[Rookie question: better standing up or seated?]

Sorry about the bad video quality, can't find this in a better quality and it seems he has toned down lately 😀

[Rookie question: better standing up or seated?]

I was at an open air concert yesterday, and there was a soul/pop/funk band playing with a female singer being the performer who is the known name, the one that is announced. The band members were more for live gigs as far as I understand. There were two keyboardists, one standing (with a Nord Stage 3) and one sitting (with a Roland RD64 and a MIDI keyboard on top). The one standing was kind of a show-off, he was dressed more dandy and acted like he was melting under the music, dancing, moving, etc. The other guy, the sitting one was unobtrusive, hardly moved, wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses. Honestly, the standing one looked idiotic 😀 He acted as though he's the one who needs the main attention. Let's face it, we keyboardists are the ones that nobody watches, right 🤣 No need to act like jokers. That's my opinion...

 

Now, if we're talking about someone like Derek Sherinian or any other keyboard virtuosos that are the main show runners and need to look like a rock-star macho shredder, then it's OK.

[Hammond vs Vox/Farfisa]

50 minutes ago, AnotherScott said:

Here's a playlist of Mellotron stuff, maybe some of it will help show you the appeal of that instrument

Thank you, I just finished it (well, 30 seconds each since I switched from Spotify to Apple Music a few years ago and will have to listen to the corresponding full versions on Apple Music). Actually I mostly liked what I heard in most of these which I believe is some kind of strings. I think what I really dislike is the Mellotron flutes, although as already stated, there are some songs where these flutes sit more than well. BTW, I have the Arturia Mellotron and I found out that with some creative effects it can sound very lush.

 

Speaking about vintage string sounds, I do love the typical string machine sound, such as the Solina (and those in vocoder keyboards such as Roland-whatever, etc.) I hope they introduce more Solina sounds for the YC/CP.

[Hammond vs Vox/Farfisa]

^ That’s very good! Not something I would listen to by itself but I imagine it as a soundtrack to those black comedies of Guy Ritchie 👌🏻I’m serious, it’s really good and I think it requires great talent and fine sense to be able to produce music that sounds genuinely vintage 🤝

[Hammond vs Vox/Farfisa]

39 minutes ago, Franz Schiller said:

I'm surprised that you're 42 (I'm 45) and it seems like you've never heard Rock Lobster before, and it seems like you're not familiar with the B-52s or their aesthetic.

 

There's a very easy explanation. As ridiculous as it may sound, I used to listen only to classical music in my teens (with the only exception being Queen and Pink Floyd for a very brief period before I started playing the piano) then after 4-5 years I switched almost entirely to jazz for another 10 years. I grew tired of it eventually and returned back to classical but also started opening my ears for all the music on earth and making up for the lost formation years in pop and rock 😀 I've been discovering some old rock and pop stuff only recently...

[Hammond vs Vox/Farfisa]

1 hour ago, GovernorSilver said:

I like the Farfisa usage here.  When this song was all over the radio in the early 80s, I had no idea they were going for 60s music aesthetics.

I hope this won't come as disrespectful but this song just doesn't make any sense to me from a music standpoint. Sounds like those people desperately wanted to create parody or something to the effect of that. Not saying that's a bad thing and there's music for everybody but that song just confirms what I said in my original post: for some reason transistor organs mostly create the feeling of something comic and cartoonish in my ears. 

[Hammond vs Vox/Farfisa]

47 minutes ago, analogika said:

The vibe wouldn't work with anything else.

It's an interesting music which has a certain vintage mood, so indeed the transistor sound is working well, although it's very withdrawn and well mixed with the other instruments and I wouldn't have noticed it's what it is if I didn't know. Glad you didn't make a solo with it though 😀

[Hammond vs Vox/Farfisa]

2 minutes ago, Bill H. said:

As a side note, when I talk or interact with people much younger than myself the song they identify with the Doors the most is Riders On The Storm. 

True! I can listen to it on repeat all day! But the reason is the Rhodes piano. I will chose Rhodes over any other instrument (bar acoustic piano) any day or night. Which is why it resonates with me the most. But Light my Fire and Break on Through are following close. Despite the transistor organ 😀 I’m wondering if Ray Manzarek would’ve used Hammond instead, if he had one (or if it was practical). And whether he would play differently. Or in other words, did he chose the transistor organ entirely out of practicality? Maybe not, because I doubt there wasn’t a Hammond in the studios where they recorded. Who knows, I’m not too familiar with their history as a band and equipment choices. 

[Hammond vs Vox/Farfisa]

I'm relatively young (42) and have never been too much into Hammond and transistor organs. However I've listened to a lot of vintage recordings with those instruments and have always found the Vox/Farfisa sounds to sound appalling compared to Hammond. I'm actually a pretty huge fan of The Doors and think the Vox is cool there, creates this specific surrealistic feel but apart from it, these transistor organs just don't sound serious to me, my impressions is always about something cheap, old, grotesque, intentionally ugly 😀 Apart from vintage band tributes and covers, do any of you find usage of transistor organ emulations in their music?

 

BTW, I feel the same sickness when I hear (what I recently understood is) Mellotron patches and especially the so called flute... 🤮 But that's for yet another thread.

[Yamaha AN-X trademark registration]

An analog modeling engine in the MODX would make me sorry for selling my MODX6. But if they manage to make something like a CS61 instrument (to complement the CP/YC) which I imagine to be a Hydrasynth-like synth with poly AT and ribbon but focused more on vintage analog sound rather than wavetables and digital shrillness, then it would be a certain buy on my side, even replacing the beloved Hydra with it. Let’s wait and see. 

[Uno Synth Pro: Impressions and Sounds]

So, you reuse pots for different functions? To me that seems an odd decision, since every time you switch functions, the pots will be at a different position than the actual one for the function. Seems like a total dealbreaker for me but maybe in reality it's not that bad?

[New Studiologic Numa X Piano]

2 hours ago, elmusiloco said:

Thanks CyberGene for your detailed answer.

I think you are refering to this experiment:

The Definitive Digital Piano Keyboard Touch Experiment

 

It is clear that these cannot replace the actual experience of playing a piano but they are a guide.

I am not a big fun of censuring information. Everything has a value and I thank the guy that posted it. I am sure some other people might find it useful as well as a complement info.

 

Actually I was expecting some CP73 owner to tell me if his keyboard is also not perfectly calibrated and, if so, if this is something that could be perceived or not.

 

Ahh, so it was Sweetwater then. But it's still a flawed experiment and the table has misleading columns because downweight is not what they have measured. I'm the biggest opponent of censorship and people who know me will understand since I created a  PianoWorld-like spin-off forum (pianoclack.com) which was made with the specific idea of not banning anybody and allowing any topic and off-topic (it's a fun experiment BTW because initially it seemed like havoc with people arguing about Covid, vaccines, etc. but pretty soon we all realized what other peoples' beliefs are and we moved on to discussing pianos again 🥳), so I completely agree about the harm of censored information and I retract my statement about "we should stop posting that table". Apologies. But I still believe it is very misleading and when posted it should be accompanied by a description of what the experiment is and why the measurements are almost meaningless when just sorted like that, since I see really a lot of people dismissing pianos based on that chart and that's wrong. The best (and I think the only) way for one to judge an action is, unfortunately, still the good old fashioned way of playing it 😀

[New Studiologic Numa X Piano]

That chart is often being brought here and on other forums. However it was never mentioned who created it and how he measured the values. It's more than clear the values for downweight are incorrect because they are too high. It has been suggested this is not actual downweight, i.e. the weight needed for the key to slowly move down, but actually the weight needed for the key to generate sound. If that's the case, it's a useless measurement since the weight needed to produce low velocity strike is a complex metric that includes both static weight component and dynamic weight component (inertia) and thus it's impossible to make any conclusions about an action from a combined measurement such as that. Piano technicians know very well that a piano action with high static downweight can actually feel very light when played because it doesn't include counterweights (that add inertia, hence sluggishness) and has light hammers that are easy to throw (low inertia).

 

With that in mind, I think we should stop posting that chart because it's misleading.

[New Studiologic Numa X Piano]

I found the TP110 to be in between the CP73 and CP88 as a feel. Heavier than BHS but lighter than NW-GH3. However towards the back of the keys it was hard to play. 

[New Studiologic Numa X Piano]

19 hours ago, Dockeys said:

I ended up with the CP73. CP88 just too heavy for me.

Yes, that's true. I replaced a YC73 with a CP88 and can confirm that the NW-GH3 action in the latter is substantially heavier in feel to the BHS action in the YC73/CP73. That being said, as a classical pianist myself and being used to the real grand piano action in my AvantGrand N1X, I find the playing experience of the CP88 very satisfying for pure acoustic piano stuff. It's also OK for Rhodes but is certainly heavy for other types of sounds. I'd say if one is mainly after acoustic piano sounds, the heavier CP88 action is closer to a real piano, whereas the YC/CP73 are better for Rhodes and broader palette of sounds and keyboard duties.

[New Studiologic Numa X Piano]

I could play ppp on it but the touch response around the ppp range is (was?) weird. I hear they improved the touch response in the new firmware. Maybe they fixed it I don’t know. It’s a great board for the price! But I feel the CP88 is better and I’m glad I ended up with the Yamaha. That being said, the CP88 is twice the price and is not twice better… The Numa is much better in the price/performance ratio. Talk diminishing returns… 😕 I can wholeheartedly recommend the Numa if price is a concern and even without, it’s a fantastic keyboard. But I feel with the CP88 there’s some level of absolute refinement that I missed in the Numa. 

[The power of FX]

I first heard about modulating the FX in a recent Matt Johnson video (I think of Take 5). It struck me how I never considered it as a possibility. Then I tested the concept on my Hydrasynth and created a patch where among other things that I modulate through the poly AT, I also modulate a phaser and the reverb. It’s probably my best patch so far, it was very popular and I also posted it on another thread here. I think not many people really consider it but it can lead to a whole new world of sonic capabilities.

[The power of FX]

Browsing through various patches on various virtual and real synths, more often than not I realize when I am impressed by a patch and start deconstructing it, it's the effects that make it sound wow. Once I turn off all the effects and listen to the raw sound it's meh. There was a FM-lead on my MODX (forgot the name and I sold the MODX) that just melted me. But it was all the chorus and the lush reverb. Once turned off, it sounded like an 8-bit sound from an arcade game.

 

And I'm wondering about the obsession with the vintage analog synths and comparison with virtual emulations, digital synths or even modern analog replicas. But who uses the raw sounds anyway, you're gonna wash it in delay and reverb the least. And then it's all the same 😀 Or it isn't? What do you think?

[Boards stacked close together or far apart]

1 hour ago, Outkaster said:

I always keep mine flat as possible.  Playing at an angle is not good for technique and you can actually harm yourself

I don't agree with that. Have you seen how long it takes for concert pianists to set the height and placement of their piano bench in concerts? That's because having the proper height and angle of your forearms is crucial for the given piano height which is of course flat and fixed. Now imagine putting one or even two keyboard above the main one. There's simply no way you can play them optimally by just placing them flat and further away from you. Intuitively, you should rotate only your arm at the shoulder and maintain the 90-degree angle in your elbow as well as wrist/forearm angle and thus the other keyboards should be angled and be placed around the circle your arms do when rotated at your shoulder. Of course that's not possible, especially with big synths and workstations but at least some approximation should be sought IMO.

[Boards stacked close together or far apart]

I’m no gigging musician and I won’t ever use three keyboards but even with “only” two I like the top one to be angled towards me. Can’t imagine three horizontal keyboards, it would be too difficult to play the top one. As to the Minimoog-imitation, look beneath the CP 🤣

 

[Anyone else disappointed by the lack of new products at NAMM?]

I guess some will disagree but we already have every possible keyboard instrument in all varieties and technology mixes. They even started re-issuing old analog synths and electromechanical keyboards and other similar stuff, so things are just totally exhausted.

 

Digital keyboards/pianos/workstations/synths have been over-saturated and stagnated for the last 10-20 years. Rompler technology is already exhausted. FM, Analog, VA and others are too.

 

Add to that software plugins and DAW-s that are already better and cheaper than any hardware keyboard, with modern computers being insanely fast and efficient (Apple Silicon for example) and it's just a tough job to make something revolutionary on the hardware-keyboard side.

 

For instance, what announcement would not make you disappointed?

 

The best keyboard is the one we already have 😀

[new Kurzweil SP7]

2 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:

Kurzweil copy “The SP7 offers Kurzweil's TP100LRG key action, featuring the latest technology from Fatar, the world’s leading piano-keybed manufacturer. The action is ideally balanced for feel and playability, serving a variety of playing styles.” 
 

 

 

 

Ha, that’s a video I made before I sold the SL73. Horrible action!

[Richard Barbieri talks about his 2022 tour rig]

BTW, since someone was asking for recommendations. Here's a very isolated and peculiar one. So, I am a big fan of Animals by Pink Floyd and especially "Dogs" and one day I searched on the Internet if there's any music that is in the same mood. And yes, that was discussed on a forum already 🤣 The recommendation was for a specific piece by Porcupine Tree from their latest album:

 

I'm not sure if it was intentionally made to resemble (be a tribute to?) Dogs but it's very similar. And from there on I discovered their entire output which isn't small. And I wondered how come I had never heard of that great band. Go figure...

 

P.S. Here's a comment under the video:

Quote

This song's been criticised as a clone of "Dogs" by Pink Floyd, but I seem to remember Steven Wilson saying that this was exactly the point, it was a specific aim that it be a "hats off to Pink Floyd" track. So much of the rest of the output of PT over the years has shown that, even though Pink Floyd were an early influence of SW, the PT project eventually went far beyond anything that PF ever did in terms of signatures and chord changes, all that stuff. And I'm a lifelong Floyd fan (with the exception of much of The Wall and the rather depressingly bad Final Cut that is). And of course, there's also a nod to "Sheep" in here too towards the end.

 

[Richard Barbieri talks about his 2022 tour rig]

I’m a fan of PT. Discovered them sometime ago when I was searching for music similar to Pink Floyd and their earlier albums are indeed close to that mood. 
 

As to who heard them. I think some popular journalist described PT as “the best band you never heard of” or something along these lines 😀 It’s both funny and sad though.

 

Thanks for the video. 

[New Studiologic Numa X Piano]

2 hours ago, drawback said:

Not sure what resonator is supposed to address, but hopefully it, er... resonates to resounding response in realism.

According to the video it adds more bark at high velocities and more tine randomness, at least that’s how I got it. 
 

The Numa is an excellent board. If it wasn’t for the slightly lukewarm acoustic pianos that were not to my taste and with slightly odd touch response in the pianissimos, I would’ve kept it. The Rhodes was pretty good already though.