Mighty Motif Max

There's also the new Sheeran Looper units...the cheaper one is still pretty capable. If I were ever to get a looper, I like the set of features these have. https://www.sheeranloopers.com/

I would like to play one of these in a store sometime - the YouTube demos aren't really convincing me that it sounds all that special, but I have a few Arturia plugins and those sound pretty decent. I think playing one in person would be the only way I could get an accurate view of how good it actually is.

It is, from 2022... My answer back then was my Motif XF8. I would still say that's the most enjoyable. However, the most useful for me has definitely been the MODX7 - I've used that for everything over the last few years, and (especially when combined with an SK Pro 73), there's very little I can't cover sufficiently for almost any gig. It's much lighter and my Motif stays back home now.

All my groups use either Planning Center (church stuff, with YouTube links) or Spotify playlists. If necessary, you can usually find the same song on YouTube to slow it down, or isolated stems (which are becoming more common). Uploading tracks to Google Drive or something seems like it might be problematic for copyright reasons.

I keep an Excel sheet of future purchase plans...I will say that my gear purchases have trailed off a lot this year, because I don't have as much money to spare this year, so this isn't going to be checked off any time soon. Here's the list...roughly in order of importance. Nord Stage 4 88 Ibanez RGRTBB21 Baritone Fryette Power Load IR Fatar TP40m keybed and new pots for my PC3 (76) restoration EVH 5150 Iconic 40W Jaspers KR200-6-150RS + 19" 6U rack inserts Anyma Omega (physical modelling polysynth) Akai MPC Key 61 Expressive E Osmose Godin 5th Ave Jumbo P-Rail Ibanez SML721 Multiscale Gretsch G5420T 3 knobs and a "G" key for my Triton LE76 Software stuff/soundsets Aaron Venture Infinite Woodwinds Drum-Tec Real Acoustics for the Roland TD-17 AcousticSamples C7 The huge wishlist item that's many years off would be a Yamaha DGC1ENST (a GC1 baby grand with full midi integration). That's around $44,500. As I said, that's like the "one day, I'd love to have _x_" item, if I have the funds and space for a grand/baby grand. We have the version with no extra tech at my college, and that's the best feeling piano I've ever played.

Popping into this thread a bit late, but if you want a reasonably solid and not insanely expensive setup to run some backing tracks, I just wrapped up a weekend gig where I had some supplementary tracks running from the Loop Community Prime iPad app. It's originally designed for worship bands, but you can import your own tracks via uploading to the cloud and downloading to your device (which stays offline) and generate a click that matches, if necessary. In theory you can run all sorts of channels so long as your audio interface supports it. I ran my rig with an older iPad 5th generation and a Roland Rubix 22 (click left, track mix right out), with no issues. But I could have split out instruments independently with a bigger audio interface. The app itself is free and you get some cloud storage free as well. https://loopcommunity.com/en-us/prime In the past, I've done solo gigs where I sequenced some parts (usually drums and bass) to play keys along with, mostly for modern pop tunes. I just sequenced those on my keyboard and played them back. However, if I was to do it again, I would definitely just use audio tracks from another device, so as to not run up against polyphony issues. The other fun thing you could look into is using an electronic kick pedal to trigger a kick drum, and maybe another foot pedal of some type to trigger other percussion stuff. I've done that as well - run the accordion through a Line6 M13 for effects (or just use the keys for some songs), use a kick pedal, and Bob's yer uncle. It helps that I'm also a drummer of course, but I was doing that gig setup before I actually started gigging on drums or had a practice kit.

My goal with phone speakers is to be able to hear the bones of the song clearly enough (provided it does sound good on car systems, a PA system, radios, Sony earbuds, and headphones [and the studio mixing setup of course]). I should be able to hear the kick/snare/hihats, lead vocals, and primary instruments clearly and intelligibly enough. I'll often reference other professionally-produced tracks on the same playback system, even when it's a phone speaker, to see if I'm in the ballpark.

Thanks for the thoughts - first, I was an idiot and wrote that late at night. My model is a 10" (ELX200-10P). I am 100% sure I'm triggering the 16' pedal drawbar (the SK Pro display is helpful in confirming that) as I am reasonably familiar with using the 3-Part Organ mode plus Split to get the pedals to the lower octaves of the keyboard. On the speaker, there is a high-pass filter (for use with a sub), and that is turned off. EQ is set to flat, and there's also some DSP presets, noted on the frequency response chart below. I use it in Live mode which is pretty flat, but the other modes don't make much of a difference (Club mode adds some beef to the bottom end, but it isn't enough to fix the bass patches). There isn't much of a difference between pole mounting and using it on the floor in terms of low end, even though in theory there should be an improvement in the low end when used on the floor (there are also DSP presets for those locations, which I've experimented with, but again it hasn't made a huge difference). On your note about the Yamaha - I will say, my little 8" Yamaha always pumped out more low end than the 10" EV. I was kind of surprised about that.

Following. This past year I formed a trio with acoustic drums, electric guitar, and me on keys (MODX7/SK PRo) and left-hand bass (mainly the Hammond SK Pro). My setup for gigs in the past few years has used an EV ELX-200P 12" speaker (and a Yamaha MSR100 but that bit the dust last year). I can't get much of anything in the lowest octave of a 16' bass pedal to be audible through the ELX - it drops off significantly, to the point that if I adjust so you can sort of hear it, I'll be halfway through a bass line and all of a sudden higher notes will be twice as loud and pop out, because the low-end roll off is so bad. And that's a 12" speaker. We don't play at super high volumes either. It just drops off to the point that it's not clearly audible if there's anything else playing except for the bass line itself, and even then, like I said, that bottom octave is much, much softer than it should be. I've tried boosting the lows on the onboard DSP and it just makes the next octave up overpowering.

It's a performance keyboard with a lot of sounds stuffed in, like Tusker just mentioned while I was writing this post. The MD at my home church used one of these as recently as 2019 for some duties, and honestly, with the exception of the acoustic pianos, it was pretty decent sounding. He didn't use the Session pianos though, which would have improved it a bit. I like the form factor and navigation. Getting one would be a bit redundant for me with the Fantom 7, but they're a solid little instrument.

Well, it's per-part, so for a split/layer you have 8 synth voices or 48 piano/organ voices per patch, so at least it's not 8 total or 48 total. Nords used to have polyphony somewhere in the 40s for their pianos IIRC. I will say - they do have a set list function for organizing and scrolling through patches for different songs (they call it a "playlist" function).

I was looking for some specs on polyphony - found this on the Synth Anatomy site. "To avoid audio dropouts, the polyphony is limited per part to 8 voices for the synths and 48 voices for pianos/organs."

What's the deal with the round display? Weird. I like the concept a lot though - this thing could be perfect if you do a lot of in-the-box production with Arturia stuff and want a solid option to bring on stage for your patches without messing with laptops and such. I would have liked sliders since the B3 engine is in there though! Nice to see there are 4 pedal inputs and a vocoder though!

I think it's real - did a Google search and this came up. The page itself is "not found", but the link is there for a product page.

Something like a Korg Kross 2 could do the trick at a cheaper price point.