Dave Bryce

Santa Paula is just over the hill from me. Thousand Oaks is on the southeastern border of Ventura County. It went on for just short of ten seconds. It was one more intense ones I’ve felt since we started living here a quarter of a century ago. More a bunch of rolling than jolts for us. dB

The reason brother Joe knows for a fact is that he’s been helping me. So far, neither of us seems to have broken it… There are 15 brands in the store currently, mostly hardware and some software. We did our best to come up with a decent assortment of cool, useful gear for as many members as possible - keyboard folks, string pickers, singers, etc - and a decent amount of tools for recording. Software-wise, we went mostly with virtual instruments and some processors, not so much with DAWs. It feels like a good idea that most of the products in the store gravitate towards the affordable side of the spectrum, and are fairly easy to ship. I think that’s enough for us to be able to evaluate if this works for the community. Luckily, the MPN Shopify store has been in place for a few years now with the Merch and Craig’s software products, so all we really had to do was arrange to add a nice selection of cool toys and build pages for them. It’s amazing how much we were able to get done without spending much $. We didn’t have to build a physical store; and, thanks to some fairly solid support for MPN from a bunch of really cool partners, everything is going to be drop-shipped and directly supported…so we didn’t have to buy any stock, and we know that anyone who purchases anything from the MPN Store will be taken care of, from technical support to warranty issues. I don’t think there are many other discussion group communities that have tried to integrate a retail component, so I’m very curious to see if this is something that’s interesting and useful to the community. It’s important to emphasize that this is an experiment, so please do feel free to share your feedback - that’d be tremendously helpful. dB

Not sure, but whoever it is I hope they’re feeling better now. Ojai is 28 miles from my house… 😳 Luckily, the storm has been average so far…but it’s still on the Baja. It’ll get much closer to us in a few more hours. dB

Good to see you! Hope all is well… FWIW, many of us play software instruments these days as well as hardware ones. Please feel free to start topics about any software instruments you’re using that you think we should know about. dB

Here’s a possibility: Some DAWs instantiate a software instrument on a track set up for audio playback, but then require a separate MIDI track set up/routed (via a device list like CHarrell mentioned above) to control the software instrument, just like you’d do if you were recording/controlling external instruments. That can be confusing the first time you come across it. dB

😁 dB

We would be most grateful if y’all would please be kind enough to subscribe to MPN’s YouTube channel. We use it for showcasing Gear Chat video interviews, trade show coverage, GearLab videos, Keyboard Chronicles shows, etc. 😎 😁 dB

Speaking of which, y’all know that clicking on the MPN logo in the upper left hand corner of every page takes you directly to the main home page, yes? dB

Agreed. Good call - thanks! dB

This is a custom Audio Wood turntable called The Big Easy. Essentially the components from a Rega 3. The original was used for a scene in Star Trek II: Intro Darkness. 24 Volt Rega-type drive system, along with the TTPSU (external power supply, heavyweight glass platter (standard), Rega RB330 Tonearm and Ortofon 2M Blue Cartridge. I also have the Rega Preamp. The two small boxes with the red lights are the Rega Pre and the Rega external PS. Yamaha RX-A1010 receiver at the bottom dB

Thanks for all you do, brother Mike! Your stewardship of the brand is clearly one of the main reasons behind its success. 😎 👊 dB

A couple of details regarding shipping, if I may: First of all, as noted on the front page of the shop, we are only authorized to sell and ship hardware products inside the Continental US. Also, in an effort to thank the MPN community for their support and patronage, shipping will be free on all products purchased from the MPN Shop.* 😎 dB * except for the MPN merch.

Could we be any more pleased to add Casio to the MPN Shop? 🥳 I’m a big fan - I own three Casios (PX-S1000, CT-1000S and CT-S1). I even did a promotional video for the CT-S1 (with killer graphics and video editing/assembly by brother Craig Anderton) when it first came out. We did a Team Test on the CT-1000V in the Gearlab as well. dB

Really deep dive so far, Dr. Mike! I’ve been an owner of a Mellotron 4000D rack for many years. I picked up a copy of M-Tron Pro IV a little while back, and frankly I’m surprised at how much better I like working with the software than the hardware. So much more power and flexibility, so much more control available, so many options to choose from. It’s kind of easy to understand how M-Tron has become an industry standard for so many people. True story: I sold my 4000D on reverb.com a few weeks ago. No regrets. dB

Done! dB

I rarely use it live, but when I do, scrolling presets is easy, and I use a CC pedal for realtime control of one parameter per preset. In the studio, computer/tablet hookup is the best. SO much info, so easy to navigate and tweak. ...and the thing sounds fabulous. dB

I use an Eventide H9 Max for multi-effects. Nothing but good things to say about it, especially when it's hooked up to a computer for extended control. dB

Two sale items in the MPN Shop: The Moog MF-102S Ring Modulator just went on sale for $9.99. Cherry Audio’s ELKA-X is on sale through the end of August for $29. dB

MPN Shop has it. $499.99, with free shipping. dB

We're up to 11 hardware brands now - Apogee, Audient, Cloud Mics, Gator Cases, Ik Multimedia, Keeley Electronics, Morley Pedals, Presonus, Strymon Pedals, TASCAM and Warm Audio. We'll add one more tasty hardware line in the next day or so. We've also just started adding a few key software lines. Cherry Audio, GForce Software, Moog Software and a few other odds and ends. More to come... dB

I also just lit up some Moog software - basically, just the soft version of the MoogerFoogers. Heads up - the MF-102S Ring Modulator just went on sale today for $9.99. dB

Okay, so I created an ALL SOFTWARE category. 🤓 I was inspired because there are some software products sold by companies that also make lots of hardware, and I don’t want them to get lost. Think Syntronik Deluxe, which is sold by Ik Multimedia. dB

I know, I know... It has to be done with code, which is over my head. Jim Quinn has promised to help with this today. The menu at the very top is clickable, and contains things for which we have no logos - Anderton Collection, Bundles, MPN Merch… dB

We are way psyched to add GForce Software to the MPN Shop! Their fabulous M-Tron Pro IV is currently undergoing interactive review by our own Dr. Mike Metlay in the MPN Gearlab. Members of the GForce team are keeping an eye on the review, so if you’ve got any questions about this product for Dr. Mike or the G-Force folks, please do join us over there. dB

It’s the physics thing, of course. Real pianos are hundreds (if not thousands when it comes to the really big ones) of pounds of resonating metals and wood that radiate in all directions - including up your hands and arms and into your body - and heavily interact with the space where they reside. Putting aside the quality of a sample set, feel of the keybed and integration between said sample set in a digital piano, the physics of the way a Real Piano produces sound is exceptionally hard to duplicate, even with an expensive sound system - the directionality aspect is simply not the same coming from two PA speakers, no matter how good they are or where you put them. For me, I typically prefer digital pianos with onboard sound systems for that reason. When I was at Alesis, we briefly made a digital piano called the DG8 that had a killer sound system in the top (essentially bi-amped Monitor Ones with 100W per channel!), including transmission lines that criss-crossed under the front panel and a porting system that really opened up the bass, I loved that instrument - too bad it fell victim to Alesis’ bankruptcy two decades ago. 😒 My Casio PX-S1000 has a sound system that can be set to mono, stereo…or “surround”, which radiates all around the instrument. Sure, the speakers are small…but the physics of the way they’re mounted and placed can be surprisingly satisfying…for me, anyway. dB