CyberGene

Rock - “Animals” by Pink Floyd (Richard Wright) Jazz - “Expressions” by Chick Corea Fusion - “In a Silent Way” by Miles Davis (Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul) Country - no, thanks! Classical - I live for classical music, it would be unfair to rank performers. But by a sheer number of plays Glenn Gould might be high with Bach WTC 1 and 2 topping the charts in my youth.

I didn’t know that Vangelis piece. Not typical of him at all but I fail to see what’s wrong with it. There are so many similar bluesy songs. And the sax solo is actually nice 😀

Never thought the Iridium required spark-plugs.

Industrial 🛠

If you're not joking, I'm really interested how come a musician anywhere in the world hasn't at least heard the name Vangelis. I don't expect that everybody knows his music but even if you have listened to radio or watched TV, the name Vangelis should have eventually came up and you'll know that it's a musician's name. Which is why I believe you're pretending 😉

It was a humble BF for me: the Waldorf Streichfett plugin (€33) and the Scarbee Classic EP-88S (€49.50).

I went to test some keyboards today. Unfortunately none was displayed for demo, only closed boxes. There was however a Roland Go:Piano which I tested and the keyboard was awful, very springy, 90% of the notes I played were silent... But seeing it in front of me I decided that 5 octaves is just too much, the keyboard is too big and heavy for a kid to haul it around the house. Which is why I started looking at very simple and cheap kid keyboards and I almost purchased a very basic Casiotone SA-50 for €68 (no touch sensitive keyboard) but then I noticed there was a similar Yamaha PSS-A50 that has 3 octaves with touch sensitive keys and discounted at €75, a quick search on the Internet assured it has the same keyboard as the reface (I owned a CP and a CS and the keys were pretty nice) but also on the box there is "USB MIDI" advertised which sealed the deal. Haven't opened it yet, but how bad can a €75 keyboard with touch sensitive keys and USB MIDI be? 😀 P.S. The Yamaha is great for a kid IMO. The touch response of the mini keys is excellent, the piano sound is OK, other sounds are passable too, there are arpeggios (including drum ones, hence rhythms), there’s a simple recorder. It’s very lightweight, compact and stylish. I know I’m digressing from my original question but I think this A50 is a pretty good starter keyboard for a small kid. Hopefully my daughter would agree 😀 BTW, it is USB powered and it supports MIDI, so it can be used as a mobile MIDI controller. It even sends control changes from its buttons as well as program changes. No sustain pedal input though. And no pitch bend or modulation. (Actually there’s a button called “motion effect” that can trigger various selectable things such as pitch bend slides, filter cutoff movements, modulations, etc. It’s an on/off switch and so the movement length and depth are preprogrammed but nevertheless it sends the corresponding CC through MIDI).

At €235 for the CT-S1 at a local music store versus €400 for the CT-S500 I'm more inclined toward the CT-S1 taking in mind it would also be easier to use both by my kid and myself 😀 I might go and test them today or tomorrow.

Well, that S500 actually looks pretty good for the price. Might even be usable for (semi) serious occasions.

Thanks, that's very helpful. Actually I miss Solina strings on my CP88, so even for that patch alone it may be useful to have a CT-S1 as an (occasionally used) second keyboard.

I am considering one of these two for my 5 year old daughter who doesn't play any instrument (nor has a desire to do so) but loves singing and is very musical. The boomer in me (well, I'm not a boomer, I'm an X-er on the border with millennials) says that having rhythms in a keyboard is the root of all evil and kids should practice their scales! 😠 But who am I kidding, she has a mind of her own and she used to love playing my MODX6 for the sequenced techno patches only. Hence, the S400. But then, I doubt she will want to play keyboards at all, it's just not her thing IMO, she's more interested in singing. With that in mind, I think the decision should be to choose a keyboard that can (eventually) serve me, hence the CT-S1. But then again, I have some serious stuff like an AvantGrand N1X, CP88, Hydrasynth... so why on earth would I need some toyish Casio? 🧐 Maybe I should really get the S400 for the kid and hope she will spend 1-2 minutes a week with its rhythms rather than totally reject the S1. Choices... Any opinions?

I’m guilty of doing that myself too. I have a friend who posts boring music. There’s no point in criticizing him since he apparently likes what he does and I’m frankly not convinced he has the potential of improvement. But he’s a friend and I feel he needs encouragement, so I just press like without listening to his music. My like means “I don’t necessarily like your music but I like that you keep making music” 😉 Wondering if that makes me a hypocrite or something.

How is B-3X compared to VB3m? I purchased the latter recently and to my ears it sounds very good but I’m not a Hammond expert in any way.

From the point of view of recognizing a CS80 in a recording, Vangelis is the most well known, since the poly-aftertouch driven brass swell he used is the most recognizable CS80 sound. Stevie Wonder didn’t use it in such a way. I didn’t even know he had one until today although I’ve listened to him much more than Vangelis. And I bet more people purchase the CS80 emulations to play Blade Runner rather than to play Wonder 😉

@Reezekeysthanks for the heads-up. I purchased the Scarbee branded one, the "EP88S", just tested it, sounds perfect ❤️ They offer the following comparison table: On the NI website they say they are based on Mark I, and not on EP-88S, so despite being the cheapest option, the NI one is older and I'm glad I didn't purchase it by mistake. As a positive note to installing Kontakt Player 7, I managed to import my Vintage D library that is a nice Steinway sound I used to love in the past. My main piano is now the Garritan CFX though but more variety won't hurt.

OK, I purchased the Scarbee one since I read it's the latest and greatest (5+ GB) whereas the NI is based on an older version of Scarbee. Now downloading it and it asked me to install a special downloader... Nowadays everyone requires additional software but hopefully I can remove all that cr*p once I have the samples running in the Kontakt Player. Can I delete the Native Access once I have installed Kontakt Player? P.S. Geeez! Native Access is now installing a process calle NTKDAemon.app and macOS shows this: I knew it I shouldn't install that cr*p, that's what I'm talking about. Why do I have to install a background process?!

Can anyone confirm whether Scarbee works in Kontakt Player? Also, which Scarbee do you mean because I see there are different versions. P.S. So, currently Scarbee EP-88S is 50% off for €49.50 on the Scarbee website and is listed as Kontakt Player supported: https://scarbee.com/products/scarbee-classic-ep-88s However there's also Native Instruments: Scarbee Vintage Keys currently for €74.50 (includes three instruments: SCARBEE MARK I, A-200, CLAVINET & PIANET) which is also listed as Kontakt Player supported: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys/scarbee-vintage-keys/ I'm interested in Rhodes only and so I'm ok with the original Scarbee one but I'm wondering if maybe the NI one is somehow better (updated)? P.P.S. Actually NI also sell the Mark I only for €34.50: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys/scarbee-mark-1/

I started listening to Rush today and got reminded why I have mixed feelings about them and most progressive rock bands: the high-pitched (even squeaky) male vocals. It’s also the reason why I absolutely adore the sound of Porcupine Tree but can’t stand them for longer due to the vocal. Same with Dream Theater, Yes and many others. Ate there any prog rock bands with darker (not growl though!) male vocals? P.S. Maybe I’m not bothered as much by the high pitch as I am by the vocal being too in your face and prominent. As a reference I love how Roger Waters and David Gilmour sing, they are not any virtuoso singers and I might even go as far as to say they are probably slightly lame as singers but it just blends perfectly with the music.

That’s so beautiful! The way you seamlessly blend between modern harmony and quasi-classical sound is awesome! I got some hints of the Waldstein, was that intentional? 😀 Is that an improvisation or a composition or in between? I didn’t know you were such an accomplished pianist and composer, kudos 👏🏻

The resonances you hear with the damper pedal pressed are triggered mostly by the attack portion of the notes. If you play a note without the pedal and then you press the pedal (while holding the note) you won’t hear loud resonances depending on the timing of your pedaling. Which is why there’s no need to switch to the other type of sample. However if you press the pedal very shortly after or during the attack, some pianos crossfade to the corresponding pedal-down sample.

Devices that use WiFi for configuration (I have a dashcam and a Fuji mirrorless camera that are like that) are bad IMO. They require that you disconnect your phone/tablet from your WiFi and lose connectivity and connect to the device. That’s so 2010-s. Nowadays there’s Bluetooth LE that’s made for these purposes.

Mac. I think it was my MacBook Pro Mid 2010 but my struggles were probably much later than that, I’d say around 2015. It was still a capable machine that I upgraded with a SSD and more (and faster) memory. So, do you think I can install Kontakt Player without it requiring Native Access and additional samples? Also, is it Apple Silicon native? (Is it a Native Instrument? 😀). If so, I may give Scarbee a try then.

I’m speaking probably 5 or more years ago. I don’t remember well. Regarding performance, it was with the Vintage D piano and low latency. I compared it to another piano at the time with a standalone player, I believe it was Synthogy Ivory. I could never make Vintage D playing glitch free. Maybe they improved everything after so many years.

That’s funny. I found Nord Piano 5 having one of the worst touch-sound mapping, feeling not like a piano at all and I would go as far as to say I can’t think of a worse digital piano in that regard, even worse than Casio entry-level pianos. Apparently it’s a matter of taste. I love their samples when listening to demos though. But I can’t connect to the sound as a player.

For me the problem with Kontakt is I haven’t purchased it and so I have to use the Kontakt Player instead. The last time I installed it it basically acted as a bloatware and not only came with tons of unwanted samples that I couldn’t remove unless I followed some third-party instructions on the Internet but also installed some agent on my computer that was running all the time. What is more, I had to create a NI account and started receiving marketing emails although I explicitly unmarked all checkboxes. Also, the performance was subpar. Basically Kontakt Player at that time was an aggressive software that was bordering on malware.