SpPiano

I watched the movie "Searching" the other night, which came out in 2018. In the movie, the lead actor's daughter is taking piano lessons from his wife, who is a classical pianist. She's teaching her on a DX-7. The movie takes place current day where the girl is 16 and the girl is probably 8 when taking the lessons. So in 2011, a classical pianist is teaching her daughter to play beginner piano pieces on a DX-7.

The 8Dio logo in the corner has been confirmed to mean a partnership with them. Seems like this thing will have some sample playback possibilities. I'm intrigued.

You can use 8 different sounds in Omnisphere per instance inside of MainStage using aliases. You can set up 8 different patches in MainStage all aliased to the same instance of Omni and accessing different midi channels. You can even assign knobs on your layout pages to effects parameters (or any control) inside of MainStage and have more than 8 different 'sounds' from one instance of Omni. I usually will use either 2 or 3 instances of Omni in a big MainStage setup which means I'm at 16-24 different patches that are all preloaded and able to switched between without sound cutoff. I run into no issues managing it this way with my system. I've got 16 gb ram on a Macbook Pro and a SSD which helps too. Just ordered Keyscape today and looking forward to trying it out!

I just had a blast using my SS3 and the behringer sub for an organ trio using VB3. This was my first gig playing left hand bass the whole night with this setup and it sounded amazing. We played jazz at a fairly quiet level, but it was in a pretty big hall. I was able to bring the SS3 and the sub in on one little cart, so my setup was incredibly easy.

I've played a lot more gigs using my SS and have been VERY happy. This week I took it to a small bar for a jazz jam, to rockwood music hall in nyc for a show with my indie rock band, to a small 300 seat theater with a latin rock band, and to a mid size ballroom with the indie rock band. For the theater and the ballroom I stuck a stereo di in front of the SS and sent it to FOH and was very happy. For the small bar and rockwood (a small venue in the city with a great backline, but with no amps for me!) I just used the SS itself. I've had only 1 issue with SS ever and it was a combination of me expecting more from the amp than it could deliver, terrible sound guys, being next to a really loud bass amp, and maybe some shoddy gain staging on my end. I love this thing. I've bought the Behringer sub, but so far it's just been sitting in my basement. I haven't needed it yet. Most gigs have been novation sl controller-macbook-apogee duet-(di when necessary to FOH)-SS or PX-5S-macbook-apogee duet-(di when necessary to FOH)-SS. My piano sounds in pianoteq have needed a lot of tweaking, but now they sound really great. I took off most of the effects and played with the eq and am now really happy with it. Most sounds I use seem to work better with less reverb with this amp. To solve the side speaker blasting the drummer problem, I've mainly just set up stage left, but one time I had to get creative with the top of the guitar player's pedalboard.

I played another gig last night with my SS and had a GREAT experience with it. I was playing in a much smaller venue with a jazz group. I used my px-5s into mainstage and a moog little phatty. I got a lot of compliments from other musicians in the room about the sound quality of the SS. I'm going to try out a mixer with this thing and am most likely going to order that behringer sub for larger gigs. I love the sound I'm getting. @David Loving... I'd get the amp. It's not difficult to set up. It took me a little while to get used to the wide dispersion, but there's nothing like it. Great value. @KingstonCrim Yeah, so far I've been going straight into the inputs of the SS from the apogee. It sounds great, but as mentioned before I'm looking into adding a mixer and/or a sub when needed.

Are you kidding me? That's way too much. I think you're playing in a band that's much louder than most of us are talking about but of course in a forum how can we know for sure? I'll try to describe my blues/rock bar gigs. First no stage instruments going to the FOH, just vocals and sax. I sit to the drummer's left. My right ear is maybe 4 feet from his hihat. When he's really banging I need an ear plug in my right ear. To me that's pretty damn loud. Now, over and above the volume of the drummer is the bass. He's in the corner to the drummers right and is really booming. Then right behind me to my left maybe 3 feet from my left ear is the JBL EON for the vocals and sax. I have to turn that speaker away from my left ear or I'll need an ear plug for that one too. Get the picture? I would call that pretty loud in a sports bar where 6 of us are crammed on a small stage. My SK1 going through the SS is set between 3-4 o'clock which is about 75% but the SS is at 2 o'clock. If you're using a min/max scale I guess you could call that a 6 or 7. That's a max setting for short punches or phrases, I'm not using that full power continuously. Plenty of clean power and that's with both the drummer and the PA hurting my ears on loud passages. I'm doing mostly organ but I'm doing some Jerry Lee 50's piano stuff too and it's plenty loud. Here's something that might give you an idea of volume. At one point we had a trumpet player sitting in with our sax guy. During his solo he couldn't be heard so he blew into the vocal mic and almost took my head off. I did mash the expression pedal and pulled out some drawbars for more power. Still sounded clean and the SS was really screaming. I thought it sounded really good. If I needed to play that loud all night I would have had to use my ear plugs. Maybe this will give you guys who need more power some point of reference. If you're louder than what I'm describing then you need to run the sub out to a powered PA speaker like an ELX 12P or something similar. That plus the SS would blow me right off the stage. I don't think I would like that, that would be ear damage for sure. Bob Well, in a way, I guess I was kidding you. Looking again, the SS was 75% as well, so more like a 7. I'm gonna try the SS out in a gig again tonight at a much smaller venue. The place where it was distorting was a very large hall with high ceilings and there was nothing surrounding the amp. Probably more like 500 seats. I was playing with an electric jazz act, and the sound guys were terrible, but I was able to reproduce the distortion pretty easily as home. Tonight is a small bar type gig. Again, I don't have any issue organ sounds, it was AP and even more so EPs that were giving me trouble. I'm open to trying it with a mixer, and I think that's what I'll do now. That behringer sub looks like a good route to go as well, but it's yet again one more thing to load in and out.

My second gig produced results similar to that which a lot of other people are reporting here... APs and EPs started to distort very easily at decent volumes. I'm using mainstage into an apogee duet into the SS. When the apogee volume is at 75%, the patches are at Odb in mainstage, let's say it's scarbee rhodes or pianoteq pianos, and the level of the SS is past 1 oclock, things start to break up. In order to pull off a gig on Saturday night, my normally clean rhodes sounds were some seriously distorted lead sounding things. I also just tried patch 0-0, the concert grand, from the PX-5S. When the SS is on 9 and the PX-5S is 75% of the way there, it distorts too. I wish there was something I could do. I'd really not rather add a mixer to my setup, but if that's what's needed I guess I would. Will this really help, or is my setup or am I expecting too much from this amp? I'm just now seeing your post Apsen above mine, I hadn't refreshed in a while. I'll see if I can borrow a mixer and test this thing out. There have been no issues with sounds other than AP and EP, so I'm not surprised other more organ oriented users haven't experienced this problem, but after my gig Saturday, I see I'm not the only one scratching my head.

I did my first gig with the SS last night. I was using my PX-5S midi'ed to mainstage, out to an apogee duet, out to the SS. I was using pianoteq, vb3, g force mellotrons, omnisphere, Iris 2 pads, and kontakt scarbee wurlitzer. I was playing with a rock band with two guitars, drums, bass, and a singer in a pretty small venue and the thing kicks ass. I don't regret buying it for a second. I didn't get to spend a ton of time dialing the settings on the amp in as I got and took it straight to the gig, but it sounds excellent. Using pianoteq with the PX-5S and the SS is a dream. It's clearly not the same as using two high end PA speakers, but I love it. I had no problem keeping up with the two guitarists with volume and the tone was excellent. I see what you guys mean with the organ too. The sound I got from VB3 with a 008000000 and some spring reverb for some mellow ballad playing was incredible. It just sat in the mix differently than my K4 or other PA's I've used. I set it up so the side speaker was facing a wall and the amp was tilted up slightly. Thanks Aspen!

If your rep hasn't contacted you yet, call them. After reading the news from you guys this morning I decided to call myself and was told that my order was put on hold until they could get in touch with me. Well, nobody tried to get in touch with me, but I'm sure they were on their way to doing so. After a 3 minute phone call, my SS is on its way! Expected to come either "Thursday or Friday at the latest". I've got gigs Friday and Saturday night, so I'm looking forward to finally getting this thing. Will be using a Nord stage for the first one with an rnb act in a small club and a Ravenscroft/VB3/U-HE/Omni/etc mainstage rig for the second in a 1000 seat theater.

Yeah, I understand the delay from Aspen's point of view, and have really appreciated getting the updates from him. I can't imagine how frustrating it must've been to have had the shipment of speakers fall into the water. I am however, annoyed at sweetwater. My rep told me to expect shipment mid November when I ordered in late October and I haven't received a phone call or email since. I called them just now and they told me that it would be the third week of January. This is a really busy time of year for me, and I would've loved to have had a new amp in tow. I had to bring my amp in for repairs about a week ago and was at the mercy of using whatever monitors were on stage for the past week. If I'd had the SS when I was told it'd be delivered, it would've been a much more pleasant situation. I'm still excited to be getting mine in January, but I would've loved it as a Christmas present at least.

I'm really close to ordering one of these on sweetwater, but I would love to hear from some people reviewing the tone of this using an acoustic piano patch. I would've loved to have heard that in the Nord video, but maybe someone else can help. I'll either be driving the piano sound using a Nord stage or a laptop running Pianoteq 5. Just wondering how clean and clear of a piano sound I can expect. The amp looks great! Very excited about it.