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Yeh you could go old school: synth bass, some sort of Rhodes or similar and a string machine like the Waldorf STVC. That would be very cool. And you'd have a vocoder at the ready if you were so inclined.

I've more or less done that, but our repertoire wasn't exclusively disco. Yes bass is the most important thing. And you've gotta think keyboard + amplification. Bass amp or something with serious bottom end firepower like the Line 6 L3t I used. I had my sounds coming from a Roland Fantom Xr or a Roland Integra. You need decent rhodes, piano, CP70, clav, strings and a few synth lead options which any pro keyboard will give you. I used brass sparingly. If you're fine not worrying about nailing the sounds on the original recordings you could cut that down to bass, rhodes and strings. And you need good split and layer options. You want an fx slot for the bass sound with a good amount of compression dialed in. Preferably a separate output for the bass. I think Roland's electric and synth bass patches work wonderfully. If I did it today I might just pick up an Integra again, but otherwise suggest Roland or Kurzweil (PC4-7). Roland interfaces are a doddle to work with, I'd avoid Yamaha, not sure about Kurzweil. A Korg Kronos or Nautilus might get you there but is probably overkill.

no, you do it in the external zones menu

I have 2 Vox-73s and neither of them have any issues with the lower keys.

I play with a very talented local blues guitarist and my wife, who doesn't care for blues, phrasing it as a shuffle, calls it the "dung ga dung ga dung ga" band.

I give the sound guy whatever he asks for figuring that if I make him happy just maybe there'll be some keys in FOH. 9 times out of 10 that means mono. If he asks for stereo it's a good indication that he actually knows what he's doing and will sort things out at the desk. Sample-wise it's only pianos, but if I pursue the conversation it usually turns out he wants the Leslie in stereo and at that point I'm pretty confident that it's in safe hands.

Once you get up to retirement age the thought of hauling around a Hammond and Leslie will disappear. Even hauling a Rhodes starts disappearing. Suddenly a keyboard that's "close enough" and only weights 30 pounds sounds great. Right now your saying no way, but it happens, like it or not it happens. Oh no, the Leslie stays home. It's the only vintage piece I've ever seriously wanted and it's just for my own listening pleasure. My gig rig is the SK2 or the SKpro and the Vox. When it comes out I'll buy the SKproX or whatever they call the 2-manual version, but otherwise I'm, pretty done buying gear.

My retirement plan (from a decade out): 1. Stop doing cover band fill-in gigs just cause I know most of the songs and they pay relatively well and there"s free food and alcohol. Recognize that I"m not a poor uni student anymore. 2. Buy a Vintage Leslie 122 or 147. 3. Buy a synth that is designed for performance. Regular keys. Polyphonic aftertouch. Ribbon. Etc. 4. Join a jazz quartet where I can just play Hammond. Classic "60s soul jazz. Hard bop. 5. Join or start a few tribute bands where the required keyboard rig is built around a Hammond. 6. Start learning to play organ properly (again, it"s where I started at age 10). Practise. Practise. Practise. Enjoy the learning. In the past 18 months I have done #1-5. (Yes the answer to #3 is Hydrasynth. Love it, and it will keep me busy for years.) About a month ago finally got my practice space sorted so it doesn"t look like a holding dock. I am just starting out on #6 and looking forward to whatever time I have remaining on this planet to work on it. I have a gig with a very talented local (originally from England) blues guitarist and a couple of blues masters in the rhythm section. The bass player recently posted a video on FB and wrote 'It"s a privilege to play with these guys.' I feel the same way. And I want to feel that way about every musician I play with. And the more focused that search has become the more I am succeeding in finding those musicians and the music they make. The rest be damned. Life is too short.

Totally my experience too. I've always assumed I should at least get close to the sound on the record, but I have seen guys just wing their way through gigs switching between piano and rhodes patches and yes I have seen a guy play Superstition on a rhodes patch, a New Year's Eve gig centre of town no less.

Scott, someone posted on the SKPro facebook page about something similar. Here's the post: "Spent a whole night trying to recall combinations and couldn't do it, very frustrating! Then I figured maybe there's a system toggle somewhere. There's something in the system menu called patch load, I wandered in there and under combi all the sections were defaulted to off. turned them all on and it's all working. Maybe that'll save someone else from pulling hair out!" Yeh I've pulled up a split and put the sound I've programmed on the left side and got nothing and wtf. But after spending a solid morning with it over the weekend I'm flying, and I've only cracked the manual a few times. But yes some of the factory defaults are head scratchers, everything seems to default to velocity curve #1 which more often that not isn't a happy choice.

Lol, almost choked on my coffee, that's hilarious, I mean I knew Nord was a benchmark for some things, but lol. I'm happy you achieved what you wanted though. Rotflol.

For synth bass I'll second Boogie on Reggae Woman Bass line as the hook: Walking on the Moon

Page 93 has a couple of Velocity adjustments that may help bring out the dynamics. If these work the way Velocity Offset works on the SK-1 they allow the user to add (or subtract) a value to/from the value generated while playing. On the SK-1 it is hard to generate a high velocity value which makes the tone sound dull. Adding to the generated value brings out the attack and other harmonics. Good Luck. This. And as far as i can tell every factory sound or combi has velocity set to 1 for all the parts, and at 1 you can't reach the highest velocities. I've changed it to 3 for a couple of the pianos, and it's better, a bit brighter when i dig in, but don't expect too much in the way of tonal change.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/392474038772?hash=item5b614691f4%3Ag%3AFhQAAOSwNq9dmejh&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=705-53470-19255-0&campid=5337996411&customid=3a9768b1-af22-467f-8ccb-f1ee31ab42c6&toolid=10049 about US$18,000

In the SK1/2 the master mid band has a swept frequency, the drawbars and extra sounds get separate 3-band EQs, the frequencies are: Bass: 20Hz, 24, 31, 40, 50, 63, 80, 125, 160, 200 Mid: 250. 315, 400, 500, 630, 800, 1.0kHz, 1.2, 1.6, 2.0, 2.5, 3.1 Treble: 4.0, 5.0, 6.3, 8.0 The overdrive is also set up separately for Drawbars and Extra Sounds. Using the Drive, the EQ and the FX I've turned more than a few of the Extra Sounds, which out of the box are not great, into something I can use. On the SKpro the master EQ has gone from the top panel to a menu. There are still separate EQs for each section plus a master EQ, and the shelving/swept-mid options are much the same.

This is great news. imo, one of the best things about the Crumar Mojo is just the difference in feel of the keys from the standard Fatar version, including the prior generation of Hammonds. If you've never played a real B3, you might not care. If you have, you would definitely miss that feeling on the standard Fatar. Same could be said for the Vox keybed, which is not Fatar but achieves a similar plush feel as the Mojo. I have no idea how close it is to a Mojo. To me it feels somehow more solid but less springy, a little less side to side movement, plays cleaner, but it's less pianistic than the Vox. One of those things you'll have to try for yourself. I use a footswitch to trigger the Leslie on the SK1 and have always had it set to momentary. Yeh that would be a good idea. I thought about starting a new thread but there's already a lot of info and video links here.

here: https://www.yamahasynth.com/yc-series

Salivating. Your vox should make a nice lower manual companion to it, I would think. It's a combination I'm considering. Where did you see any indication that they were 4 layers in the first place? I had been keeping an eye out for that kind of thing, but never saw any reference to it. yes it will go solo or sit above my Vox. And you're right, I just assumed they're 4 layers cause they're touted as really significantly improved and the architecture allows for 4 layers, but I may be wrong. Having said that I've got the pianos in my SK1 to a happy place for blues and pop by tweaking the EQ. One of the little-mentioned bonuses with the SK1/2 is that each sound gets its own 3-band parametric (though it's a fixed points menu rather than swept) plus you get the master EQ on the front panel. I got it to a point where it sits great in a live mix.

no there are different sounds for the Reface boards and for the YC61. Having said that I didn't every download anything. Blake Angelos has quite a few videos up though that walk you through how things work.

Resurrected this thread from page 8 so it's been a while, but my SKpro-61 arrived on Tuesday. Impressions so far, in brief: Pros: the tonewheel and Leslie sound significantly better and I like the multi-contact implementation. The keys are less tightly sprung (the action is quite close to that on my Vox). For an organist these two make the price of entry worth every cent. Everything else is a bonus. Rhodes, brass, and strings are noticeably better. I never used the SK1 Rhodes but I"d happily use those in the SKpro. The mono synth sounds great, I lost some time happily messing with it, recurring ideas of adding a small RA/VA synth to my rig have gone. Cons: no FX control from the top panel, but you knew that. Boot time is 30 seconds. The pianos might have 4 layers but I can"t hear much tonal change and if I didn"t know they"d been improved I"d actually assume they were the same as the SK1/2. Summary: love it.

There are sounds at Yamaha's Soundmondo site: https://soundmondo.yamahasynth.com/

the Hammond comping on tnis is also so good, notable particularly during the early section where Tim leaves plenty of space. I get to play Old Love regularly with a very fine guitarist/singer who styles himself very much on Clapton. The arc of the song is superb. I'm not a fan of many synth solos, but this is a masterclass.

This gets some pretty good reviews, wondering what the minimum distance is between the top of the lower arms and the top of the front end of the upper tier arms, angle at 20 degrees (max), thx ?

no