Jump to content


Please subscribe to MPN’s YouTube Channel!

DaveMcM

Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,770

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by DaveMcM

    How to lubricate 3-on-plate tuners

    in Guitar Forum

    Posted

    Wow! Thank you so much for the information and the link to Dan Erlewine. The last thing I want to do is mess up this guitar. My thought was to get some Tri-Flo but I was afraid of what it could do to the finish. Now I know NOT to do that while the tuners are on the guitar. Luckily I know enough to know when I don't know something. Thank you again for your help.

    • Like 3

    How to lubricate 3-on-plate tuners

    in Guitar Forum

    Posted

    Disclaimer- I'm a keyboard player but decided to venture out of Keyboard Corner for this question. Thanks in advance for any help.

     

    My brother still has the 1962 Gibson SG Junior that my parents gave to him for a Christmas present some 60ish years ago. He played it for about a year and it has lived in it's case ever since. Needless to say, it needs a little tenderly loving care. The output jack is a little funky but I can deal with that. Where I need some guidance is with the tuners.  Several are very hard to turn. Before I replace the strings, I want to lube the tuners. The gears are covered but there is a little hole on the back of each cover above the worm gear. Is this where to add lubrication and if so, what is the best lubricant to use? Also, will it hurt this guitar to polish the frets and tailpiece? I also plan to oil the fretboard. He is not selling the guitar as it is very sentimental but he does want to make sure it stays in good condition.

    • Like 1

    RIP Bobby Caldwell

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    8 hours ago, timwat said:

    In addition to What You Won't Do, his Open Your Eyes was a standard for us in the East Bay funk scene...it was what J Dilla sampled for Common's The Light. And Heart of Mine - what a great song as well.

     

    Wasn't Bobby a KB player? I seem to remember the synth line in the outro of What You Won't Do was him.

    Keys and guitar.

    Space Station XL for organ

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    I have a Space Station XL and use it regularly with a Roland VR-730 through a Ventilator II and it sounds great. I have also played my GSi DMC-122/Gemini through the SS XL and it sounds awesome! No problem carrying bass. I also have a Motion Sound KP-610s and a Behringer B1200D-PRO powered sub that doesn't see a lot of use now that I have the SS XL. The SS XL is fairly big and heavy, but the sound is worth it.

    • Like 1

    stage presence, how do you deal with that as a keyboard player?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    To stand or to sit to me depends on the gig. If it a jazz gig or duo/trio thing at an intimate type of venue, then I'll sit. But if its a bar/party type of gig, then standing is the only way. However, even when my keys are at standing height, I have a bar stool that I will use when I need to play a piano part with proper technique. Unfortunately, standing or sitting, from the audience perspective, all they see a head bobbing around. As far as they know, I could be doing my ironing, playing solitaire or cooking dinner. the tilting the keyboard back thing won't work with a two tier setup. And there is never enough room to do an 'L' setup. And I'm not going to go as far as dressing up like Donald Duck, though it did work well for Sir Elton. :)

    Broke out my Invisible Stand

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    12 hours ago, stoken6 said:

    All-Casio rig - and how good does that Privia look in blue!

     

    Cheers, Mike.

    I’ve had the PX-560 for quite a while. It’s a pity that some folks don’t give Casio a fair shake. The PX-560 has some very cool and useful features. And it’s blue!

     

    I bought the little CT-S1000V to have something light, battery powered with internal speakers for quick vocal rehearsals or for just jamming around on the back porch. Turns out it has some really good sounds and surprising programmability and a nice feeling keybed. On a whim I thought it would be fun to use it on a jazz quartet gig with me, drums bass and sax. I used it for some vibes, guitar, strings and believe it or not a little organ. 😮 Obviously not as good as a Hammond or clone, but the fact is, it wasn’t horrible. Even the rotary effect was acceptable. If organ was the featured instrument I would certainly use my DMC-122/Gemini but I was pleasantly surprised at how this small, relatively inexpensive instrument held its own.

    • Like 2
    • Love 1

    Team Test: Casio CT-S1000V Arranger Keyboard with AiX Vocal Synthesis

    in MPN GearLab • Interactive Reviews

    Posted

    On 1/15/2023 at 11:22 AM, jerrythek said:

    Organ Sounds

     

     

    But when I was playing them, I ran into some issues that are irritating in the studio, but graduate to problematic for playing live. When playing organ sounds I (and most organists) naturally want to go toggle the speed of the Leslie speaker. We may want to interact with the Chorus/Vibrato settings and the percussion, but this is not a clone-wheel, so I don’t assume that those controls will be readily accessible, as much as I might wish they were. But rotary speaker control is job #1, and as I mentioned earlier, a lot of the sounds don’t even use one. This is one of various design decisions that left me scratching my head.

     

    My next issue is the way the CT-S1000V handles the use of its three assignable knobs. When you just play Tones from the main selection screen (press Instrument and turn the dial, or then use the next screen’s Category selection buttons, or the + and – next Tone selection buttons – see picture below), the knobs are all assigned in a Global fashion, affecting all Tones the same. That default for Knob 3 (above the pitch bend wheel) is LFO modulation, Knob 1 is Filter Cutoff, and Knob 2 is Filter Resonance.  So, for every sound I was playing, the knobs weren’t giving the kind of organ-centric controls I expected.

     

    Having owned multiple B3's over the years (still have one) and many brands of clones (currently the GSi DMC122/Gemini which is extremely cool and a Roland VR-730) the thought of using a rompler for organ has never been an option I would choose. On the other hand, I am doing a little jazz quartet thing as of late (piano, bass, drums and sax) and decided it would be fun to have an organ sound every now and then. While enjoying some late night noodling on my Casio CT-S1000V I contemplated the idea of taking it along to these gigs. I created multiple registrations of different drawbar settings by layering and transposing Upper 2 to an appropriate interval and adjusting volume. Then I edited Upper 1 and 2 to use the Rotary effect with drive and assigned Knob 1 to Chorus/Vibrato, Knob 2 to Rotary Speed and Knob 3 to Drive level. I'm looking forward to giving the little guy a try at my next gig. I plan on using the nylon guitar as well as the organ registrations I've programmed. Should be fun.

    • Like 1
    • Love 1

    Display Your Keyboard Logo On Stage?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Old No7 said:

    I'd only do it for a Casio........

     

    But it's fine on my other boards. 😉

     

    Old No7

    First to answer the OP question, no I do not cover the logos. The only folks who would care are other keyboardists. Which leads into a comment regarding the above quote.

     

    Several years ago when my Korg Krome 88 died I drove to Sweetwater in order to try as many different brands/models as possible.  I tried every newer Yamaha, Korg, Nord, and Kurzweil. Then for fun and not expecting much, I tried the Casio Px-560M. Much easier to get around on for on-the-fly splits/layers than any of the others. Color touch screen that is nice and bright and accurate. Good feeling keybed with textured keytops that are way better than the so-called IvoryTouch keytops used by another brand. Very good, useable sounds. Some very nice editing features with abilities not found on the other brands. I could keep going but I'm not trying to do a commercial here. Just making a point that several of the popular brands out there started out making crap and since have grown into good products. Casio never made crap, but they did focus on toy type instruments. Not so any more.

     

    Back to the OP... I love the fact that CASIO is written really big on the back of my keyboard, especially when other musicians, specifically other keyboardists are in the audience. Even more so when I know they have spent far more money on their keyboard than I did on mine. Because it gives me a chance to hear them say, "Man, your rig sounds great. What are you triggering?" And I get to say your just hearing the Casio.

     

     

    • Like 3
    • Love 1

    OT: Musicians Passing

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Michael Wright said:

    Nobody is getting out of this alive. I think that at this point,  it's important to prioritise our lives,  and appreciate what is truly worthy of spending  our emotional currency on.  We all have lost family and friends,  but we just get on with it regardless .   Losing icons in our lives,  just emphasises the fragility of life,  as you mentioned.   "nothing changes but the  changes".   Sucks, but what do you do?  I didn't design the system, but I am bound to operate within it.   The grief we feel is the price,  for the love we got from  those we lost.         

    Beautiful line. Brought a tear to my eye.

    'best' guitar player (from a keyboardist perspective)

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    14 hours ago, marino said:

    There's no "best" of course, but if forced to pick one, Allan Holdsworth could be considered the main title contender, from anybody's perspective. An obvious choice you might say, but that's what my ears are telling me. :):D 

     

    With the occasion, I would also like to signal a young kid from Sicily that has definitely caught my attention lately. His name is Matteo Mancuso, and he plays electric guitar with his fingers, no plectrum. He started about 5 years ago doing fresh arrangements of fusion tunes, and now he's experimenting with different styles and approaches. He's still growing and working on his first album, but he's already been praised by Al DiMeola, Steve Vai and other heavyweights.

     

     

    A friend recently made me aware of Matteo Mancuso. Yeah, he is really something. It's so cool to see players come up with unconventional techniques. I saw Stanley Jordan doing a solo concert years ago, and at one point he was playing arpeggios with his left hand on a stand-mounted Casio MIDI guitar and soloing with his right hand on his strapped-on guitar. Pretty cool.

    'best' guitar player (from a keyboardist perspective)

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    Not sure what you mean by (from a keyboardist perspective), but I'm a keyboardist, so... More of a local guy, but an incredible player. Years ago Gibson hired him to demo guitars at a NAMM show along side Chet Atkins. I was hanging out in the demo room between shows while Chet and Scotty Anderson were sitting on the edge of the stage trading licks. At one point Chet just stopped playing with a jaw-drop reaction to what Scotty was playing. As for national types, Joe Satriani, John Petrucci, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai, Jeff Beck, to name more than a few. ;)

     

     

     

    • Wow! 1

    Casio CT-S1 vs CT-S400 for a kid (and myself)

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    5 hours ago, stoken6 said:

    You should have got the CT-S500?

    That taught me a lesson - read to the end of the post.

     

    Joking aside, the CTS500 has useful gigging features for a budget board. A CTS888 that adds organ model (instead of vocal synthesis) to the CTS500 would be a winner.

     

    Cheers, Mike.

     I probably would have gotten the ct-s500 had it been in stock at the time. But for a little more $ I thought the vocal synth stuff might be fun to mess around with, turns out not really.

     

    Speaking of organ, there's no way I'll compare the organ sounds with a drawbar Hammond clone, but some of the organs are not that bad. And the rotary speaker effect isn't bad either. Certainly not going to do an organ gig with it, but for basic background chordal stuff it'll work in a pinch.

     

    Another really cool thing is the way some of the patches work. On some electric piano and acoustic guitar sounds and maybe others, if you pay 1 to 3 keys, you only get the selected sound. But as soon as you play 4 or more keys, a nice pad appears under the main sound. So you could play a chord with your left hand which could be a Rhodes or acoustic guitar sound with a pad, and solo over top while just hearing the main sound.

    Casio CT-S1 vs CT-S400 for a kid (and myself)

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    I purchased a ct-s1000v for quick in/quick out rehearsals. I could do without the vocal synthesis section, neat idea but totally useless to me. Other than that, I love this little thing! It comes with a Bluetooth adapter that allows audio from my iPhone to play through the onboard speakers (which are not bad at all). I have iRealPro which will play a rhythm section based on the chart you are viewing. The three knobs are assignable to all sorts of parameters, registrations store splits/layers/knob assignments, effects, etc. The keyboard is very playable and quiet. The home page is customizable to the parameters that you find most useable. In many settings, the sounds are plenty good enough to use live. Next week I have a fill-in gig with an acoustic guitar trio and I’m planning on just taking the ct-s1000v. In a nutshell, get the ct-s500.

    • Like 1
×
×
  • Create New...