Adam Burgess

I have a couple of OWC USB3 hubs (now discontinued, by the looks) which are brilliant. No problems at all with an external SSD for any sample libraries and all the USB A and Ethernet ports for the other stuff. And enough juice and beefy power supply that can charge a MacBook and an iPad.

Studio/live/rock band/jazz combo…? Generally the best you can afford!

Always play with people better than you. You have to keep up … fast. I may be a masochist, but I thrive on doing things that I shouldn't be capable of. I love the pressure.

I quite like the look of that little keyboard. Think I have room to permanently put one on my studio desk. My Arturia 61 makes things just slightly cluttered, and it's always up and down to gigs. Great little setup, Jose! Thanks for the inspiration!

I’ve rebuilt maybe 4/5 RH3 keybeds, so got lots of experience, and so I’ve got spares handy. It’s time consuming and fiddly work. Korg UK are really good regarding parts. Can’t fault them at all. Up to you if it’s worth buying, taking a day taking the thing to bits, understand how it works, and then making an assessment. Personally I would. I used an SV1 as a controller for a while while waiting for some Kronos bits - too heavy and bulky for that purpose…!

If I wasn’t so busy doing gigs and arrangement stuff, I would try fitting an old Mac mini innards (the newer ones have much less stuff in them), and an Arduino to take care of new knobs, pedals, and sliders into an old Kronos 73 case I have that I keep knocking over. Can probs get a cheap board from AliExpress to drive the existing LCD screen from the Mac’s HDMI. Touchscreen never works properly on Macs in my experience, that’s a problem I can see. I do like the idea, though!

Or, you could adapt the software to send SysEx. It's open source so all available to tinker with. Did a lot of tests a while ago when I had time experimenting with my Integra and SysEx.| (Must finish my Integra programmer one day!!)

When I play with the club band (rarely these days 😞 ) • Guitar player keeps it tight and simple 🙂 • Double our sax player (w/ harmony) with a sax patch for the melodic bits. Have trumpets on 'smash the keyboard' velocity for any 'subtle' accents 😛 • Our iPad drummer is bang on every time. So we know where these subtle accents are! • I play one of the guitar parts-ish on clav for a bit movement when I can • She plays a great extended solo - so I fill out with fast-Leslie B3 pads. I try to envelop the sax like a duvet. Maybe a bit movement on clav with LH if I feel it needs it.

1000% 😛 I remember the days I'd do reductions for a 7 piece combo for musicals from an original 18 piece score and making it sound big. Love re-scoring stuff. Always a laugh watching Keys 2 on Xylophone and LH Bass. Now, just 'to keep it live', it's Keys 2, with a Xylophone, and a cello on the top half of ya left hand with a few horns on what ever fingers you have left playing an octave down. At regional, PAC, university, etc level - I'm not doing Broadway or West End, but depped for a few tours here and there - the sound engineers (esp. when English isn't their first language and they don't score read…), don't always notice what's going on. We complain here all the time about patch levels - when you're doing as @BluMunk says - a million changes in a few bars… what chance? Again, how far do you go? There is very little musical satisfaction about playing a piece like that 😞 But, it's fun to play and a great exercise in concentration. Anyway - Little Shop is easy. Gonna try and play as much as I can with 2 fingers - don't think I've ever played horns and bass at the same time! Next week's 'job while sitting in a quiet bar' is doing a few playable, but recognisable arrangements for a production of a "Yensid" musical (set in Arabia, strangely) for a high school combo. Sent them a sample arrangement and they're happy, so all good. Never done as much MT as this since being back in the UK 12 or yrs ago. I do enjoy most of it! Thanks, everyone for taking part, and listening to my little thread. Appreciate it 🙂

Back home in the UK, I'd do all the vocal rehearsals, parts, etc etc. Playing keys 2 is a total eye opener. I'd much rather play rhythm and wave my hands about a bit 😛 To be honest, I hate MainStage! It's a brilliant idea and quick to program! Just not very well done. There are so many non Apple-like things about it. The layout section is dreadful. It's buggy as hell. But, it usually works - and I get it has to pull together plug-ins from loads of different people. We shall see what the Concert is like for Spamalot. For Little Shop - it's quite easy, so may just do the Kronos. Maybe it's better if a computer is totally dedicated to a show, and locked down to it, I guess it works. But, then - there are many Kurzweils and Kronoses doing the same thing the world over. If I had the time and the recompense - I'd program a load of shows for the Kronos and Roland stuff. The Integra is perfect for this but a ball-ache with programming time! Everything is a balance! You have to be good - it's a job and no point not being ready. When live - failure isn't really an option when ticket prices are involved. A bar gig when people wander in and get free tunes… I'm not saying I don't try; but I'm less prepared, for sure. Your last gig is always a first audition for something. Is it worth taking a few days transcribing everything in a readable format just for one week to make it playable? Is my bass clarinet sound good enough? How far do ya go?

If you need it in 1RU, it's hard to save anymore space than that! Maybe replace the RX1602 with the Behringer UMC1820? It's not a bad interface at all. Lots of ins and outs and you can move the Focusrite on? And, as, @EricBarker said, the XR18 is really amazing for the price (well, it used to be!). I use mine for all kinds of things and sounds more than fine.

In further news on the all of a sudden Musical Theatre influx…! Was hired to play bass for a Little Shop week end of this month. Bit easier than Spamalot! Had a play through the new arrangement with a random recording on YouTube and thought (stupidly): "Ah, might as well play LH bass on keys and put the Reeds and Horns in!" So spent today re-arranging a little, and working out some one finger chords to play the blowy instruments' tricky voicings. Probs gonna use MODO Bass from IK and leave that the same all the way thru. I quite like it. And, the articulations aren't too hard to get right live. As for the brass and flutes etc… Tiny Arturia 61 and the laptop only? Tiny Arturia 61 and the laptop with an Integra for others? Kronos for horns etc. and laptop?

There are 2x actual Percussion players.| And, I'm sure lots of players without a bit to do at this point? The are quite capable of playing the Triangle, I'm sure… I honestly think this is just absolute laziness on part of the arrangers. Too much copy and paste filling bars in.

It's all played "as you see it on the score". So a Middle C could well be a cymbal at one moment. A bottom Bb maybe a chord with a load of French Horns in a totally different key. The left hand might be playing stupid high strings octaves. Sometimes it's the same Oboe sound at concert pitch, then the next verse is the same Oboe figure, but played an octave up and sounding an octave down. It's f***ing stupid haha! I will find out next few days when they send me file! It definitely blurs the lines between being a player and a button pusher! Some mad patch changes a quaver apart.

Who has time for that for a one off? 🤪 I will post some demos of these unusual sounds. For example, I need to play "Jugs" at the same time as my "Bass Kazoo" When the MainStage thing comes - let's see!

I don't even know what a Bass Kazoo is, or a Crumhorn… But the MainStage file shall be with me tomorrow. The next thing is - can I fit fit the concert a slim Arturia 61, or do I have to take a massive Kronos 88?!? It's a definite button pusher. So, shall I add a few things in MainStage to make me not hit the bottom A of an 88 for a random cymbal crash (when there are are two actual percussion players…) Will anyone notice, and/or care?!

If it’s hardware only, and, I don’t know the keyboard at all 🤪;but, it’s either a CC00, a CC32, plus a Program Change to a Roland… or a one message SysEx

Maybe go and do some low pressure gigs. Do a background set with a friendly singer. Playing easy triads with a solid one-note-at-time bass has got me lots of gigs. Simple groove over D G A is more than fine if the singer is good and you’re in time and follow her/him. Quarter notes and sympathetic pedaling is great. I’m playing for an Adele tribute In June. There’s no keyboard heroics. Just there to accompany and support.

It's nervy, for sure! Just that fragility of one tiny slip screwing a whole line up gets the blood pressure up! But! Yes! Do it live. Better than tracks! Would love to hear the outcomes of your arrangements!

It's so hard to do counterpoint, especially legato strings etc. with only two hands! And, always feels a bit of a waste of limbs. I've done string parts on the Kronos and MainStage where it's kinda possible, but, again - you have to be sooo precise, as only one correct note can ever follow the previous correct note. It's a fragile state, and not one that I like! Tedious copying parts into Combis just for one note, that bears no resemblance to what note you actually hit. I do tend to transcribe a lot of stuff, as I would for real players and then looks for the patterns afterwards, and think how it's possible to do legato lines afterwards… It's a lot of prep, but - I enjoy it when it works. Even brass stabs, to get the voicing correct, it becomes a lot of work.

Can totally relate! You're expected to arrange on the fly. Voices, voicing, the lot. It's not something that every keys player can do, by any stretch! Did the Supremes (sans Diana Ross, of course!) a few years back when they came thru Dubai - kinda got the top string lines and brass something like what was in my head! Just from a chart C / / / F / / / Am / / / F / G /… 🙂 or one that got transposed into B, except all the A chords are G double sharps or something haha. Trying to glue together G double sharp > B sharp > D is hard, and just never looks right! (A C D is far easier!) Believe me, I'd rather do that than play this. Sometimes, you think a chord needs another octave below or a 'bit more' third in it. With this - that extra note could be a duck quacking, a taiko drum at full velocity. Gotta be really precise and a lot of the time, ignore the relationship between what you think you're playing and hearing. Sometimes, they make no sense! But, I need the money! Rather be working!

A photogenic bass near me… Sure. Not much other info. And is green photogenic?

Sadly true, but at least they're not using all tracks! 11x in the pit for this one. I do think a part of it isn't just replacing musicians, rather it's "I had a great Massed Horn section plugin a la Hans Zimmer Batman" and "it sounded great in Sibelius". So rather than re-arrange the piece so it sounds good with a line-up of a Horn, Trumpet, and Trombone, they just copy and paste to a "Synth" part. How many theatres/PACs could afford and accommodate 8x French Horns just for the Finale and a death scene halfway…? It's the whole getting a Hollywood sound with 10x players thing 😞

Yes, playing the notes is scary enough! I'm insisting they rent buy a MainStage Concert. No way would I program this for one run! Thanks for the support! I hope what ever is causing you any stress gets worked out, mate 🙂

Some of these changes are in weird places! And, yes - a double patch change could be hilarious! What screws my head up are parts where a high C is triggering a horn chord a mile down the keyboard! Just doesn't sit well with me! I'd much rather play Keys 1, but I do get work doing the donkey work of Keys 2 and covering what ever else is missing, as there aren't a great many proper reading players here! The Lord giveth the gigs and taketh the prep time!