Mididude
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Posts posted by Mididude
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4 hours ago, Piktor said:
That is Alberta’s own (now) Amos Garrett on guitar. My best friend and used to play in his band. Amos is the fellow who played that memorable guitar solo on “ Midnight at the Oasis”. Here’s another Better Days performance where you can hear a better example of Amos’s guitar and Ronnie Barron on organ and lead vocal.
Yes! That was the very clip I was talking about. I liked every moment of it... including that fast B3 run at the end. Thanks for posting it.
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Nice footage. I've seen other Midnight Special footage before of that guy who's playing the Rhodes in the clip, 'Ronnie Barron'. I don't recall if it was this band that he was playing with, but a memory stands out to me that he was belting out some blues and playing Hammond B3 at the same time, including some fast run on the keys that I rewound (scrubbed back to)..,and watched/heard several times, at the end of the performance. I had never heard of him before, but to those of the Baby Boom generation maybe he was popular back then, if only through the Paul Butterfield Band's albums and concerts. The guy had clear talent.
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20 hours ago, kpl1228 said:
Just turned 60.
Roland RD 2000, Mojo61, Motif XF7. JBL powered cabinet. All good boards to use at a gig, but the Motif covers most of it, and with 76 keys, gives me full keyboard options. 4 space rack that I have lately questioned why I even bother (EQ, reverb, mixer, power supply). In a flight case which makes me REALLY question it, though to be fair, it's usually only one or two keyboards at a gig.
We are creatures of habit, and I just can't see myself going M-Audio with wallwarts and crappy keyboard action. Plastic to me is cheap and chintzy.
I'm also considering what 5 octave polysynth I "need." No one cares about this stuff at a gig but me, so why do I think this? Please make it stop.
Exploit that big Yamaha, like I think you implied. Thin down the rig. I think it's something Matt Johnson might do. :-). Especially if he were schlepping it all himself.
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Slightly off topic (because what I'm going to mention right now isn't a clone keyboard), but I recently acquired an iPad, and for years I had been playing around on my iPhone with an iOS app called Pocket Organ (I think part of its name is C3B3 or something also). Anyway, to summarize, I plugged my XK3c into the iPad, via an iRig Midi 2, and took the iPad's 3.5mm headphone output, and ran it into a Vent (version 1) using an insert cable (plugged the 3.5mm stereo plug obviously into the iPad, and plugged the 1/4 inch male phono jack marked 'tip' into the Ventilator's input), and the bottom line is it sounds really good. I make sure to turn off the app's internal Leslie. Has to be heard to appreciate. The scanner chorus vibrato emulation is *very* good. Probably my only gripe about the app is that the percussion 'circuit' is a bit too loud, and can't be made to get any softer. If you're playing pretty aggressive stuff though, that's not a bad thing. I think I love everything else about this app.
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3 hours ago, JoJoB3 said:
Likely a 'duh' to some here but perhaps of help to others.
Ok so had a last min gig with some fun humans which didn't call for nor was very conducive to bringing the real/vintage rig. I decided to bring the XK3c single and put a VR09 above, held off on the 122 at last minute and loaded a KXD15.
Overtime in home studio I've dialed in a surprisingly decent leslie sim within this old 3c, about as close as I can get it (basically knowing how my leslies sound).
Anyway, fearing the sim on stage and 'oof, let's just get through this leslie sim show' I found myself seriously digging it all and how well the sim 'sim'd'. The translation was great, the tweaking worthwhile. The 122 bests it but this was still enjoyable. Didn't get in the way iow.
In case it might help some hunting the same I thought I'd list some things, because if this older 3c/VASE is doing this I know most of you can get things even closer with your newer clones.
- Of course, setup your organ only/direct organ output to match (best possible) with the orig/vintage output. Do this via headphones as well as via your amp of choice. The 3c has rather limited but functional TW sets but editing by ear the drive, the c/v, the perc vol/decay, and EQ to match my rigs (just organ direct output) as best possible it then better sets up the leslie sim editing success (made even easier for owners of the latest and greatest).
- setup your leslie sim as close as possible to orig/vintage leslie operation. For some perhaps that means taking the clone offsite to a studio/other with a working vintage setup.
Ramp up/down times differ between upper and lower on the orig so do the same with your internal (not just by numbered increment but by ear. You want to hear the difference, don't be swayed by the data onscreen). The slow/fast speeds are also crucial (again best matched by ear against the vintage). The mic angle, mic distance, all of it set.
- Live, come stereo in and out (mixer or stereo capable amp) from your clone. In this case the stereo in from 3c and stereo direct out of this kxd. Explain to house sound it has to be stereo out.
If it just simply has a terrible leslie sim you may not have a choice but think about working on and using the internal rather than heading 5o one or more pedals to achieve things. Give the internal sim a fair shake before dropping $5-600 on 'more gear'. There's just too many items to balance to get in the way otherwise (imho, most of the leslie pedals sound best on vintage organs rather than the clones).
I own an XK3c too. No lower manual though (not sad about that, I have limited space anyway). One thing I just discovered after having this board for years and years is if you go into the vibrato chorus menu and turn the values for C1, C2, and C3 down to zero but still push the button down that engages the vibrato/chorus...according to my ears something happens....it just sounds better than were you not to push it and have just the Leslie sim. turned on. I never have liked the vibrato/chorus dsp effect on the XK3c. The C3 is ...ok to me if I have the Leslie on 'brake' position. Oh, I also think I turned the 'treble emphasis' (or whatever its called) all the way down in the vibrato/chorus menu.
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24 minutes ago, Shamanzarek said:
I first took notice of Lee Michaels when I got his Carnival of Life album in 1968. Recorded in 1967 it was pretty heavy for the time with prominent Hendrix-inspired guitar and drums. There is a lot of fat sounding Hammond that I assumed was played by Lee. In a Keyboard magazine interview years later he said he mostly sang on that record and much of the organ was played by Gary Davis nephew of Richard "Groove" Holmes.
Here is a blog that contains some interesting history about Michaels.
https://upvhq.blogspot.com/2023/06/lee-michaels-carnival-of-life-1968-us.html
Michaels often shared bills with the Steve Miller Band at many of the legendary San Francisco music venues as early as 1967. Lee guested on "Going to Mexico" from Miller's Number 5 album.
Thanks for the unique historical insights. Having that Lee Michaels greatest hits cd that I originally mentioned at the beginning of the whole post, my mind has wondered (wandered) about the background of the recordings. Wikipedia has some info on the albums, but I thought it was somewhat sparse. His song, 'If I Leave You' interests me big time. The well-recorded and well-mixed bari sax and other supportive instruments reminds me of Brian Wilson in his 'Pet Sounds' mode circa 1965 or 1966, and the trumpet(s) part reminds me of Sly and the Family Stone. The cavernous reverb on the distorted elec. guitar sounds great....late 60's vibe (similar to Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin mixes). Music worth relaxing and enjoying.
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31 minutes ago, retrokeys said:
I heard tell that his stage rig had 16 Leslie 900's. In those days the most powerful one that they made. I then read somewhere that he decided to switch to electric piano because the organ was making him deaf??!!! Never got to see him ;live but about wore the records out
I watched this clip recently. So neat that Burt Sugarman and the Midnight Special people uploaded this. I don’t think there’s like a ton of filmed or videotape footage of him, so I think this is really neat, that it’s available to watch. Love that distorted tone of his Rhodes through the amp/s. His playing ‘feel’ is great too.
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Hi All, I have the ‘Hello, The Very Best of Lee Michaels’ CD in my car that I often listen to, and for a long time (even when I would hear it on the radio) on his tune ‘Do You Know What I Mean’, I thought he must’ve using some kind of synth with a chorus circuit like maybe a polysynth like Garth Hudson (did) in ‘The Last Waltz’ or something…Basically I didn’t think to investigate it. Well, I thought I had a memory that Wikipedia said Lee Michaels: pipe organ in the ‘liner notes’ which their term for that, as you probably know is ‘Personnel’ section of any given article about an album but no dice now (Wikipedia is frequently edited so I think they deleted what I’d seen)… BUT, Allmusic.com states in their review that Lee played not only Hammond organ, but pipe organ on it. It clicked suddenly that that’s what I’d been hearing all along. That highly animated, tremulant sound. I suspect that real pipe organ might have been out of tune relative to itself. All I know is, it sounds cool.
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My communication style is not concise most of the time. The steps I had to take to get the option I was going for were simple and trivial, and were done blindingly fast. That’s my point. Kudos to Hammond Suzuki, and also to Apple. I like stuff that just works.
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I had a very enjoyable experience over this last weekend. I have a Hammond Suzuki XK3c and nowadays I play in a room in my residence just for my own enjoyment. I decided a while ago not to use the Neo Vent mark 1 with it. I like clean, direct aesthetics, if you know what I mean, and the built in Leslie sim is not intolerable to me. I’ve made some great presets over time and backed them up to the smart card thingy in the back. Anyway, going with what I believe is the modern impatient zeitgeist of ‘get to the point’…I have a discriminating set of ears and I decided I don’t like the ‘click’ in the XK’s bass pedals samples. It cannot be dialed out. I won’t digress into theories of different rig options (e.g. 11 pin connection to a newer Leslie idea)….I was just plugging the XK keyboard into a Yamaha MG06x compact mixer in stereo and into some Mackie HR-824’s. I did a bunch of thinking about very convoluted ways to get some *unmodulated* B3-like left hand bass going on that would not have annoyingly excessive note on and note off click sounds. Here’s where I will try to cut to the chase: I used the used the ‘use external zone’ template of the XK3c, and connected it up to a MacBook Pro (2018 roughly) via a PreSonus interface that I think is model 24C….via midi, and fired up GarageBand, and selected a track and made that track be tonewheel organ, and put its Leslie on ‘brake’…I had to do just some easy tweaks on the XK’s midi or zones page I believe…Voila: organ bass happening in left hand with adjustable (good job, Apple!) key click, and the XK’s sound engine providing several octaves of sound for my right hand. End of story. Oops, I lied about that being the end: I practiced ‘More Today Than Yesterday’..I’m studying Earland’s arrangement gradually.
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On 2/19/2024 at 12:01 PM, ElmerJFudd said:
Roy Bittan?
Billy Preston?
Wix Wickens?I even thought Wix’s early 90’s playing in You-know-who’s band was impressive (such as his ‘piano’ solo’s on the ‘Tripping the Live Fantastic’ album).
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11 hours ago, danskeys said:
Anyone else hear Morning Has Broken (Cat Stevens) in there during the chorus?
I heard some similarities in the rhythms of the chords on the piano (and maybe the actual chords)…can’t remember; I listened quickly yesterday. Maybe he was influenced by Rick Wakeman’s part on that tune.
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Music-playing takes up too many parts of the brain to always smile on cue…I try to force one out though if someone has a camera. I don’t check back on the results later.
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I think in this song, after the single organ notes at the intro, he has the Leslie on stop, and plays a chord and turns (the Leslie) to fast. Neat, like a ‘blooming’ sound.
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I used to have that book. I left it at a musician friend’s house. I recall that it’s author, Colbeck, lauded the Yamaha CP-80, saying it was a breakthrough for touring musicians (who presumably still needed roadies), in that they could get the majority of a grand piano’s sound (not withstanding the low register) & feel, in a package with lesser weight. I remember getting acquainted with the Moogs, like the Prodigy and Multimoog through this book.
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Just a random comment here, I’ve never owned a DX7, but I’m 50 years old, so I’m of the generation that were (roughly) teenagers when that sound was dominating the charts. I remember going to my aunt’s wedding in circa 1985 and the cover band she & her groom hired had to keyboard player with a DX7. I thought it looked really neat with its (pastel?) membrane buttons. Shortly after that, I think I saw one in a music shop and toyed around with it, having no earthly clue what I was doing, of course. One of my favorite DX7 sounds is that ‘zee-yowng’ patch (with tons of bright harmonic content appearing to be filter-swept or something) in ‘Money for Nothing’ by Dire Straits.
Also, assuming that this was the keyboard used, the synth bass line from ‘Into the Groove’ by Madonna. In that list that the O.P. provided a link to, ‘When I Think Of You’ stood out to me. I remember watching that video on MTV as a kid. Very neat bass line. I think that’s why we like the DX7, that bass patch has a ‘heft’ to it… those of you who own an original one, or have a software emulator, might know if they use the same patch in the Mr. Mister tune. I don’t, but without A/B’ing them otoh I’d guess it might have been the same one used, or tweaked. I have the book ‘Keyboard (Magazine) presents the best of the 80s’ sitting in a space in my coffee table next to me. I know they have an excerpt from when they interviewed Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and they talked about the DX7 a bit. -
Good thread. I like playing this tune occasionally, in E minor.
I was looking at a chart to ‘Europa’ a couple of years ago, and thought there were a bunch of similarities in chord structure to ‘Autumn Leaves’. I just kind of played along to the Santana recording (not intending to make it a regular practice or repertoire thing). don’t remember what key it was in, I thought it was one of the flat keys, like E flat. My memory might be fading… I think both tunes cycle through at least a portion…of the circle of fifths quite a bit.-
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I have a ‘dirty’-sounding MXR Phase 90 pedal that I bought around the year 2002 (maybe slightly earlier) from Guitar Center. It doesn’t seem to have much headroom. It clips fairly easily without much level put into it. I thought about looking up a tech online who works on guitar stomp box pedals who might know a way to modify it, and give it higher headroom, but I gave up on that. I ran my Moog Little Phatty into it a while back just to experiment, and it sounded interesting… paired up with that keyboard it actually sounded good because it took a fairly pristine signal coming out of the L.P. and distorted it & added gnarly noise, along with the animation provided by the phaser doing its normal thing. It sounded kind of more ‘vintage’ to my ears.
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I think these transistor Hammond models are detailed in Mark Vail’s ‘Beauty in the B’ book. I talked with a barber in Walnut, CA a few years ago when my wife and I were living there, who told me he owned an X-66. I think he owned a Leslie too. He said he loved playing the X-66. My XK-3c was in a storage unit at the time but I told him about it, and how satisfying I thought playing it was.
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I remember reading an article a few years ago where Tom Oberheim spoke at ‘The Red Bull Academy’ or something like that (it was a talk sponsored by Red Bull), and he said that in the early days of his company he would test job candidates out to see if they knew their way around subtractive synthesis signal flow…In the same article IIRC he basically said they flunked if they conveyed that one oscillator run through a low-pass filter sounded good…He said it takes at least two oscillators, preferably slightly detuned against each other, to begin to make a sound that’s not cheesy. I think he was alluding to the phase cancellation and alternate reinforcement that happens say when you have two detuned sawtooth waveforms sounding, versus the static and ‘plain Jane’ one-oscillator-by-itself thing. I got the impression that Tom thought the latter approach sounded awful.
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Sorry if I didn’t use the tools right to make clear I was trying to quote you (original poster), and then I add my own comments. That last paragraph is me.
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On 11/8/2022 at 11:48 AM, timwat said:
“In the spirit of Caveat Emptor, I'm just sharing a rotten customer service experience.
TL;DR - Avoid Linsoul Audio and KZ IEMs if possible. There are lots of options for inexpensive decent-sounding IEMs. Their product isn't bad, but the service is horrible.
Long story:
So my old 64 audio custom molded aren't fitting as well as they used to. My ears have probably changed or grown or something. They sound like crap, because they are looser than they should be. Discovered that at an all-IEM rehearsal a week ago - thankfully I had also packed my excellent Phillips X2HR open back headphones. They're harder to drive than IEMs, but at least I had an option.
So I'm not sinking $thousands into another pair of custom IEMs for now, so as a stop gap for upcoming rehearsals I decided to explore inexpensive, multi-driver Chi-Fi (yes, that's a term now) IEMs, of which there are many. For less than $60 on Amazon, I bought "Linsoul KZ ZS10 Pro X" IEMs off Amazon (fulfilled by Linsoul). They are 5 driver IEMs (1 dynamic, 4 balanced armature in each ear). I think Linsoul is the same manufacturer as KZ - they have several models of very inexpensive IEMs.
Amazon delivered quickly, boxed as advertised. This model is somewhat large, seem to be acrylic with a metal top plate. First step is finding the right size tip for my ears - the fit is crucial for frequency response and long-term comfort. After going through all the tips and settling on the correct size, I settled on the smallest soft foam "Comply"-type tips, I purchased along with the IEMs), I find they sit somewhat "tall" in the ear, with a fair amount of the body sticking out of your ear (rather than nestled flush with the surface of the skin), which may be because of the shape of my ear or the size of my ear hole.
But one ear isn't working. Switched cable sides, now the other one is out. So it's the cable...each ear bud works fine. And because connection is standard 2-pin, I swapped in my braided 64 Audio 2 pin cable, both monitors work.
So I message Linsoul via the Amazon Seller interface, explain the problem, how I diagnosed it, and ask them to ship me a new cable. Their cable is one of the cheap $9 jobs, nothing fancy, elegant, braided or whatever.
Their response: First, I need to record a video showing that the cable doesn't work, and how I diagnosed the problem. Really?? So your first response is you don't believe the customer? Okay, I took time out of my work day and actually recorded the video - showing how I diagnosed, used the 64 audio cable, etc. Emailed it off to them.
Their response today? My video isn't good enough for them. They want me to record a SECOND video blasting audio out of the earbuds to show that one side isn't working. I sent them back a response the 1) I don't appreciate not being believed, 2) I'm not recording a second video, and 3) I'm truthfully reporting this experience in my review and telling any musician I can about the whole experience.
For now, I'm just going to use the 64 Audio cable, and buy a $20 backup cable.
From someone else other than Linsoul. So they've lost a customer. Over a $9 cable.
Caveat emptor.”
To the O.P., why don’t you give them a bad review on Amazon (I don’t know if Amazon might selectively censor your review though; it is primarily a money-making enterprise)? Or you can post reviews on other prominent websites where you can place a review. My belief is if you don’t speak out they’re disincentivized from doing better. You may potentially forewarn others from (having) a poor Customer Service experience like you did with us here.
Thanks.
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I had the Little Phatty fired up the other day, so I thought I'd have a go at that patch again. Please excuse A. the poor (grainy etc.) image quality (made the video with wife's 2006 MacBook) so it looks like an ancient webcam, and B. the sloppy playing. I wanted to just see if I could get good audio quality going into the computer from my old Tascam Firewire interface, and it worked. I'll have to upload something more rehearsed next time. Here's the link:
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On 5/28/2022 at 5:04 PM, Mididude said:
Thanks for the tip. I’ll get it & try it out this weekend, & report back how it worked.
The Google Drive link you provided was apparently to the Windows version. I think I'm going to go with the John Melas software soon, as I suspect it might get my limited goal done, and I don't feel like chancing clicking on 'iffy' websites out there for a possible Mac version. Thank you though.
Chronic pain
in The Keyboard Corner
Posted
Hi, 50 years old here. As someone dealing with chronic back pain for the past three years (annular disc tear at L4/L5 S1 from what I recall the doctors saying), my two cents worth is that many physical therapy exercises (at least for my ailment) don't help all that much. The phrase 'point of diminishing returns' comes to mind. My most useful stretches though? The McGill 'camel/cat', and a McGill one whose name I cannot recall, but where you sweep one leg back (OK, no Karate Kid jokes) as you are on your hands and knees, while trying to keep your back straight... the full version of it has you doing what I just described, and also reaching out your arm/hand on the opposite side of your body. These, I got from the Stuart McGill book 'Back Mechanic'. When I saw about a million people recommending it on the Reddit back pain group 3 years ago, I assumed they cannot all be crazy in their assertions that it helped them with their pain, so I bought it. I think the piriformis stretch I was given by a regular old physical therapy center ...where you lay on your back, and you basically put both your hands on your kneecap and kind of pull your leg by your kneecap...as if you're slightly attempting to pull it to the opposite shoulder (I guess it stretches your hamstring while doing this) seems to bring a tiny bit of relief to me. What is far superior in its help is a hot shower... that and some Baclofen right before bedtime. Anyway, I think there are no bad magic bullets for a serious back problem. I rely on God to help me, and I am able to perform a full-time day office job.
I enjoy playing music (I will not play in a band due to physical reasons ) and I'm grateful that I am not derailed more than I am from doing it. When I am physically standing, I am in the least pain, so naturally I play my keyboards standing up the great majority of the time (when I do play, which lately is not a whole lot). I can withstand playing sitting down though for a while. In in my practice room at home I have a Yamaha P60 (with built-in speakers that are plenty loud for me) presently...on the bottom tier of an old (think 1990's) QuikLok stand, and an XK3C on the (2nd) tier right above it.