eric

I did a search and didn't find any recent commentary on this. I recall when the Yamaha PLG boards were in pretty high demand, though this was 10-15-20 years ago. I'm curious if people are still using them or how much interest there might be on the used market. I have the original Yamaha S90 keyboard that I bought new around 2001 and 2002 and used it for a decade - it was a real workhorse for me and was the perfect match with a clonewheel on top. I loaded mine up with a pair of PLG-AN boards (expanded polyphony) and a PLG-DX board. My S90 is still working just as good as new, with a bit of careworn bumps, dings, and scratches from being on the road for all those years. I let one daughter keep it in her apartment during college and grad school, as she still liked playing piano and this was an easy solution for her. Now I have the S90 back and it lives in its Anvil flight case in my gear closet. I really don't have much of a regular use for it. I've been debating about selling it or donating it. However, with the trifecta of PLG boards inside, I was thinking I might do better to pull those out and sell them separately, or maybe look for a Motif rack unit that would be able to use them. I don't see myself really digging deep on these things in the future, though it is nostalgic to fire up my S90, run the separate load processes to get the PLG sounds on board, and then play with all of these cool sounds I made 15+ years ago. There are a bit of a klugey add-on, not completely integrating into the UI of the host instrument, making the programming and use a bit more complex. Is there anyone out there that still is actively using PLG boards? I am curious! Thanks.

Very fascinating instrument. I can't imagine the hours involved with building this thing. It has a really nostalgic and warm sound. Makes me want a beer, a brat, and some funnel cake!

I think biscuits and gravy fits here? One of my favorites.

Back in March 2020 when the pandemic was upon us and I made a bet that working from home could last a while, I immediately researched motorized desks and settled on one that was less than $300 from Costco. Mine is a bit different, though basically this same model (mine is black and they may have changed a few things in 3.5 years): https://www.costco.com/tresanti-geller-47”-adjustable-height-desk.product.4000139627.html I was used to a similar desk in the office and have found this to be an amazing asset in my home office area. I often start the day standing and then sit after lunch. Mine has four "memory locations" for different heights and it is a breeze to push button 1 for my main standing position, button 2 for my seated position, and button 3 is in between to create a medium space when I want to slide my chair under the desk. The desk has a roomy drawer perfect for clutter such as pens, USB drives, mints, random other tidbits. It has a been a game changer for me.

Yes, it's true! We are some singer poaching mofos down here in the RVA, LOL. 🤣 We even considered naming the band "Poaching Gene." 🤣 LOL. Truth be told, the whole thing went down very organically. Your singer moved to a new city, he had a few small world connections that were random (my brother was involved as a real estate agent in the sale of his house), he had been to see our former band before, and wanted to try out to play with us. So it all came together. Thanks for just bustin' on me, and for letting us poach your singer. I am also thrilled to hear that you are back in two bands! Congrats!

I totally missed this thread the first time around. I've been low-key following LD for years, mostly checking out what he posts on Facebook. I haven't seen a live show, but I'd love to see him live. I'm fascinated by the Eddy Castlebar clav he uses, which was a very rare instrument and I can only remember one other known artist using one. I'm fascinated with the big Hammond C3 he typically uses with a Leslie and it seems he will occasionally use some clones, depending on the gig. He is extremely talented and entertaining. I view him as a rare breed of keyboard player - fronting a band with a big vintage rig, rock organ and whammy clav. I think he kicks ass and never even noticed or cared about such things as "that particular overdrive" or "not the best singer" - never even entered my mind. He's a rock star to me!

This is the video I mentioned from DmitryKo's prior awesome thread. There's still something very alluring to the DX1, regardless of current prices! I'm going to go and find my Keyboard Magazine with the feature on Guy Fletcher and post it here when I get a chance!

$41k is actually a bargain, compared with a few other units also on the market. 🤣 There's one listed at $255k plus $3k shipping and another for $135k (price drop from $159k) with free shipping! I can't recall the actual number of DX1 units produced - I think it was in that video recently shared on the forum. Yes, they are rare, but this is crazy money!

Here's an older thread where I get into the details of this rig. Enjoy and thanks for your kind words! I am still hopelessly in love with this version of my live rig.

For 35+ years, I have been using a pedal board onto which my stand is attached and each pedal is mounted on the board. This helps quite a bit with consistency and muscle memory, as I've been doing the sustain and two expression pedals with a Leslie/Vent fast/slow footswitch all mounted in the same general place. You can see the current iteration of this here, which is a stand I custom built back in 2016, with a little bit of multi-pin wiring wizardry provided by the forum's own @vonnor I also have a practice version of this stand and pedal board that stays in the band's rehearsal space.

Great thread! I somehow missed it the first time around. Here are my top 5: Schnitzel (we have a wonderful authentic German "schnitzel bar" in town and I've been through their entire menu more than once) Pepperoni pizza Philly cheese steak Biscuits and gravy Chicken pot pie (I'll be trying dB's recipe)

This is SUPER cool. Thank you for sharing it! I cannot wait to dig in and watch all of the videos. I am aware of all of these synths, though I can't say I ever really had much, if any experience playing them. The DX1 has always been an icon to me. I remember when I got a Keyboard Magazine around early-mid '80s with Guy Fletcher from Dire Straits featured in a small 1-2 page article. They had a picture of him on stage with this monster rig, including a prominent DX1. SO COOL!!! Thanks again, this is really interesting.

The video was mostly pretty enjoyable, if you can get past the YouTube culture of "subscribe and give a thumbs up" type stuff...a little bit self-absorbed to me. I am sure he is doing great as an influencer in this space. I mostly agree with his choices. I think if he expanded to the Top 15-20, there could be some other good options. Perhaps there's another version that focuses on the "Obscure Top 10" to garner interest in things like Ensoniq, Casio, Akai, Kawai, etc.

So sorry to hear this about two bands, @vonnor I can empathize. After I "quasi-retired" from nearly full time touring back in the late '90s/early '00s, I joined a wedding and general business band that had a really nice long run with lots of success. In 2010, our singer tragically passed away and we fulfilled our final gig commitments with sub singers, then closed the books on that band. Very tough and sad situation. I was lucky to find another band within a year after this that has been going strong since then, though several months ago has decided to "retire" and we aren't playing many more gigs after doing a normal 2-3x per month. I still do a few special gigs with my original touring band, plus a Clash tribute that plays maybe quarterly. Otherwise, trying to figure out the next thing which is potentially an offshoot band from the most recently retired group. I view each change as an opportunity to take a pause, reflect, and decide what's next. I'm still not fully focused yet, as I had thought of marketing myself to a few bands that are established...not trying to be that guy that wants to take over the keyboard chair from someone else, but maybe join a band that could benefit from keyboards. There are some options out there and also a good time to hit the reset button for a moment. I wish you all the best seeking out what's next for you musically, dude!

Back in the '90s, I replaced the battery in a JX-8P and DX7IIFD. I may not be as brave these days, LOL. I've also replaced countless keys and cleaned the keybed contacts on numerous keyboards. I've done mild Hammond/Leslie repairs. The most recent "modern" repair I did was replacing the LCD display on a Nord Stage 2 EX. I had some help from a Nord expert on the phone. It wasn't all that bad, though some of the disassembly and dealing with teeny weenie screws was a bit unnerving. I don't have many local people that can do these things for me, so I'll try a DIY effort before shipping something off for weeks.

This is a fascinating thread. I was recently trying to reconcile my various subscriptions, some of which are shared across family members that wanted them for a particular reason and they are now underutilized. We currently subscribe to Amazon Prime (including Unlimited Music, which I like a lot), Netflix (paying for four family members), Discovery+, Disney+, AppleTV / Apple Music, plus some things that are bundled with the Comcast subscription like HBO Max and a few other channels. It is exhausting trying to figure out who is using what and where the most value lies. I believe one of my daughters recently canceled the Disney+ as I told her she'd have to pay for it if she really wanted it. I envision a time in the not-too-distant future where ONE provider serves as the umbrella for ALL the others and folks are beholden to a single subscription or something where they choose from a menu and pay based on what they want/need. I think this could simplify things, though it opens a Pandora's box of legal / copyright / licensing issues until Amazon or Netflix or Walmart etc. simply owns everything. Speaking of having ways to play back older mediums, I swear by my large vinyl collection and turntable. Not long ago I invested in a rack mount CD player, as my stereo CD player died and aside from the CD player in my car and a boom box or two, I didn't have a great way to listen to my large CD collection. All of my DVD players are slowly dying. I think I still have one that works in my basement. I have a VHS player that works, though it isn't currently connected to anything and we rarely have a need for VHS. I miss the old Blockbuster days of going to select a movie for the weekend. Streaming is certainly very convenient, though it feels a bit soulless to simply ask the TV for a show and boom, there it is. Or not, in the case of "only on Hulu" or something that isn't in my subscription list.

Ouch, this thread is painful to read! I hope the original boards are getting back in shape! I played an outdoor gig last weekend that had a sudden thunderstorm with heavy rain. We had SOME cover by a clubhouse, but everything get a bit wet. Luckily no direct hits to my keyboard, though it was damp and all of my cases, rack, etc. got pretty wet. What I've done in the past is leave any wet equipment in a closed vehicle baking in the sun. That is a quick way to dry things up. And then inside with dehumidifiers, as needed. I'm now rethinking my strategy for keyboard covers and such on the gig. Best of luck getting back in business on the tour!

Here's the set list for the Clash tribute band, I think this is about 90% of the songs that we play.

Thanks! Sure thing - I do a number of different things in our Clash tribute. In general, when in doubt, a grinding rock Hammond works well (as evidenced in the London Calling video above). I play some kind of organ in most of the songs, though there are more actual keyboard tracks than one might imagine. For example, Rock the Casbah has a pretty iconic honky tonk piano part that's up in the mix, along with some sound FX (bombs dropping). The song Bankrobber has a lot of breathy male vocal pads and some cool TB303 acid-type bass, along with a mono synth part. I do some Moogish bass drones on a few tunes and take some Hammond solos whenever asked. A few other songs have sound FX like breaking glass and so forth. I'll try to cover anything special like that as well. Great video! Thank you for sharing it! I hadn't seen that one.

One of my bands is a tribute to The Clash called Clampdown. It's a loud band. We don't play all that often, maybe quarterly and usually a lineup with other similar tribute bands. This past weekend we had a pool party gig at a pretty hip local club that has local bands every weekend to increase their hipness factor (LOL). Last year when we did this gig, there was a full PA and I was able to use my normal IEM rig. This year, the band members started texting a few hours before our load in time indicating that there had been another band earlier and we were going to use their simple "speakers on poles" PA just for vocals, and otherwise depend on stage amps for monitoring and stage volume for the instruments. Hmm. I asked if I could still patch in and get an IEM feed and the PA was too simple to support this. I've been an exclusive IEM user for well over a decade (dating back to 2011) and this was a new thing for me...I do have a couple of different options for keyboard amps, powered monitors, etc. However, none of them were readily accessible for me to grab for this gig. Except for a single Mackie SRM450 that probably hasn't even been plugged in for ten years. I grabbed that speaker, put it in the front seat of my gear mobile and made it work for the gig. Luckily we were only doing a couple of 45 minute sets. It was loud. It worked out ok. I wouldn't want to do this often, maybe once every 10 years. The band is so loud and punk rock and most of my sounds are organ/piano with a few synths and special effects. Monitoring through a single mono speaker was just ok. The guitar players were using Marshall stacks and luckily the bass player didn't bring his Ampeg SVT 8x10. I am thankful that I'm able to use IEMs 99% of the time! P.S. The Clash is a great band and I would never have imagined playing keyboards in a Clash tribute.

I may be living under a rock if this isn't anything new... Historically, I subscribed to Keyboard Magazine since 1984 and have also collected all of the earlier issues dating back to Contemporary Keyboard from 1975. Keyboard Magazine was absorbed by Electronic Musician around 2017. Their print issues ended around 2022 and they went to a solely digital format since then. I have every single printed issue of Contemporary Keyboard, Keyboard Magazine, and Electronic Musician sorted into boxes chronologically by year, proudly living on a nearby shelf for easy access. I kind of lost interest in the EM years and have always missed the original KB Mag. I miss the days when I'd wait by the mailbox to get my latest issues, hoping that the Patch of the Month might match one of my synths (or that better yet, one of my submissions might be published and I'd get the $50 prize for my patch, LOL). Fast forward a few years into the early-mid '00s and I had the honor of contributing freelance articles to KB Mag on about a quarterly basis for around a decade. Most of my articles were gear reviews and I had a tremendous time writing these and getting to be a part of this magazine! Today I received an email that Electronic Musician's digital format will also be ending. I guess this is all a sign of the times, with information so readily available online that even digital magazines struggle to remain relevant. RIP to another establishment!

I’m still quietly waiting in hopes of a rack mount version of the Ventilator. I too used a Dynacord CLS-222 back in the day, on the road for over a decade. I still remember the excitement of getting mine new from Chuck Levin’s Music, when $695 was a relatively sizable investment in specialty music gear.

My GAS is in remission. I’m very satisfied with my live rig and have been playing a few less gigs. The last bit of keyboard gear I bought was a Roland Boutique JX-08 in late 2021. I played with it a few hours and haven’t touched it since then. I have a mild desire to get a Nord Stage 4, though my sense of urgency is nowhere near what it has been in the past to acquire new gear. I am still interested in optimizing my various rehearsal and live rigs, which is mostly about fiddling with cables and pedals and racks, oh my.

Back in the '80s into early '90s I used the Yamaha MV-802 and thought it was great! More recently, I used the Ashley LX-308B in my live rig for quite some time and now have it in my music room. I have the Radial Key Largo in my rehearsal rack and the Radial KL-8 in my gig rig. I am very happy with these Radial products.

If you want a modern electro mechanical EP, check out Vintage Vibe. They aren't cheap, but they are cool. A little closer to Wurly territory, which I prefer. I have a friend that got the sparkle flake green one (I forgot which model) and he plays it with a clonewheel on top in a jam band. It really sounds great and looks like a real instrument on stage (because it is a bit more "real" than most clones).