zephonic

Agreed. Or at least it's close enough where it doesn't matter for anybody except the most discerning of purists. Still, the same way no rompler plays and feels quite like an acoustic piano, Rhodes or B3, I can imagine that people intimately familiar with their classic synth are never going to be satisfied with any emulation. For most gigs I don't really care, my romplers serve me just fine. But I do not like to play solos with their AP sounds.

YouTube Premium does not have ads, which is great on iDevices or Roku. If you use a browser on your computer you can just use an ad blocker. I got one year of Premium for free with my Google Fi plan. It's nice because now I can watch concerts on TV without having a loud-ass commercial interrupt the music at the most inopportune time.

IME, mostly Youtube playlists these days. Makes sense, some folks on Spotify, others on Apple Music or Amazon, but everybody has Youtube.

ForScore - on iPad, best for charts iRealPro - on all platforms, 21st-century Jamie Aebershold, and convenient for quickly scratching out chord charts in a pinch Metronome - both Phone and iPad, indispensable LiveBPM - measures BPM's of whatever the phone mic picks up MiniPianoLite - when you don't have a keyboard but quickly need to find a key of something that's playing on the radio or for a singer VocalEase4U - awesome vocal coaching app by the great Arnold McCuller I have many more, but those are the ones that see the most use.

Total non-event in LA.

If I could afford it, I would pay more for the VV over a classic Rhodes just to avoid the headache of owning a vintage instrument and all the maintenance and reliability issues that come with it. But -$200 isn’t gonna make the difference for me, unfortunately.

I think they almost always use more than just two mics.

For a while now I’ve felt Roland needed to fill the gap between the RD-88 and RD-2000. I didn’t think they’d need this, but I’m sure their market research told them otherwise.

There is no limit to Rhodes emulations out there, no doubt. Ranging from serviceable to pretty great, and I use them all the time. But in the short time I had a real Rhodes here, I came to understand that all the others are just that, emulations. Something about the way it fills up the speaker, even in mono with no processing, it’s just super thick. I don’t know if the VV does the same, though, but one can hope.

Seems to me these two libraries are the same: https://www.sampletekk.com/grand-pianos?product_id=256&sort=p.price&order=DESC https://www.steinberg.net/vst-instruments/tbo-mkII/ But the Steinberg one is less than half the price. And I prefer the HalionSonic interface over Kontakt. I'm actually somewhat interested in White Grand, if it's the same one that is in the Nords.

Steinberg announced a new Halion piano by Sampletekk, which got me curious about their other offerings and turns out they have a ton. If memory serves, they also do the Nord libraries, right? Anybody here use one or more of their pianos? How would you rate them?

Yeah, maybe. For a guy like me, though, a brand new VV73 under $5K would be a better bet than a fifty-year old beater that has been God knows where. I loved my Rhodes when I had it and I still miss it, but I could tell maintaining it would be a continuous expense. I sunk $1500 in refurbing it, and still little quirks popped up here and there.

If they manage to get a 73 in under $5K, it’s gonna crush the used market.

RIP Maestro

My buddy Norman has flown with the MODX6. In a bag, it’s about the size of a guitar, and I’m sure you have seen plenty of those being stowed on top of other bags in the overhead compartments. IME, flight attendants are usually helpful when it comes to musical instruments.