Stokely

It's funny I was thinking along those lines earlier today. I used to own a JX10 and there is a nostalgia factor....what's nuts that I (with parents' help to be sure) paid close to the same amount as the Fantom 6 for that Jx10 + pg800 programmer way back in the mid 80s. This has that keyboard in it (or close) plus so, so much more. I thought this was a pretty cool vid about the Fantom but for anyone interested in vintage Rolands. Sounds great to me.

Eh, I thought my synth sounded good through it. That said, it's the only amp I've ever used at a gig other than occasional house amps of various sorts so I'm hardly a good judge of amps. The last gig where I needed an amp or a powered speaker as an amp was at least 5 years ago. Gigs where I can't use the in-ears I just depend on a wedge mix for keys and everything else. I do bring the powered speaker to those just in case the wedge isn't enough, but so far it has been and the speaker can stay in the car. Interesting how there are many ways to get the job done

Speaking of big ol heavy amps, I somewhat fondly remember my Peavey KB 300 I had in the late 80s. I like to say I could drop farm animals at 50 paces with that thing. Not sure how it would sound with a decent piano--that's the instrument that makes cheap speakers and amps sound bad IMO--since the only one I had was the one in the Emu Proteus. Like a fool I used to tote that around with no casters, young and dumb then and old and slightly-less-dumb now. One thing is for sure, I stay away from loud practice rooms and stages now, wish I had then....

Billy Joel is simplistic? His intro from the late 70s for New York State of Mind would tell me a different tale....I sure couldn't play it but then both these guys are way better than me. Not that it matters a whit to me. I stopped caring about musical "prowess" a long time ago. I still appreciate it, but it's not "better" than something simple if I happen to like that something simple.

I love the idea of Bigwig, but yeah I wonder if I'd use all that power and flexibility. At this point I'm pretty used to and invested in Logic, though I'm just a hobbyist and really don't need to be fluent in more than one software at a time. When occasionally working with others not on Logic we just share midi and audio files.

I haven't bought much music in recent years (nor have I listened to much for that matter), the albums I've bought have been high-quality wavs from hdtracks.com. Specifically for referencing mixes. I have the files so nobody can remove my access, and can render them as mp3 if desired or just play them as-is. I doubt cds are higher quality than those wavs, but that is a guess on my part. I had to think about it, I think I have an old blu-ray player (not hooked up), not sure it can play cds. I have a cd rom in my older gaming pc, I've never used it I download games from Steam mostly.

In my experience, I don't really agree about polyphony being that important, within reason. I used to gig a lot with a Roland JX10 as my only keyboard, with the max polyphony of 12 with one tone, doubled to 6 or split to 6 in each zone. I made it work. Within reason...I mean a piano with 20 notes of polyphony is likely to have issues. People have been making great recordings with Prophet 5s for decades, though I doubt anyone is going to throw a Prophet 10 out of bed In the studio, it's moot especially with software synths. If I was recording with hardware synths I could always record each part as audio and move on. I tend to do multiple, simpler parts at home vs larger layered things. I have no idea of whether any of my current keyboards other than my Summit even have polyphony limits. I've never hit them knowingly if they do. Granted, I don't sequence live and I don't really do much layering beyond adding a pad to piano, or organ to horns etc sometimes--I feel that often "less is more" sonically and layering can actually detract from the sound.

Personally, when it comes to rehearsal I don't intend to ever sit in a loud practice again. I regret all the jet-plane-loud practices I used to do. After doing a few "semi-acoustic" ones to learn songs when our drummer was out of town (he already knew the songs in question), it was so nice to be able to talk through changes without shouting Now I won't go back, even if the drummer is there. step 1 - everyone learns the songs at home (!) step 2 - quietly go through endings/breaks/trouble spots in practice step 3 - pick an easier gig to debut the new songs. That said, we have a new drummer and a rehearsal scheduled. If I had my preference he'd whack a chair cushion or something for most of it, as i say to work out the changes and endings. I may have to resort to IEMs at practice, and if the bandleader doesn't set up the mixer I'll stuff my ears and simply won't be able to hear shit (I already know the songs, the drummer is the one getting up to speed.)

Yep, $200. I know because I've been looking at the Fantom 6, which before any coupons was selling everywhere for $2999. Sweetwater shows the "Fantom 6 EX" on preorder for $3199.

Weight, and size. Equally a factor IMO. My old large Moxf8 was not that heavy (less than 30 pounds) yet it was cumbersome to move around. And to make it worse, the angles of the chassis were such that it was easy to lose your grip on it. That said, yeah--over 60 pounds. And humongous, when I first saw one in a music store I could not believe how huge it was. Even a semi-rigid 88 case like I own (the rolling Gator one) adds more that 20 pounds to that, and just think of a flight case... Starsky Carr has a comparison with a few tones between Zencore and ACB, and unless you get to the extremes (high resonance etc) they sounded very close. That said, options aren't a bad thing. I compared the Fantom-0 to my Modx a while back, and it was interesting. The Modx had more clarity and "depth" if that makes sense, while the Fantom was more forward and had more color/presence to the sound. That color sounded good to my ear and I felt it would work well as a live keyboard, where subtlety can get lost. The Modx has really nice non-keyboard instruments (guitars, orchestral etc) but I rarely use those.

Yep, too big and heavy for me to tote to gigs. My buddy does it, but he has an awesome "kidnapper white" van for toting his stuff

Can you still get the EX upgrade for those? So $400 off, then pay $200 for the upgrade?

Well, that is interesting. I'm trying to sell some gear to (probably) fund a Fantom, and would definitely be wanting the EX upgrade if I did. I did see one odd thing, I think at Sweetwater--the other day, the Fantom 6 showed up as "unavailable". Not "out of stock" as I'd expect. That said, just now I checked and it seems available again so probably not related. The way my gear selling is going--meaning it isn't--I'll be ready to buy in 2028, so it's hardly a hurry.

As an aside, that Vulfpeck concert is one the best things I've seen and heard in a long time. I knew very little of them when someone first showed me that. The fun part is that it's basically one shot, one camera for the whole show! No tracks, just great musicians looking like they are having a blast. Gives me some hope for the future, considering a lot of that crowd looked pretty young. I will be looking out for those guys. I don't go out to see big synced up glorified karaoke shows anymore (though ok Muse might do it), but I might travel to see Vulfpeck. All this AI "creativity" seems like it belongs in the Incredibles (one of my fave movies.) "Everyone is special, Dash." "Which is another way of saying no-one is."

Eh I like (some) disco. Granted it was just slightly before "my time". I like it better than "AI" that's for sure.