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Modler

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About Modler

  • Birthday 08/19/1987

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    Train engineer
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    Denmark

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  1. I have just been fighting a ghastly loop noise in my setup, with the two keyboards (PC4 and FA-06) both MIDI'ing to the laptop via USB, with the Roland also functioning as audio interface for the software. The solution however was simple; balanced cables out from BOTH keyboards and the noise became unaudiable.
  2. Great question! When it comes to organs, I think it's mostly a matter of tradition. The grand piano happened to have one manual from the beginning, and so all the music and playing techniques for the piano evolved around that single manual. Whereas many of the styles and techniques on the organ was originally developed on two manual instruments (or more), first in classical music and then later in all the early gospel, soul, jazz, blues, etc. Keyboard players in rock music has been more inclined to adapt to single manual organs, as they typically don't need more with the guitarists taking up most of the band's sonic space. So why did two manuals never catch on for synthesizers? I think that a lot of it has to do with the fact, that early synthesizer technology could barely support two-manuas in a way that made sense. Especially polyphony was very limited and to have synth voices enough for two manuals, you had to have quite a bit of analog circuitry going on, which was expensive and often also unreliable. There were a few of such behemoths made; the Yamaha GX-1 comes to mind, but such instruments were impractically heavy and much too expensive for the vast majority of musicians. Later on I think MIDI has satisfied most players needs for having mulitple manuals. In the occasion you need another manual, it's merely a matter of connecting another keyboard with a cheap cable. Also given the extra cost and the extra weight, it all makes two manual synthesizers very much a niche product. I don't think it would be possible to make much money on a modern two-manual syntheizer, the customer base for such an apparatus is to small.
  3. Yes you're completely right. Sorry for the confusion :-)
  4. If you start with 'Clear Multi' none of the controllers will be assigned. But in 'Default Multi' they are. One problem to be aware of though is possible conflicts between the different zones assignments to knobs, faders and switches. I would recommend you to save your own default multi with all the controllers set as you like them, and use that as a template whenever you want to make a multi.
  5. The PC4 has Quick Access mode. It is integrated into the program/multi-modes via a soft button. The interface on this K2700 looks very similar to the PC4.
  6. Negotiating about playing songs that doesn't have any keyboard parts has always been a recurring challenge. But I am quite happy with the band I'm currently in, as we only have one guitarist and he is not an arcetypical "rock guitarist" but more a "general musician and arranger"-kind-of-type who happens to play guitar. Which means he appreciate the keyboards doing all kinds of cool stuff in the songs and his playing is usually economical and restricted to the most relevant guitar parts in the songs. That's sweet heaven for a keyboard player. I have only ever left a band out of anger or frustration on two occations: The first time was a band that was dominated by an old drummer who thought he was a professional musician because he had played on some unknown single record back in the 70's (he was posting the cover of that record on FB on a regular basis, to remind everybody about it...). He was constantly at odds with our female singer/songwriter/guitarist and I eventually got tired of listening to their frequent quarrels. I don't want to spend my spare time watching grown up people fight over nothing. The second time was a rock cover band that just wouldn't lift off of the ground. Everytime we were about ready to take jobs, someone left the group (usually the drummer). After several years of idling in the rehearsal room and after af period where the bass player AND another drummer quit within a couple of months, I finally threw in the towel. There was something inherently wrong with that band that just couldn't be fixed. Also, the two guitarist usually made an enormous wall of sound, and the bass player was mostly plucking deep root notes (I don't he ever went above the 7th fret on his bass). I never really understood why they needed me on keys...
  7. I also bought my FA-06 before the FA-07 was a thing. It is a rather uninspiring keyboard in many ways and with a pretty bad action, but few other keyboards boats the same level of all-round practicality with the studio sets, keyboard switch groups, MIDI-control features, vocoder, sampler, USB/audio-interface and ultra light weight construction. It can't easily be replaced by something different and an 07 is indeed a lot of money just to get a better keybed. I use mine together with a Kurzweil PC4, and before that with my old PC3X. The light weight of the PC4 has been a huge blessing, but it has yet to see a live show though. Recently I've also introduced a laptop running SampleTank 4 to the rig, with both the PC4 and the FA sending MIDI to the laptop. I use the PC4 to send all program changes to the FA as well as SampleTank, while the FA takes care of the USB audio I/O for the laptop. Works fine so far.
  8. I'd say the Medeli in the PC4 is a whole lot better than the TP100. Less noisy, much more comfortable and it also saves more weight. I have only tried the TP100 in an Artis though, so I don't know if it feels different in other keyboards. I generally don't miss the TP40 in my old PC3X when I am playing the PC4, except maybe the aftertouch which works a lot better on the TP40.
  9. Learning how to tame a Kurzweil can be daunting and frustrating at first, but you will be very happy and satisfied when you succeed, and you will never be intimidated by any other keyboard again.
  10. True. Combining factory programs in multi's on the PC4 will mostly result in a slight drop out in sound during transitions. But you can often make totally smooth transitions if you remove the effect blocks that you don't use, save effect chains and programs as user objects and use them instead. Many of the factory programs has effect chains with maybe 8 or 9 blocks, but you will typically only need half of them.
  11. You can easily arrange lists of programs and multi's (in any combination) on the PC4 using its Quick Access-banks, where you can put them in order, edit them, etc. You can switch between them using the numeric buttons or a pedal. The only limitation is that each QA-bank only contains 10 program/multi's, so to make a full setlist you would probably need to use 3 or 4 QA-banks for a full show. But there are plenty of them available.
  12. There's a guide to that on Kurzweil's website. They haven't made one for the PC4 just yet, but you can look it up under the FAQ-section for the Forte, which works almost the same as on the PC4.
  13. The vocal mic is normally off. I switch it on for the few songs where I need it (I'm trying to keep my vocal duties to a minimum, as I'm a terrible singer). The vocoder mic is always on, as it won't make a sound unless I have a vocoder patch active on the Roland. The trick is to route the mic input on the Roland to the sub out rather than the main out. The sound from the mic will still go to the vocoder effect which will be present at the main out, but the direct signal from the mic itself will mute when I switch away from the vocoder (given that I leave the sub out unconnected of course).
  14. It was an idea I got from a rig rundown video with Spike Edney. But the results I have achieved so far has been... mixed. By using an ensemble-type vocoder (string sound as carrier) at moderate volume, sometimes with a bit of a choir-sample mixed in, I can make a "synth backdrop" for the backing vocals that makes the whole thing sound bigger. The problem: if one of the singers are just sligtly out of tune, the pitch-perfect vocoder exposes it very clearly.
  15. Yes, I am using the FA's vocoder on a few songs. Sometimes to support the backing vocals, sometimes just as an effect for the fun of it.
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