using the latest version of any software. A weird thing that did happen was I first used the front panel USB port on my PC to plug the USB cable into and the instant I did that I lost my Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard. Unplug it, they came back, plug it in they go dead. Plugging it into a USB port on the back fixed that issue at least. Bob
  6. Ok...this is why people including me will finally throw up their hands with midi/computer stuff and just buy another keyboard. Before doing any more testing with IOS apps I read here there is a new OS version for the Mojo 61. I cannot see the wifi editor on any of my devices. When I first bought it a few years ago I used the wifi editor on my Android tablet with no issues but now nothing sees it including my brand new computer. I can't say for sure but at the time I had the current version which should be 1.34 because it was only 2-3 years ago. All my devices are using wifi but none sees the Mojo. A user here posted he had the same problem and the update fixed it. Ok, there's another way in the manual. Plug in the Midi/USB port on the Mojo (the USB B) connector to a USB A port on the computer and navigate to the GSI site described in the manual. I did that, the site opens up but all I see is a white box that says "Please connect your Mojo 61 to your computer". Need I say it? IT'S ALREADY CONNECTED! I hear it beep the instant I plug it in so the computer recognizes something was just plugged in. I tried it both ways go to the website first, then plug it in or plug in first then go to the website. Same thing, the site doesn't see that it's connected. While I've been writing this the site is open and I'm waiting for it to connect but so far nada. Since I have no wifi editor and now trying it through GSI's site doesn't work either. How do I first, see which version I have given the wifi isn't working and second, how do I get this thing updated? Bob usb
  7. Yes, I posted it mostly as a joke but also because this guy is a monster player. The way he's able to talk while he's playing some pretty badass classical stuff is just amazing to me. I can do Fantasie Improptu but not at tempo and certainly not while I'm talking about it. I've spent some time watching his other vids and he's a concert artist. One was at Lincoln Center where he put some EDM tracks behind Moonlight Sonata and Vivaldi and another was where he hired 10 producers off Fiverr to put tracks behind his piano midi track of Beethoven's 5th and then played back each ones result and commented on them. That one is especially interesting. Bob
  8. You guys are trying to apply what's normal to regular people like us to a genius like Elon. It was mentioned he has Aspergers. I know something about that because the son of the CPA I worked for for 25 years also has it. Never sat next to a more brilliant kid than him. I became friends with him and still am now. He has an over the top IQ and is focused on whatever he needs to be focused on to the total and complete detriment of any social skills. He got accepted to USC and majored in mental illnesses with of course a focus on Aspergers. He aced every class and his counselor offered to put him right into the PhD program after he got his Bachelors which he did. He sent me his thesis to proofread. It was brilliant and way over my head, all I did was proof it for grammar. While he was getting his Doctorate he was appointed as a special advisor to Governor Schwarzenegger. He is now a Doctor of Aspergers because that's what his thesis was all about and is an associate professor at the University of Exeter in the UK. I'm explaining this because Elon knows exactly what he's doing. Given my experience with my friend, Elon is totally focused almost like a savant on what he wants to do and could care less about anything else. I believe he's come to the conclusion that Big Tech including Twitter is totally far left liberal with an extreme anti conservative bias because he's said after being a lifelong Democrat he will vote GOP going forward. He wants to expose that bias. This is not a simple business decision type pf purchase, he's on a crusade. He knows all about the estimated 20% or more of fake accounts and he's also using Twitters SEC filing saying it's only 5% as leverage to reduce the price. An SEC filing is a big deal and people have gone to jail over false filings. At the same time I believe that is just a device to make a big splash exposing just how biased Twitter and by extension the whole Big Tech industry actually is. Twitter shareholders are already spending the money they will get from this deal. Nothing like making someone think they've just made a big score then having the rug pulled out. They've already got that money in their minds, they won't kill this thing over say, 5-10 billion dollars less in total. So Twitter sells for $50 or even $45 per share instead of $54, still a huge payday compared to the current price. AND, if it can be proven that SEC filing was false, they will accept his price offer thus avoiding an investigation. Nobody is harmed if shareholders reap a big windfall from the sale of the company so no need for the SEC to get involved. Elon gets it at the price he probably already had calculated in the first place but doing it this way he creates a huge media splash exposing what's been going on there. Why do this all businesslike and behind the scenes when he can have this much fun? Of course this is all speculation on my part but geniuses are perfectly capable of thinking many moves ahead of us regular folks. Speaking of EV's and biases I think Biden really pissed Elon off when he had his big EV thing shortly after he was inaugurated and only invited Ford and GM while talking about saving the planet, providing more US green energy related jobs and driving the new Ford Lightning F150 with no mention of Tesla which is first, an All American company and second, merely the largest EV maker in the world by orders of magnitude. I know that would piss me off big time. Tesla's market cap is greater than Toyota, Volkswagen, Diamler, Ford and GM combined. Yes, COMBINED. Those of you who don't follow EV's or the stock market don't realize what a giant Tesla truly is. And Biden ignored him? Bob
  9. To me this question is very simple. An arranger is for playing songs live in real time with a full band as backing. It doesn't matter what key you start in or the chord changes or the original song form because you play in any key you want using any chords you want and you can arrange the form any way you want including modulating to any key you want. And a real biggie, you can completely change styles if you want. Want to play Take 5 in it's stock form and change it to a swing, or bossa or funk or Sinatra big band? Just press a few buttons and you're there. Live, as you're playing. No other keyboard type, keyswitching, computer software, or anything else can duplicate that. There is one called Virtual Arranger that I looked into years ago but it's limited. The one drawback with an arranger is all the different style elements in the backing parts and variations are static. If you keep playing a song using the same style after a while you begin to recognize all the different phrases or bass lines because they never change. That's why when I'm playing my Korg Pa3X I'll use many different styles for the same song and that's also why the good arrangers have many styles within each category. Bob
  10. Thanks guys and now another mystery. How the heck did my original post show up twice? Anyway, sounds not being pro level seems to be a problem with IOS stuff but at this stage of my gigging life all I really need is good enough. I'll load up the Triton then and hope for the best. I don't need just basses, that was for that one gig. It was for the classic rock band I'm in and the bass player got sick a few days before the gig and I was asked if I could do it. I do know most of the parts and yes DD I've done organ bass for 50 years I was just hoping I could add some variety to it for that gig. We do the Doors, Santana, Joe Cocker, the Stones, Eagles etc. What I need now is a better AP, a few synth things, strings and mostly horns. As far as patch names the IOS Triton has all of that, whether the quality is there I'll have to try it and see. At the time I looked at it there was no trial period, you buy it you own it.
  11. Been trying to use my Mojo 61 with the lower manual with my iPad pro for extra sounds and of course having problems with it. Wasn't sure if I should put the questions here or start a new thread with iPad in the title. Since it involves my Mojo I decided to start here. First, I bought the CME WIDI Master and it works great. That and a simple USB C> 1/4" audio plugs gets the sound from the iPad to my amp. It started with me wanting to use a bass guitar sound for bass on a gig a few months ago. I put the Korg Module Pro on my iPad and first thing I found out is there's no bass guitar patches on it and none of the add on libraries have any basses either. What?! Welcome to the world of IOS sounds...Module is touted as a good rompler sound module but no basses? Whatever. I can play all of the Modules other sounds on the lower manual although the AP's are really no better than the one on the Mojo. Then I bought SampleTank IOS because I know it has a ton of basses and pianos but I couldn't get it to recognize the WIDI Bluetooth connection. After a bunch of searching I found a post on the IKM form saying sorry, ST for IOS doesn't support Bluetooth. Yet another IOS gotrcha. All of this frustrating crap just to get my Mojo to play a stupid bass guitar sound that every digital keyboard I've ever had over the last 25 years has standard. I'm writing this all out because I keep reading oh, just get an iPad and midi it up to your Mojo and you can play all these cool sounds. Not so fast grasshopper! Maybe ST for IOS will do what I want but I have to ditch my WIDI Master and buy the whole iPad to midi connector thing to even hear what the damn thing sounds like. Here's the next step I tried in this play some bass guitar journey. On the IKM Forum is this: by Jmcclainjr630 » Mon Mar 16, 2020 9:54 pm I found a way to get around this. I have a Yamaha UD-BT01(MIDI Adapter) for my EWI USB to use with another app I was told about recenly called Thumbjam and the app is cool but i missed Sampletank and the soundbank that came with it. So i connected the Yamaha UD-BT01 in the Thumbjam app and opened Sampletank and like a charm it works! Currently i have to connect the device through the Thumbjam app in order for the device to work with Sampltank. It does not work with Sampletank independently. So I bought Thumbjam. Luckily the IOS apps are cheap compared to buying actual keyboards. Despite what this person wrote I can't see ST after I've opened Thumbjam and got it playing using the WIDI. But it does have one half decent bass guitar patch. I'm thinking I can at least get by with using that for the gig but yet another gotcha. On the Mojo lower manual the bass is playing one octave too high. The app has an octave shift but the Mojo doesn't recognize it? Now what? I tried and tried and no, no matter what I do it will not octave shift down. This is getting ridiculous and I wound up doing the gig with standard organ pedal bass sounds. I looked into buying the Triton add on for the Korg Module but nowhere can I find a patch list and the few YT vids I found are run by idiots, no patch list, no bass demos anywhere. The Triton pack is the most expensive one and I'm not buying it unless I know for a fact it has the basses I need. That is the background, now for my questions: 1. Can anyone confirm the Triton IOS has basses? You would think it does but I don't trust anything IOS now without knowing for sure. Any other good IOS rompler type modules with bass guitars and good other sounds like AP's EP's, strings, brass etc that works over Bluetooth? 2. Why doesn't the Mojo respond to Thumbjam's octave shift instruction? 3. Can someone decipher what the person wrote on the IKM forum? Maybe I'm missing a step he didn't explain. Bob
  12. Been trying to use my Mojo 61 with the lower manual with my iPad pro for extra sounds and of course having problems with it. Wasn't sure if I should put the questions here or start a new thread with iPad in the title. Since it involves my Mojo I decided to start here. First, I bought the CME WIDI Master and it works great. That and a simple USB C> 1/4" audio plugs gets the sound from the iPad to my amp. It started with me wanting to use a bass guitar sound for bass on a gig a few months ago. I put the Korg Module Pro on my iPad and first thing I found out is there's no bass guitar patches on it and none of the add on libraries have any basses either. What?! Welcome to the world of IOS sounds...Module is touted as a good rompler sound module but no basses? Whatever. I can play all of the Modules other sounds on the lower manual although the AP's are really no better than the one on the Mojo. Then I bought SampleTank IOS because I know it has a ton of basses and pianos but I couldn't get it to recognize the WIDI Bluetooth connection. After a bunch of searching I found a post on the IKM form saying sorry, ST for IOS doesn't support Bluetooth. Yet another IOS gotrcha. All of this frustrating crap just to get my Mojo to play a stupid bass guitar sound that every digital keyboard I've ever had over the last 25 years has standard. I'm writing this all out because I keep reading oh, just get an iPad and midi it up to your Mojo and you can play all these cool sounds. Not so fast grasshopper! Maybe ST for IOS will do what I want but I have to ditch my WIDI Master and buy the whole iPad to midi connector thing to even hear what the damn thing sounds like. Here's the next step I tried in this play some bass guitar journey. On the IKM Forum is this: by Jmcclainjr630 » Mon Mar 16, 2020 9:54 pm I found a way to get around this. I have a Yamaha UD-BT01(MIDI Adapter) for my EWI USB to use with another app I was told about recenly called Thumbjam and the app is cool but i missed Sampletank and the soundbank that came with it. So i connected the Yamaha UD-BT01 in the Thumbjam app and opened Sampletank and like a charm it works! Currently i have to connect the device through the Thumbjam app in order for the device to work with Sampltank. It does not work with Sampletank independently. So I bought Thumbjam. Luckily the IOS apps are cheap compared to buying actual keyboards. Despite what this person wrote I can't see ST after I've opened Thumbjam and got it playing using the WIDI. But it does have one half decent bass guitar patch. I'm thinking I can at least get by with using that for the gig but yet another gotcha. On the Mojo lower manual the bass is playing one octave too high. The app has an octave shift but the Mojo doesn't recognize it? Now what? I tried and tried and no, no matter what I do it will not octave shift down. This is getting ridiculous and I wound up doing the gig with standard organ pedal bass sounds. I looked into buying the Triton add on for the Korg Module but nowhere can I find a patch list and the few YT vids I found are run by idiots, no patch list, no bass demos anywhere. The Triton pack is the most expensive one and I'm not buying it unless I know for a fact it has the basses I need. That is the background, now for my questions: 1. Can anyone confirm the Triton IOS has basses? You would think it does but I don't trust anything IOS now without knowing for sure. Any other good IOS rompler type modules with bass guitars and good other sounds like AP's EP's, strings, brass etc that works over Bluetooth? 2. Why doesn't the Mojo respond to Thumbjam's octave shift instruction? 3. Can someone decipher what the person wrote on the IKM forum? Maybe I'm missing a step he didn't explain. Bob
  13. Craig, you haven't specified if you're interested in learning to play a real piano or keyboards. All the comments about chops are correct if you want to play a piano or learn on a good hammer action 88 key keyboard. If you're ore concerned with playing keyboards in a band by using synth action 61 or 76 key keyboards then you're not too concerned with hand and finger strength so let us know what kind of keyboard you have or are willing to buy to learn on. Next is the time factor. As an older adult with tons of stuff going on I would pick a song with keyboard parts in it that you would actually play on a gig and learn it. Just don't start with some burner by Chick Corea! Pick a ballad with some nice sting pads and maybe a few lines that's not too technical and build up from there. If you find time to practice classical Bach and such, great but if not focus on what you would actually do on a gig and learn them using the good old hunt and peck method. The fingering for relatively easy stuff is pretty obvious, just play what works with your fingers. One thing that is an absolute must is playing the basic major scales in all keys with both hands using the "tempo de learno" method as described. And do it to a metronome or drum track. That will do wonders by itself with building dexterity and fingering. You're already a good player with good ears on guitar, hearing the keyboard parts should be fairly easy for you and you already have a musicians mindset, I think you're capable of figuring a lot of this out without a ton of help. But if you really want to play keys at the same level you play guitar then yes, that will require quite a bit of time and practice and playing high level synth and organ parts starts with playing a real piano or a high quality hammer action DP if you don't have an AP in your living room. Short of that you can still learn to play "good enough" on a 61 key synth. Are these comments classically correct? No, of course not. If you have the time and motivation to go that route then do it but if you really don't then what I'm suggesting will work. Bob
  14. I've found myself watching a ton of Youtube the last few years and not just music. I find "car guy" vids very compelling, finding, restoring, repairing. I've never done any of that but for some reason I watch a lot of it. They all have background music tracks and at first I didn't pay much attention to it until some of the creators started mentioning who did the tracks and then I started paying attention to them. What they're saying here is a big deal imho. Most of these tracks I hear are kinda sorta ripoffs of big name songs. I first thought these were clips of actual songs until I realized no, they're just generic background tracks "in the style of" whomever. What struck home to me is all of this stuff I watch is using tracks from our era, which is classic rock, blues, jazz and I'm thinking hey I can do that because there's no vocals at all, just generic instrumental tracks in the style of pretty much everybody from the 60's to the 80's. Ocassionally I'll hear some modern pop/rap but not a lot in these types of vids. Sometimes I'll watch shows about "rescuing" heavy equipment like a 10 ton bulldozer that's been sitting in a field for years. Those vids pretty much all use strong country rock/bluegrass tracks and some are very good, some are just ok. Somebody is producing those tracks and selling them and this article confirms it. I'm sure though the percentage/odds of making decent money doing that is just as hard as it's ever been trying to make good money in music. There's still way more good players doing this than there are buyers but this is just another possible tool to make money from. Bob
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