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BluMunk

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Everything posted by BluMunk

  1. I don't know if that's as clear as you make it out to be. In the interview, Mark asks something like "if we could replace the guts of that synth over there with a digital recreation, but keep all the interface the same, how would you feel?"... and Anthony says something along the lines of "well, probably, I'd be fine with it," but kind of struggled with the concept. And, I think @Jim Alfredson was referring to digital in general, not VSTs specifically (though am happy to be corrected). There's a discussion to be had about mouse/keyboard/screen interfaces vs. knobby/slider-y interfaces that has nothing to do with the words analog and digital.
  2. Isn't it solved though? Is there anything about digital that prevents it from having the same tactile knobby goodness as a favorite analog? It seems to me that the issue is a different one that they touch on in the video: digital technology has so many more possibilities that it has potential for no limitations. But without limitations, where does the thrill of discovery and refinement of concepts come from? Want digital that's just as inspirational and fun as analog? Slap a knobby interface on it, and resist the urge to design in features more complicated than the interface can handle. Refuse to add any features behind a 'shift' button.
  3. Ah! Missed that. Didn't mean to duplicate
  4. The YouTube algorithm popped this up for me today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk-3vXOAtVo ... Anthony Marinelli and Mark Barton (not names I knew before watching this video, but each a storied player/composer and synth designer respectively) have a very interesting and thoughtful conversation about digital and analog synthesis. I found it really got to the heart of what that question even means, and did so in an interesting and honest way, with zero bullshit, posing or pretension.
  5. I think it's hard to say. My assumption is anywhere between $200-500. The lines between boat anchor, useful tool, retro fashion, and vintage investment can be hard to suss out, and they can change at a moment's notice.
  6. I'm generally of @MathOfInsects's perspective on this. ... and yet, I've also seen so many places, both online and in the flesh, become uninviting places because it's incredibly hard to police the fine line between fun (and hopefully interesting) discussion and tribalistic signaling and attention seeking. @GRollins , your position is not confusing, and I totally get it. It is so tempting, when someone says "I don't like Beato (or whoever/whatever the subject du jour is) because of X, Y, or Z" for me to chime in with a version of "yeah, me too! I also think he sucks, and let me prove it by using dramatic language. Then, we can both be on team 'I don't like Beato' together, and have something in common!" Part of what makes this place valuable to me is that it isn't just a place where people who love person or product X and people who hate person or product X come to argue at each other. Lots of places on the internet are just that. I appreciate the moderation in these forums that does a decent job of keeping that from happening, but they can only do so much. As @GRollins says, there's an element of personal responsibility when it comes to keeping spaces the way we want them to be- moderation and policing can only keep things smooth around the edges. Was this current Beato discussion a bridge too far? Aside from a few individuals digging into the spite of it, I don't think so. But, it's important that we be able to share and discuss opinions here, AND it's important that we remember that the tone here is simply an amalgamation of all the discussions. Keeping it from devolving requires vigilance.
  7. Update: I made it down to their house today to check it out. It’s a Japanese v3 in perfect cosmetic condition. The sliders felt a little crusty, but that shouldn’t be a surprise. Slightly more problematic is there’s a 3rd in the top octave where the keys catch on each other and stay depressed. Maybe something for an actual piano technician to look at? It played wonderfully. I connected it to their K2500R and had a nice, pianistic time with it, as well as with a few synth patches. The action was lighter than I expected, maybe too light (I thought). But, after fiddling a little with the attack and pressure faders, I found playing effortless and expressive. Maybe a little hard to get a full dynamic range. I’d have to connect it to my computer to see, but I suspect that even the most delicate touch is triggering a higher-than-expected velocity number. Also, I found the action quite loud. Again, maybe there are felts or some other component of the action wears down or gets hard over time and is easily replaced? At any rate, after being frank about the potential value, I offered them a fair-but-lowball offer of $300 knowing there are some keys to be repaired, and letting them know that I’d take it for $300 at any time in the future if they wanted to shop it around. They took the offer. I didn’t bring it home today, as I need to make room and arrange for a friend to help me get it out of the car. I’ll head back sometime next week, replace the battery in their K2500R so they can sell that clean, and bring home my new controller! Any insight into repair/tech on one of these would be appreciated. Should I call my piano tech, or my synth guy?
  8. I picked this up... I don't have a deep bench of piano VSTs and figured for $13 why not. Gotta say, it sounds great out of the box. I'll spend a bit more time with it, but I can absolutely see this becoming my 'default' piano for playing and recording.
  9. Looking for a little guidance on this. They are looking to price the board, and I am having a hard time identifying what a midiboard might go for these days. There are a few on Reverb for sale now, for what look to me to me pretty ambitious prices. Similar for the rack. It looks like there are a lot of K2500R for sale for $700 and up… is that really what the market is for those? I’m mostly interested in the midiboard, but to be honest probably not at the $800+ dollars folks seem to be asking for them on Reverb. Any insight on what these folks could reasonably expect to make if they sold them on the open market?
  10. Roland Integra has a 'supernatural' timpani that I think can do that:
  11. To me it’s a question of degree. If Subaru wrote their name in big block letters over the hood or across the passenger-side doors, I’d think twice about buying, and would definitely figure out an after-market solution to make it less ugly. A little logo on the back and/or front? No biggie. That’s my issue. Small logos I accept as a necessary part of brand identification. Big aestheticly disrupted text designed to thwart any sense of discreteness or class? F that.
  12. It's never been an actual monetary/contractual issue for me, but I have taped over logos because: I don't want my audience reading text on the back of my keyboard when they should be paying attention to other things. A logo serves one purpose- advertising. At least with distinctive design, brands can blend aesthetic with brand identity. I don't mind if people recognize I'm using your product. I do resent that you expect me to help you speak directly with my audience, with no upside for me (unless I happen to really be into the logo). In any photography or videography, large text detracts from the image in a significant way. Having a big-ass logo and model number in an otherwise atmospheric shot just pisses me off. This is the biggest reason. I was so much happier with shots of me and singers once I taped over the massive "RD700GX Roland" on the back of my board. And I kind of liked the styling of the logo. It was just too obtrusive in photography. And, related, most manufacturers are designing those logos to be as disruptive and intrusive as possible. They're intentionally making their brand name as central as they can. Maybe it doesn't bother some folks, but I can't think of any other instruments where up to half of the visible portion might be taken up by a logo. I don't imagine guitar players would appreciate the aesthetic if a big FENDER was written large enough for people to read it in the back of the club on the body of every guitar. So, I don't care that much, but if the logo is 'too prominent' (based on my own judgement) I absolutely will cover it, if I can do so without drawing even more attention to it.
  13. Ok, both of those tracks are thrilling. I'm retracting my initial "cool, but a pass for me" take and revising it to: "100% worth digging into for more, but be ready for things I love, and also things I have zero interest in".
  14. I am an instant fan. As someone going through a lot of stuff right now (aren't we all in different ways?), that song just hit me quite powerfully. I didn't expect to be crying at an upbeat song at the start of my workday today.
  15. Definitely tight and well done... not music for me, though. Maybe I've become rigid and less adventurous, but music that disrupts rhythmic expectations consistently, and that seems to adhere rigidly to a "modal harmonies and complex dissonances are always better choices than expected harmonic changes and resolutions" ethos feels kind of gimicky and doesn't draw me in. One song (or half of one), and I can appreciate how hard it is and enjoy moments. More than a few minutes, though, and I'm exhausted, couldn't care less that the unison hits are cleverly hard to predict or that those chords full of 2nds are hard to hit so precisely, and am looking for something easier. They feel like an art school love child of Primus and Return to Forever (and yes, they're welcome to use that in their next liner notes). Super talented, but not my style. Then again, I may be the machine they're raging against.
  16. I think the argument goes something like "having the privilege of doing your own promoting and booking means that that labor is now part of your bottom line. And it's your time and effort. Maybe it's not better, it's just different. And it means that all those artists now have to focus more on the business of show business in their day to day. And maybe they'd rather be playing." Like, it's still an expensive endeavor... it's just that musicians are paying for that endeavor with their own time and energy. In any business, "being your own boss" works for some, but energy and time you spend on doing that work (and getting better at it) is time and energy that you are not spending on your actual area of interest. I get Neely's point. As a viewer, it's been very obvious that he (and countless others like him) seemed to confuse 'spending 40 hours a week making videos about music' with 'being a full-time musician'. Kind of like the indie musician who spends countless hours on booking, promo, marketing, and social media and discovers they're just exhausted before they even pick up their instrument.
  17. Yes. As you say, there are always exceptions (for now), but the accessible and reliable shortening of distances and time that comes with the promise of adding diversity to our experiences, in the long run seems to have a homogenizing effect on culture. If everyone is selling a chicken nugget, your new chicken nugget is probably just not as special or valuable as you imagine, even if it's a really good one.
  18. I have one key (D below middle C) on my Forte 7 that gives a slight resistance and audible click when I play it. Maybe something small is loose or made its way in there at some point? Does anyone here know how easy it is or isn't to get into the mechanism to clean? I am not an engineer, but did once successfully replace keys on a DX7, and have done battery changes on various rack units, so am at least semi-comfortable. But, I'd probably rather pay for an hour of bench time. Actually, I guess I just answered my own question. I've got a reliable guy locally who at least has a better space and processes than I have. But, I'm still curious if anyone here has opened their Forte for cleaning/repair and how that went.
  19. I am a master of the 60s. 😛 That's a fun idea, and nice playing too!
  20. Downside... but also maybe an upside? I have to admit that while it feels good and powerful to be able to easily craft "any sound I can imagine" with cool interfaces, I find that I can access musical inspiration much more easily by stepping through presets. Sometimes I want or need a sound to be 'just so'... but other times the sound the instrument shows up with is the sound that informs the music.
  21. QFT. There's a very small subset of theater gigs that are really career-sustaining $$, and the high level of time commitment often means saying no to other gigs with better pay per hour in order to accommodate an inflexible multi-week run of a show.
  22. called it! 😛 Listening to him perform on the Grammys, and all the horrible phrasing on the recording is gone, and he’s just singing like a real vocalist who knows what he’s doing.
  23. The more I listen to this, there more something bugs me, and am interested in the perspectives of those with maybe more finely tuned ears than me. There seems to be almost no lyrical phrasing. Like, the words are chopped up into single-bar chunks with a space between each. It's as if each 2 or 4 beat piece was recorded separately and then pasted together. The adherence to the rhythm never wavers. He never anticipates a beat in order to make a sentence sound more human, or to drive emotion. The most glaring moment is at 1:25 - 1:30: The cold settles in... It's been a long win... ter of indiference. It just seems like such an unsophisticated way to address that rhyme, and I can't believe that he'd settle on that reading of the line if/when he starts performing it. Then, take the next part of the verse: Maybe you love me And maybe you don't Maybe you'll learn to And maybe you won't You've had enough But I won't give up On you If I think about 'classic Billy Joel phrasing', I'd expect that to come out more like: Maybe you love me, And maybe you don't. Maybe you'll learn to and maybe you won't. You've had enough, But I won't give up on you. ... with the "learn to and" being even triplets and "up on" being subsequent 8th notes (well, an 8th followed by a held note on the next 8th). Right now the pause between each line, even when there's a comma in the phrase, feels just a little too long and unnatural like he couldn't maintain breath for more than a bar at a time so someone had to do some creative chopping and splicing. Or maybe that's also just part of the production style for pop music in 2024- discrete blocks that can be placed and nudged on a grid, with reverb doing the heavy lift of gluing the blocks together? At any rate, I feel like there's something very un-Billy-Joel like about the phrasing, and I am probably chalking that up to his writing/production team. I bet this will be smashing live, but the track is really flawed in this way. It's got nostalgia, but no life. This song is actually reminding me a lot of his own Two Thousand Years, which has a similar pulse, arrangement, and mood. Listen to this and how he approaches the text with interest, and uses phrasing and timing to communicate.
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