eric

Just listened to the first Talk Talk album and now listening to Riptide by Robert Palmer. Next up is Candy-O by The Cars.

You guys are awesome! Honored to know you.

I've lost track of the last batch of used albums I bought - I go shopping for used things about once every 6 weeks at a couple of beloved local shops. I'm hoping to do this tomorrow. I remember finding a Madness album during my last shopping trip, which was one I didn't have on vinyl, but on CD (I believe just the "Madness" album, which has plenty of hits). The last new vinyl I bought was Tears For Fears' latest release, The Tipping Point. Great album!

Here are a few pictures

I really like this new group and seems like we'll get some more traction and conversation as time goes on...I'll try to help by starting this topic. For those of you that collect vinyl (likely most everyone), how do you store your collection from an organization and display standpoint? For me, I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time when a beloved local record store was downsizing and I was able to buy one of their large browsing shelves to put in my music room. It is large and probably from the '70s, so I had to do some repairs on it. I'm able to fit something like 600-700 albums on this shelf facing forward like in a record store. I have alphabetized dividers with band names for anything where I have 2-3+ from the same artist or just placed into the "ABC Artist" sections for one-offs. I ran out of space and had to spill over to some other things in the room, mostly some tabletop album holders so I can keep things facing forward, with room for browsing. I'll hop back in the thread and share a few photos later! How do you store your vinyl?

I am also using the same Audio-Technica and can strongly advocate for this as well! I liked it so much that I went ahead and bought a spare one to have on hand the next time I need one. Sad and expensive story here - a few years ago I needed a new cartridge for my turntable, a Pioneer PL-510. My dad bought this new back in the early '70s and it is where I learned to carefully play albums and enjoy a lifetime of collecting. My dad gave it to me about 20 years ago and I hadn't used it much until I set up my music room about a decade ago. It had an Empire brand cartridge that worked fine until it wore out a couple of years ago. I did extensive research and ended up ordering a Denon DL-110 as the replacement, after reading a bunch of reviews etc. This was a really nice one and I think near $300 at the time. It was also difficult to install. Anyways, back around the holidays I accidentally left the needle spinning on the record overnight and it ran into the paper middle of the album, basically disintegrating the needle on a perfectly functioning DL-110 that probably had many years of life ahead of it. I was super bummed, and also wanting to quickly replace it. So I ordered another one just like it and it was over $400 this time! Wow. It was also on a delayed order process and I was impatient. Somehow I found the Audio-Technica and went ahead and ordered it. At something like 20% of the cost of the Denon cartridge, I was extremely satisfied. Plus, it was a true plug and play item that didn't require me to do anything intricate with tiny screws or wires. Also no rebalancing of the stylus...just plug and play! Very happy camper here.

I still have the same Discwasher dating way back to the '80s and it works well. I have also been keeping micro fiber cloths near my turntable, with a spray bottle of 50/50 water and isopropyl alcohol. A local record store owner who has been doing this for many decades told me that is what he has always used. I did some research along the way about fancy record cleaning machines, some of which started around $79 all the way up to hundreds of dollars or more. I don't have a great place to keep something like this and they mostly seemed like an answer to a question I didn't ask. I figure if I've been using the above methods for decades with good results and my records are happy! I guess I've been lucky to have mostly clean and good condition albums.

Neo Ventilator. Rock solid for over a decade. Doing its job exceptionally.

I don't do the best job of keeping up with current pop type music, so I can't answer the primary question all that well. I am one that has always been fine with the DX7 FM EP sounds. Back in the day, it was one of the most expressive sounds of the various slab keyboards, responding really nicely to velocity. I had a Roland JX-8P first and borrowed my friend's original DX7 right around 1985-1986 and found this to be a pretty viable pairing. I ultimately got the DX7IIFD when it was released. These days, I still have the PLG-DX board in my Yamaha S90, though I don't use that keyboard very often. It's there if I need it. I do have the DX7 sounds loaded into my Nords and find them useful for '80s covers. Sometimes doing that super stack of a DX and CP or acoustic piano is really cool and provides some extra depth and expressiveness to the sound.

Wow, I have some catching up to do. Congrats!

Yes I did!

I have never been a fan of keytars since I first saw them in the '80s. No offense to any of my friends that like them and/or use them. I solved for stage presence 30+ years ago with a rolling and tilting keyboard stand that I've evolved and improved over the years.

This is what I put on my A101 several years ago.

Brother @Joe Muscaramay see this thread and jog my memory about our collective experience many years ago, when I sold him a mildly customized Roland RD-700 of some variant and there was a pretty major shipping disaster. Joe will probably remember it better than me. I recall that I shipped FedEx using the original factory box (pretty sure I did) and this was right around the time of Hurricane Katrina or one of the big hurricanes. The keyboard was traveling from VA to TX. Joe and I were pals as I'd hung out with him in TX and been to his house, etc. There was complete good will on my part to ensure that this thing happened properly and safely. Which, by the way, is how I operate with everyone! Just thought it might be good to point out that we were friends at the time. Anyways, what I recall is that the keyboard got stuck in the shipping backlog related to the hurricane for perhaps weeks. It eventually arrived to Joe and the package was damaged in such a way that neither of us could comprehend how the shipping company had mishandled it. I believe it was still functional with mostly cosmetic damage, including some of the nice customized parts (walnut end caps). There was a time-consuming process of filing an insurance claim and I had fully insured it. I do not remember the precise outcome, though I believe that we ultimately collected what was needed to make the situation a wash for both of us and we may have even gotten a little extra? This is the part I cannot remember as this old man's brain is old. It was stressful and may have been the last time that I shipped such a large piece of gear. I hope @Joe Muscarahas more memories of this, if he's willing to share!

It's a slightly distorted Rhodes with phaser that has the rate going a little faster than a lot of signature phased Rhodes from this era. I'd experiment with some amp sim/overdrive on a Rhodes sound and dial in some thick phasing with rate adjusted to taste. There could also be some other thing happening there, like a bit of flanging. I'd say have fun with the sound and make it your own!

I was pretty invested in my rig to do this set of snakes and I was really fortunate that it’s fully compatible between NS2 and NS3, which was the evolution of keyboards for me. Here’s another more recent picture which shows the full stand and cables a bit more.

I do something very similar and had some custom Redco snakes that provided this for me in a useful manner. About five years ago, I worked with forum member vonnor to take it to the next level - custom multi-pin snakes for my rig, with a junction box on the pedalboard being the key. I'll share a few pictures from two versions of this that vonnor helped me to achieve, both of which incorporate a snake from the keyboard to the pedalboard, inclusive of audio, MIDI, all pedals wired. Then there's a second 35' snake that runs from the pedalboard to my offstage rack where I have my Vent, mixer, rack synths (if in use), etc. I found a really long right-angled IEC cable and tied this to the audio/MIDI snake so my rig is really neat and clean.

A couple of thoughts on this thread - I have historically tried to have an Anvil type flight case for every keyboard. I have a local case builder that builds to the same specs as Anvil and does some cool custom things for me in terms of multiple handles, wheels, etc. Those are HEAVY cases, though with my history of sometimes needing to load gear under a bus or into a trailer, I cannot feel comfortable without this protection even if it's 10% of my gigs. I was not aware of Thon cases and I'm fascinated with a lighter type hard case. I need to do my research, though curious if folks in the US have these and have any reviews to share? To the point in the quote above about "adding a compartment" to hold extra stuff - I have done this in the past and regretted it. Unless I have roadies. I haven't had the luxury of roadies since the '90s. If you have a halfway heavy keyboard going into a heavy case, adding square footage to that case to hold even more weight will make the case oversized and even more heavy. Things like pedals and cables seem lightweight, but put them into a flight case and suddenly you've taken a 60-75 lb box to 80-100 lbs and longer dimensions as well. My guidance is to have a couple of briefcases that are part of your permanent rig in which you keep those things. I once thought it was a good idea to put a rack drawer in my rack for a lot of cables and that weight was non-trivial. I ultimately retired the drawer.

I loved this topic and the videos - thank you for sharing! I like Level 42 and have one of their albums, though I never dug very deep and don't recall seeing any of these live videos before. This prompted me to go on YouTube over the weekend and watch more. Really good stuff and I love the huge '80s keyboard rig! I have a vague recollection that Mike Lindup was interviewed in KB Mag back in the day, though my memory is foggy. I'll have to look into my archives.

This is so interesting! I was a big fan of romplers back in the day, though I will say I haven't dabbled into more recent variants, unless I consider NS2 and NS3 as a rompler...which it is to a certain extent, but it's a bit unique given the organ/piano/synth/sample architecture. Going into the wayback machine, my first true rompler was the Korg M1R, which I bought right when it came out. That rack unit improved my sounds exponentially - it was like completely revolutionary for me. After the M1R, I had a Roland JV-880 that gave me a solid decade of service and then the next thing for me after this was the Yamaha S90 that upped my game again...I would say the M1R->JV-880 shift was incremental, though the JV-880->S90 was a bigger improvement overall, particularly with some of the expressive dynamics available in sounds like the flute. Somewhere along the way I had a JV-1010 for a little bit, just because it was an adorable little half rack with a ton of sounds. It wasn't the easiest thing to use in that time (late '90s, IIRC). And let me not forget a few of the Roland RD pianos I had before/during/after the S90 era. I had the RD600 and RD700, the latter of which made its way to our very own Joe Muscara during the time of Hurricane Katrina (I think that was the one) and it suffered some damage during shipping and caused us some collective strife along the way...which was all resolved in a good way. After the S90 (which I still own), I had a brief stint with a Yamaha Motif XS7, which was incrementally better than the S90 and then I got the S70XS, which gave me a more portable successor to the S90 with all of the sounds of the Motif XS (minus some of the workstation features). I later got the Motif XS Rack, which I used alongside my NS2 for many years. I eventually retired this as I was getting tired of carrying a heavy rack, LOL. So the last rompler technology I used a lot was the Yamaha XS platform. I've since considered the Roland Integra 7 as I still like using a single keyboard (currently NS3) and often yearn for some more sound options. I haven't made any moves on this. It is unclear if any other manufacturers will release any more rack units that would be comparable to the Integra or XS Rack. I would be intrigued to hear more about the newest Roland Fantom, though I don't really see myself as a customer for that keyboard at the moment.

Here's my current cover band, which is also in the YouTube video above playing Let's Go. http://flatelvisband.com/ My old ska/reggae/etc. band doesn't have a website as we're kind of "retired" though we do have a Facebook page called Fighting Gravity Music and there's some good tidbits on YouTube and a little bit on Wikipedia that probably needs updating. The YouTube video below gives you a good sense of the original music and stage antics - if you watch it for a bit you will see me rolling around and doing acrobatics with my keyboard rig. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Gravity_(band)

I'm a HUGE fan of The Producers, ever since the early MTV days when She Sheila and What's He Got were "hits" for what that was worth in the early '80s on MTV. Absolutely loved those songs. I have all of their albums on vinyl and listen to them often. My cover band has learned and played She Sheila and What's He Got. These were fun to learn and sadly, they are a bit too obscure for people to really know and ended up clearing the dance floor in most cases. This was a bummer to put them on the back burner though fun to have learned and played them. LOL about the "Big Boy Shorts" which were a thing for me in my ska band way back in my late teens into early '20s. That was my style at the time! I don't wear shorts on stage nowadays, aside from the rare outdoor gigs in 90+ degree summer weather. That's so cool that we both love The Cars and ska music! I had the best time playing ska for so long and I still listen to a lot of ska. My old ska band does a few reunion shows each year.

Great topic! The Cars are pretty much my favorite band ever. One of the very first songs I learned on synth way back in the early '80s was Just What I Needed in one of my HS bands. I've worshipped their entire catalogue for years and my current cover band does at least a half dozen of their songs. I love every album and am really sad that I never saw them live. The license plate of my Subaru is THE CARS Brother dB will probably be along soon to share about his band Police Cars that did some great Cars covers - I recall one video of Bye Bye Love that was incredible. Here's an older video of my cover band doing Let's Go. It's still on our set list for every gig. Great song.

I've been doing all of my gigs with a single keyboard now for 10+ years. I occasionally have to be very creative or deal with small tradeoffs, though it's worth it to keep the rig simple and focus on doing it all with one keyboard.

LOL, you are correct about that! It was definitely a bouncy ska band and I cringe a little bit now seeing all the old pictures where I was wearing shorts on stage. Nowadays, no chance at all of me doing that, unless it is an outdoor gig in 80+ degree weather in bright sun.