RABid

Access Virus - It was THE virtual analog for so long, improving with every version. Then the focus was moved to Kemper amps and the Virus was done.

About as close as I have found in hardware.

Very interesting, but I think I would be more interested in a module version.

I remember buying a Roland SH-32. It was rated as 32 note polyphony. You could layer 4 sounds, each being stereo and using 2 polyphony, and then hit a 4 note chord. The sounds would kick in one at a time, each new sound playing a couple seconds after the previous. It was horribly underpowered, even for a 32 note polyphony engine. I have owned Roland ROMplers that were rated as 64 note polyphony. Each stereo part used two polyphony, and a voice could use up to 4 parts. In this case, one note = 8 polyphony. For most sounds you were limited to 8 notes total. This was actually fine with me. I don't often need more than 8 notes on a single keyboard. The exception is playing piano parts with the sustain pedal in use. The modern Fantom line is a bit more complicated. It is listed as 256 notes when using the sound core engine. From here it gets a bit sketchy but as I understand it, the two chips work together and share the load, avoiding the Yamaha problem of having two chips with separate 128 poly. It gets a bit foggy when using the V Piano or ACB instrument like the Jupiter 8 ACB. The piano is listed as unlimited polyphony meaning you can hit every note on an 88. The ACB synths are limited to 8 notes. The V Piano and the ACB synths must be a singular instance and reside in channel one of the system. What Roland does not say is what happens to the sound core polyphony when you play a V Piano or ACB synth. I did see one video in which the Roland rep said that an ACB synth took 4 times the processing per note as the sound core engine. (Don't ask me which video. I cannot remember and you can search through the various YouTube demonstrations as easy as I can.) Anyway, I've seen complaints that the amount of power on the Fantom is not enough. One YouTubber had 8 patches layered and was playing large, sustained chords and complaining when notes dropped out. My opinion, learn some restraint. If you really need 8 complicated sounds layered and played with two handed chords with sustain on, add more hardware, or listen to your music and ask yourself why you need so much mud.

The Fantom EX 7 is $200 more than what I paid for my new Fantom 7 so I came out just fine. The real deal is the sell off prices of the non-ex Fantoms. $400 off the Fantom 7.

This thread needs some drums. Two of my favorite instructional sites... Rob Brown - Lots of good, free lessons from a professional drummer. (With the name Rob Brown, he has to be great!) Mike Johnston - the other instructional drum site that I frequent.

For those into modular, especially Eurorack modular, DAWless and beatboxes, here are some essential YouTube channels. Omri Cohen - If you are interested in VCV Rack software modular, this is your place. Loads of videos on the modules available, as well as techniques on how to use them. Red Means Recording - Lots of instructional videos and reviews on modular and DAWless. DivKid - A master of Eurorack patching. Highly respected in the community. True Cuckoo - tutorials on beatboxes, synths, and DAWless. Braintree56 - Eurorack, tabletop synths and beatboxes. His Digitakt tutorial series alone earns him a place here. The Midlife Synthesist - Sequencers, beat boxes, and synths coming from a long time musician. Synth Dad - down to earth reviews and tutorials on modular and DAWless. If I had a channel it would probably be like this.

I have a CD player in the car, my living room surround system, and my sister bought me a turntable system that also has a CD player. I have thousands of CD in the garage and my 100 favorite CD's in my living room, but it has been at least a year since I last played a CD. With services like Distrokid, the new medium is a poster that lists your recordings and which services on which they can be found. You could offer business cards with that information, but really, kids can just take a picture of the poster with their phone.

Everyone thought I would love Bitwig, and I believed them. All that sound path construction and modulate anything ability is fine for making loops or one shots to use as samples, but when constructing a song it just seems a bit busy. I prefer Ableton Live for creating a performance, and Logic for finalizing a songs, but I am not sure what I am supposed to do with Bitwig. Every so often I think that maybe I should renew my maintenance on it and dive in again, then I ask myself why and I honestly don't have an answer. What it can do is amazing, but also distracting. It... well... throws me out of focus.

Thanks for the reminder. Saw a video a few days ago and forgot to pick it up. I have an Oxi One MIDI/CV sequencer arriving today. Looking forward to connecting it to everything from my modular to the MC 101.

Was riding with my sister Sunday night and she had a gospel radio station on. A song came on that I did not recognize and a minute later my subconscious brane was was telling me "this may be the worst song you have ever heard." After wondering why I was having such a bad reaction to the song I started listening closer. It was a string of catch phrases. Every cliche you can imagine loosely woven together with no real direction. No anchor at all. After reading the above lyrics I wonder if the song I heard on the radio was written by an AI.

Problems in my early keyboard playing days. (Early 1980's) Figuring out how to make my mini Casio sound like a real piano while saving for that $4000 CP70. Keeping analogs in tune. Scrambling to program the synth sounds for the next song in a 5 second break. Getting someone to help you move a Hammond, Leslie, Rhodes and a variety of synths. Choosing between better gear, or buying a house. Problems for new keyboardist today. Managing 4000 presets in a single keyboard. Deciding which sub-$1000 do it all keyboard to buy. Choosing between an iPad, MacBookAir, or a Korg module to expand the sound pallet. Every day I wonder what it would have been like to start my keyboard journey with a Fantom 7.

Let’s just be honest here. How many of us have hearing problems because we did not use earplugs every time we went on stage?

I think the great care of pressing on 45RPM vinyl is lost on anyone using a $300 turntable with a stock needle, and pumping it through a measly $1000 receiver into a $3000 speaker system. Now if you have already spent 25G on your stereo system, run right out and buy it. I’m sure it will sound 😱

Say it in terms of pure physics. Clarify it with a statement that not all humans perceive volume changes in the same way.