wineandkeyz

I picked up a used Roland Integra-7 this weekend for a great price. I've been using a Jupiter-80 as the top keyboard in a two-keyboard rig for about seven years and love it overall. Its versatility is amazing, but its implementation for B3 tones leaves something to be desired. The tone itself is fine, but the on-screen drawbars aren't really tweakeable live. As a result, when stage space allowed, I've brought a clonewheel along as a third keyboard. I bought a Hammond SK Pro a while back for its B3 capabilities and hoped its "other" tones would be enough to allow me to leave the Jupiter-80 at home. Nope. (Actually, I might have tried to make the internal tones work if I had never had the Jupiter-80 before -- the step backwards was just too great.) So I continued to carry the Jupiter-80 everywhere and mostly left the SK Pro at home. So NOW, my plan is to MIDI the Integra-7 to the SK Pro and use the SK Pro for B3 tones and the Integra-7 for the other tones I had been getting from the Jupiter-80. Wish me luck!

I have stood nearly my whole gigging life, but had to start sitting about three months ago due to a bum hip that (hopefully) will soon be replaced. It took quite a few iterations of my rig (different stands, stools, keyboard heights and angles, etc.) to come up with a comfortable and workable sitting setup for my two keyboards, but I finally found a combination I can abide. As for the pros and cons: Pro - I feel like I actually have better control while sitting. I'm stationary, so I have less tendency to hit clams because I'm changing positions. Con - Some of the splits that I had set up are awkward because I can't move left/right as I did when standing. Con - I feel less energy, less involved while sitting. It's like going to a great concert and everyone else is jumping around but you're sitting the whole time. Con - There's also the subconscious power dynamics of sitting while everyone else (except the drummer) is standing. My plan is to go back to standing as soon as I can after my hip surgery!

The details are a little hazy in my dotage, but I recall an interview (in Keyboard magazine, maybe?) with Keith Emerson in which he complained that keyboard manufacturers didn't sponsor musicians such as himself. I've tried to find the interview on the interwebz but have failed. As I recall, he said Greg Lake and Carl Palmer were always getting free guitar and percussion gear, but he had to purchase everything. He talked about how, even though he had purchased and toured a $60,000 Yamaha GX-1, that Yamaha didn't even mention to him that they were developing the DX-7. He only found out about during a tour in Japan or something. Does anyone else remember reading that interview?

From Wikipedia: "Prior to the actual recording Stevens heard Wakeman play a rough sketch of what would later become 'Catherine Howard' from his album The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1973). Stevens told Wakeman that he liked it and wanted something similar as the opening section, the closing section and, if possible, a middle section as well. Wakeman told Stevens he could not as it was his piece destined for a solo album, but Stevens persuaded him to adapt his composition." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_Has_Broken

A guitarist, drummer, and I made something like that happen to a couple of bandmates years ago. The three of us had been doing all the work -- chasing down most of the bookings, lugging and setting up the PA, scheduling practices (in fact, I hosted most of them at my house), etc. The lead singer and bass player did the bare minimum, typically showed up for gigs at the last minute (which meant they weren't there to help load in), and slipped out as soon as possible when we were done (so they didn't help load out either). At one point, I had hernia surgery so I couldn't lift anything over 20 lb. We had a gig lined up, though, so I told the singer and bass player specifically that they needed to be there for load in that night. Of course, they didn't show, so our guitarist and drummer did the heavy lifting while I was relegated to running cables and other light duties. The singer showed up about 5 minutes before our scheduled start and, instead of apologizing, immediately started complaining that we were set up inside, instead of on the venue's outdoor stage (the venue moved our show inside due to impending weather). The bass player showed up 15 minutes after our scheduled start and also never apologized. I was so mad I could spit, but did my best not to show it onstage. We played one more show -- a wedding reception for our guitarist's niece -- after which the guitarist, drummer, and I "quiet quit." We never called or emailed anyone about practice or gigs and no one called or emailed us to see what was going on. Basically, the band died of neglect.

Ugh... And of course I meant "Goodnight Moon."

As a father and grandfather I'd have to say the one I've read the most is "Goodbye Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown.

Would you consider a different style of rack? Something like the 10x6 rack at the following link, where the mixer mounts on top with additional rack spaces on the front, would open up more mixer possibilities for you. https://www.skbcases.com/products/10-x-6-compact-rolling-rig

I’ll be driving back from a gig, so I’ll probably be on auto-draft. But the auto-draft can’t do any worse than I usually do!

Similar experience here. I went from a Fantom FA76 to an X7 to the Jupiter-80 for my "top" board. I hardly ever used the workstation features of the Fantoms anyway, so the Jupiter fits my needs so much better. And although I've owned a number of other workstations (like the a Triton, a couple of Motifs, etc.), my main bottom keyboard for years has been one of the Yamaha "S" series pieces (S90 to S90ES to S70XS), again, a performance-oriented keyboard.

Just to jump in, there may be suitable organ patches for one side of a split, but IIRC, that patch cannot be routed through the Leslie sim.

I owned a VR-760 for a long time and regret selling it. As I recall, the only splits it can do are between sections (organ/piano, piano/synth, synth/organ). So a workaround was to use an SRX card organ tone for one side of the split and the VR’s organ engine for the other. Not ideal.

Be careful, David! When I got mine back in 2017, it almost completely cured my G.A.S. Nowadays, something new will come out, I'll go check it out in a store and... nope. Congratulations and Happy Jupitering!

The Polymoog?

Please do.