drawbars

I just bought a Studio 73 myself, for similar reasons. Having it about two weeks, with one gig, here are my thoughts: (+) It's very solidly built. I use it to hold up the keyboard end of my Nord Stage 3 Compact, and I have absolutely no worries about it falling off. It's a good balance between weight and stiffness. (+) It fits well in most 'slim 61' keyboard cases. (I'm using the SKB 1KS-SC61KW.) (+) It runs well on USB self-power. (+) The display is bright and easy to read. I like the fact that each of the four zones can have a name and an instrument group/type. (+) It has a LOT of program locations -- far more than I will ever need out of a MIDI master keyboard. (+) It feels a lot like the hammer action on a Nord -- because it is -- but the ability to program 9 custom velocity maps makes a world of difference. I use Soft for the upper part of my acoustic piano, and progressively heavier variants for the middle and bottom -- all of which are a little lighter than the 'Normal' setting of the SL73. I also have a specific one for Clavinet that plays pretty much like the semi-weighted action on the Stage. (-) Programming the SL73 is typical Studiologic 'quirky.' The programming software helps a lot, but even that doesn't make tasks like reorganizing the progams easy. (-) The three joysticks need more resistance, IMHO. The two with springs are usable, if one doesn't get carried away. The springless one is so easy to push that only thing it's useful for so kind of wild knob thrashing at the end of a solo or something. I'm trying to work out if there is something I could put in the ring -- cloth, Velcro, foam rubber, etc. -- to give all three sticks more 'push-back.' (-) The data joystick is also a little lighter weight than I wish. Regards, -BW

+1 on the DCO-106. It was the first CA VST that I ever bought, at $25. It was maybe the best $25 I've ever spent on gear! It sounds "Roland-y," is as easy to program as the original, and adds delay and reverb to the package. Any time I need an arpeggio, I immediately think the DCO-106!

Hi All, I've been thinking about replacing my Numa Compact 2x. The TP/9 PIANO action is serviceable enough, but the body of the Numa is made of a plastic material with a bit of 'give' -- polyethylene? -- which makes certain techniques a bit spongy at times. And the aftertouch, while cool, is borderline unusable, for the same reasons. I was thinking of moving to a Casio Previa, since I would get a more "piano" action for roughly the same size and shape. I've played the PX-S1000 a while back, and it was nice, and the PX-S1100 is the natural successor. But I was also looking at the 'S5000. It's a *lot* more $$$ (almost 2x), but it has three benefits: 1) an audibly better grand piano (based on what I can hear online); 2) an action that uses resin-wood composite keys the "feel more like a real piano"; and the MIDI implementation on the 'S5000 is better (ex: it sends Note Off velocity, while the 'S1100 only sends a fixed velocity of 64). Has anyone here played both models? Am I missing something else? TIA, -Bruce

I own both the XR-12 and MR-12. For keyboards, the XR is the sweet spot: not as nice mic preamps, but identical otherwise, and usually much lower price. (The Midas and Behringer control software are interchangeable, and one can even create presets on one and load them on the other.) I've seen dealers asking a 50% premium for the MR-12, although others charge a more appropriate 15-20%. (FWIW, the Midas dealer cost is -- was? -- 10-20% higher than a comparable Behringer model, but the difference in SRP is much larger.)

I use SyncBack Pro on Windows. It handles just about every kind of backup except an image.

I've been using a Behringer XR12 for a couple years now. While not specifically a 'keyboard mixer,' it ticks off a lot of boxes: 12 physical channels + 4 virtual channels Each channel can be set to pre/post, fader bypass, etc. Pairs of adjacent channels can be linked as stereo pairs Built in EQ, compression, noise gate, and effects Separate aux outputs, which can mirror the main L+R if desired Just about every channel/effect/output has EQ available 64 (?) presets that can be selected via MIDI One of the interesting things that can be done is that one physical input can be mapped to more than one channel. The Leslie sim of my Stage 3 is OK, but not fantastic, IMHO. But I map it to separate outputs, then bring L+R into *two pairs* of channels. One pair is high-passed to create a 'horn mix,' while the other pair is low-passed creates a 'rotor mix.' I use different effect mixes, L-R blending, etc. for each set to better simulate my idea of a perfect mic'ed Leslie. A similar approach can be used to create an output specifically EQ'd for a keyboard's monitor mix. I don't know of any keyboard mixer that can do this. Before that, I used a Behringer RX16, which was really good for what it is -- with the caveat that the headroom was only so-so.

I agree, but I was the only guy I knew who programmed more than a couple of them. I think FM synthesis scared many players, because it's pretty easy to get lost, if you're not methodical. I always had a 'synth policy' -- including FM: 1) audition the factory patches; 2) at most, keep 8-10 of them; 3) erase everything else and start over.

@obxa I'm thinking about using Bash, etc. and putting on a local radius -- maybe, 40 miles? That completely rules out Boston and the South Shore, but there are a lot of people outside the 128 loop. The question is, do they want live entertainment when they have a party? And if so, does it need to be some kind of clone/tribute act, or just good music to dance and/or listen to? (I don't look like Elvis, Mick Jagger, or Rod Stewart. I can sound a bit like a lot of famous tenors, but the visual isn't there.) Can't hurt to try, though! To my knowledge, there aren't any promoters/agents out my way, unless you link up with someone in Boston. There are a few musicians who also handle the bookings for some of their clubs; I've talked with them, but they are tuned to acoustic guitarists, not keys. And I don't see a Boston-based promoter spending much effort trying to find me gigs in Central MA. Regards, -BW

Hi All, Thanks for all the thoughts and tips on gigging. I took a look at The Bash and Thumbtack, and as I was afraid, most of the activity is in Boston and the South Shore. That's a generous hour and a half each way for me. Not sure I want to start down that road! It's really rough around here. When I moved here in the early '80s, I noticed that the music scene was a lot smaller here (vs. Rochester, NY) but I figured, "Well yeah, it's smaller towns, so less going on." But it really fell off around the late '90s, and COVID pretty much killed what was left. Some venues will still hire entertainment, but they're really looking for one person with an acoustic guitar and a mic. You don't have to be all that good, just know some standards and fit in the corner of the room. Sometimes they'll hire a band, but it tends to be "We pay $150, you split it up anyway you see fit." (I know a 5-piece band that literally plays for $150-200 a night!) The other wrinkle is that owners have outsourced the whole entertainment part to someone on their staff, usually a young assistant manager or something. I get a lead: "You should talk to Ed at the Bottom Line. He was asking me where to find decent entertainment. Tell him I sent you." The conversation with Ed goes something like, "Yeah, we're looking for new acts. You need to talk to Jess, she handles the bookings." I meet with Jess and she's polite, but very non-committal. Probably never actually looks at my song list or listens to the MP3s I give her. Just another Boomer looking to play the songs he grew up with, right? 🙄 (For the record, I grew up in the '60s and '70s, and actually prefer songs from the '80s and '90s.)

There are things that can be done these days to tame a crazy setup a little. I do think the Kebu setup is a little extreme, but I use one about 1/4 to 1/3 that complicated, and only have to connect three cables: A USB cable between my Nord Stage and my Cantabile PC. A USB cable between my Numa Compact and the PC. A four-channel TRS snake between the Stage and my mixer. Oh, and power cords. Everything else is in software, or permanently wired in my rolling rack. And that includes a laptop I use for the DAW; and *two* PCs running Cantabile and a mess o' VSTs. The three PCs and the mixer communicate by CAT5 cable over Ethernet -- include 48 channels of MIDI -- and the laptop runs the audio PCs through Windows Remote Desktop, so no extra monitors, mouse, etc. So, I can be checking out the beers at the bar in 10 minutes, too! 😁

@CHarrellYes, you can ask my wife, who often found me still in the band room at 3AM on weeknights. (I had a day gig as an engineer!) It took a lot of work, but I was determined not to buy the sound file collections. Eventually, I was able to program acoustic guitar, analog synths, and even Mellotron-like strings.

Thanks for all the replies. It looks like I might have to try to move towards Boston and the South Shore. The big problem: I have exactly zero connections there! 😦 I went on to BandMix the other day to see if there were any leads in the area. I put in my Zip and '50 miles' as max. distance, along with the fact that I play keys and sing lead. First lead that came up was in Nashville! Second one was in northern CA. Third one was Portland, ME. WTF??? Fourth and fifth ones were semi-local, but a couple of 20-somethings who play acoustic guitar, have never been in a band, and list directions/influences ranging from bluegrass to electro hardcore. And I guy about 10 miles away looking for "folks who want to play jug band music." Really?? Gotta keep looking, I guess. 😕

Hi All, This is a question for anyone, but especially you older players ... Are you still playing live these days? Where? How often? I retired a couple of years ago, and had planned on being a 'full-time part-time' musician for a while. It hasn't worked out very well in Central Massachusetts (USA). This area was always a little guitar-heavy, even back in the '80s when I moved here, but it's become more skewed over the years. When I look at ads for a keyboard player, it generally boils down to either a) "We want someone to play pads and ambiance behind the guitars," or b) "We've never had a keyboard player, but always thought it would be cool to add one." ("What Bruce, you don't want to play a 6-song Gary Moore medley? Why not?") I have been playing as a solo act, using MIDI to back me up, for a few years now. I basically sound like a 5-6 piece group, but my price is better. But, it gets harder each year to find gigs. Last year was a 'perfect storm,' where my #1 club sold the business, and the new owner is moving in a new direction; and my #2 club decided to stop having live shows. I've been making the rounds, but there's a lot of competition out there, most of it a lot younger, and while the people I meet and the bars and restaurants are friendly and polite, the answer is always no. (Favorite expression lately: "Sorry, we're all booked up for 2023, why don't you come back in 2024?" This started as early as late February!) If you are in a similar situation, and still manage to gig, how are you finding the work?

Mine was a Roland JUNO-6. My first polyphonic, and the lack of stored programs actually *helped* me, because it forced me to learn how to program a synthesizer quickly and accurately on a gig. I had 5-6 'go-to' sounds that I learned cold, and could move to without any, "Hang on guys. Let me find my sound." That knowledge still helps me to this day. My next one was the Yamaha TX-81z -- or more accurately, *four* of them. I started with one, and immediately decided I needed another ... and another ... I got good enough at FM synthesis -- specifically, 4-op/8 waveform FM -- to eventually buy an MKB-500 (?) master keyboard and remove everything from my rig except an EP. I did everything on that TX rig: organ, pads, synth lead, guitars, you name it! In hindsight, some of the sounds weren't all that accurate, but it worked for a cover band in the late '80s!

Hi All, [First off, my apologies in advance if this post is inappropriate. If the moderators want to kill it, that's OK. Either way, this will be the only post about this topic I make here. If you have any questions about the items, please send me a PM, or email to bw@wahler.us.] I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be closing down Halfmoon-Switch.com (a.k.a. Ashby Solutions) very soon. I'm having email problems, essentially caused by Google, and it looks like it would cost a bit of time and money to fix them. Given that the profits from the business have been terrible the past year or so -- many months, I don't even make enough to take my wife out for a nice dinner -- that's not in the cards. (Long story, send me a PM if you really want the details. Hint: unless you're tech-y, you probably don't!) So, I have a small number of Ventilator power supplies, two Mini-Remote modules, one FC7 adapter, and probably enough parts left to make 15-20 Halfmoons. After that, I'm calling it a day. And after July 8th, you might have to PM me here or at bw@wahler.us to place an order, because the website may be gone. Note: This is NOT a veiled attempt to drum up business. There isn't enough business in 2023 and beyond to change my mind. If you bought stuff from me in the past, my sincere thanks. If you were thinking, "I should pick up a Halfmoon (or a spare Vent power supply, etc.) from Bruce sometime, your opportunity is limited ... Best regards, -BW

Has anyone A:B'd the CA Minimode vs. the GEforce Minimonsta? I bought both the MM and Oddity 2 during GEforce's Easter sale last month -- $30US each was too sweet a deal to pass up -- and while I love the sound of the MM, it has downsides: The emulation is a little weak in the mid-bass. The UI is getting long in the tooth, and desperately needs the ability to resize and/or hide the virtual keyboard. The enhancements are so massive that it's easy to accidentally enable unwanted 'uber-Minimoog' features. This is especially true when modding GEforce library patches. I just want a Minimoog's sound path. #1 is easy to fix with EQ; in fact, I have a preset in Sonitus EQ to do just that. The other two, not so much. I just want a simple Minimoog clone with a big display for my old-man eyes. Maybe polyphonic at times, but nothing else. But if Minimode doesn't sound as good as Minimonsta, then I'll stick with what I've got.

I owned the RMI Electra Piano (an early blue one) and gigged with it all through college. It was the most fantastic, bizarre, and frustrating keyboard I've ever owned! Nord has some RMI 368X samples in their library for the Electro and Stage.

Actually, I do that, too. Actually, I do the same thing for my gear. But there are a lot of players who either a) don't solder (or have friends that do); or b) have FC7s still under warranty. I used to sell 1-5 of them every week, back in the day. Enough to keep making them; not enough to mass-produce them and get away from the bench!

Yes, that's what it does. No magic, but I tried to make them as close to bulletproof as possible.

Hi All, As most of you know, I stopped making these things (the FC7X) a few years ago. I see threads on here about them from time to time, though. I was cleaning up my shop, and I came across some parts that I would use to make them. I'm thinking of making a small batch, and announcing them only here, and to past customers. The emphasis is on "small batch," because I don't know how many of them I can make with the parts I have, and I have no interest in buying a bunch of raw materials at this point. I stopped making them because I had a QC problem with a supplier and was not happy with their 'solution.' Every time I changed suppliers on pieces, it took 2-3 orders to figure out if the new part was equivalent, find out if it was still being made (vs. end-of-life only, available from some wholesaler). In the end, I often had to 'eat' a bunch of worthless parts. So, is anyone interested in an FC7X -- same design as before? If so, send me a PM, or contact me at info@halfmoon-switch.com or bruce@wahler.us. ________ And on a related note: Ashby Solutions is no more; it has been informally closed for a couple of years, and I finally shut down the website in November (2021). That said, *Bruce Wahler* is still alive and well, and I am still making/selling a few items, mostly halfmoon switches. As such, the website is now http://halfmoon-switch.com: this used to send you to Ashby Solutions, but it's now the 'real' site. I'm happy to help you with older products you bought from Ashby Solutions. With COVID and all, the business has fallen off a bit, but will remain open for now. You can also reach me at bw@wahler.us or bruce@wahler.us. This will be true even if Halfmoon-Switch.com goes away at some point.

Sorry for taking so long to respond to this thread. I missed it, somehow. There were two kinds of Ashby Solutions double footswitches available: 122 Style and 760 Style. You can tell them apart by whether the '2nd' switch is labeled "Brake" (122 Style) or "Stop" (760 Style). I've attached both schematics to this thread. You can also find them at http://halfmoon-switch.com/misc.htm. There are two other schematics for single footswitches. I was only allowed to add two attachments, but I'll try to post them later. ________ And on a related note: Ashby Solutions is no more; it has been informally closed for a couple of years, and I finally shut down the website in November (2021). That said, *Bruce Wahler* is still alive and well, and I am still making/selling a few items, mostly halfmoon switches. As such, the website is now http://halfmoon-switch.com: this used to send you to Ashby Solutions, but it's now the 'real' site. I'm happy to help you with older products you bought from Ashby Solutions. With COVID and all, the business has fallen off a bit, but will remain open for now. You can also reach me at bw@wahler.us or bruce@wahler.us. This will be true even if Halfmoon-Switch.com goes away at some point.

Thanks well im glad to hear it uses similar keybed to A33 as at the time i was amazed how crisp the A33 keybed felt for such a lightweight board. I think i went from a kurzweil K1000 semi weighted at 25 kg to the lightweight A33 at 8.1 kg. Ironically i carried it in a heavy SKB case i had but hey i was young then it was still heaps lighter than mu kurz in a ply session roadcase. Never the less it was a breath of featherlight air lugging that keybed instead of the Kurzweil. Although Roland insisted on haveing the pitch wheel to the left making it longer than needed but probably the least pitch wheel space of any Roland to their credit I think the Numa Cocal 2x has both form and function of my desired physical attributes. Simiarly the diminuative korg kross has form weli sorted though by what i hear fails with the keybed feel. But thats ok as im intending the numa keybed to play most of the korgs sounds. Using the korg as a multi zoned module but with abitity to play as second keyboard. I like zoning. Happy to help. It sounds like you and I are on similar quests, for similar reasons: getting old! I started playing as a one-man act when COVID reared up -- well, actually, when COVID started to die down a bit -- using MIDI to play pre-recorded bass, drums, rhythm parts, etc. I really like it, but carrying around all the gear by myself has changed my perspective a bit. I've been gigging with a pair of Nord Electro 5D 73s, which work fine, albeit with some strange quirks in how one splits up parts over MIDI. I recently sold a bunch of gear, and bought a Stage 3, which arguably replaces both of them. Except I need a second keyboard for many songs. Thus, the Numa, the closest thing I've found to a '0kg keyboard' that actually plays well and does splits. I agree about the feel of the TP9W keybed; I always liked the A-33, and that's probably why. The TO9 is surprisingly piano-like, even though it wouldn't pass a blind test with a real weighted one. But I've got tendon issues with my hands, and semi-weighted keys are the better choice. I've spent a lot of time and money lightening the rig, especially the rolling rack that contains sound modules, mixers, and the laptop. Some of the choices have been surprising. ex: my TX802 made the cut. It weighs about 5kg, but it doubles as a 19" rack shelf, holding my drum machine, my USB audio interface, and an Ethernet switch for the digital mixers. (I don't trust wireless for a gig.) So, the net weight cost is more like 2-3kg. Plus, no one has come out with a really authentic 21st-century FM synth yet -- including Yamaha.

My research says that the Roland A-33 did, indeed, have the TP-9W keybed. So yes, neglecting the extra bulk's ability to add something to the mix -- and it's real: my Korg BX-3 felt 'more like a Hammond' than my CX-3 did -- the feel should be about the same. Sorry to hear about your gigging situation ...

Yes, Scott is correct: neither version has an Audio In. I guess one can't have everything at the price point. Actually, it's a pretty cool product, all things considered. For about $200-250US more than bare-bones products from the computer side (M-Audio, Alesis, Nektar), the Numa offers: Sampled instruments with effects Expansion storage for more sounds A 'real' keybed used in other MI gear Splits and layers Half-pedal damping MIDI merge And they didn't increase the size or the weight!

Thanks, AK. I've already added a couple of forgotten thoughts and corrected some typos.