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Alkeys

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About Alkeys

  • Birthday 11/30/1999

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  1. You are 100% right. Memorymoogs were a nightmare to service as well as were Polymoogs. Back to the minimoog which was Moog Music's flagship product, yes it is my opinion the rev3 oreo cookie wheels sucked because they were ugly, not ergonomic and would always crack in the middle where the set screw hole was where the center detent was. I can guarantee you if you were to order 20 Minimoog reissues today, probably over half of them would have issues with the spongey low F or be calibrated wrong etc. . "Especially when you admit that you never even tried a Moog product after the Voyager (that is what, 20 years ago?)." Incorrect. I regularly use a Sub 25 and Sub Phatty and those are great instruments and built well minus the sticky rubber sides on the Sub Phatty. I actually prefer the 25 to the 37 because of the 37's postage stamp sized screen is super annoying. I really like the 8 button memory thing on the upper left of the Sub 25. 16 memory locations is plenty on a mono. Hell 8 or even 4 are plenty for me. They just got the Minimoog reissue wrong and since it was their flagship product, they should have put extra attention in getting that product 100% right that's all I'm saying. I wish the workers the best.
  2. Yeah bummer you sold it. Yeah that company in it's latest creation spent so much money on marketing when they should have just made a high quality reissue that was exactly like the original with no added features. Their product mix was not focused enough too. Speaking of quality control, I remember when the Sub 37 came out, you could see the backlight screen's bright light bleeding into the neighboring holes where the buttons were. That's a perfect example of poor mechanical engineering. Can you see a green backlight bleeding into the surrounding buttons on a DX7IIFD? No. Thank you Japan TQM. You combine poor mechanical engineering with crap assembly and quality control by non qualified assembly workers and you will get a bad product. It's not a economically feasible for a qualified tech to work on an assembly line. That template is too costly in this day and age so unfortunately assembly work needs to be done by robots with higher tolerances of quality control to achieve a quality product. Sad but true. The only assembly I've seen that's quality is by those companies that are only one guy who is a sole proprietor or a company with just a few people who make the product entirely themselves by someone on their team that have an extensive background in all things synthesis, design, and assembly. Studio Electronics is one of those last brands that does something this way. So today I only buy from giant Japanese companies (Yamaha) or super small boutique companies (Studio Electronics), not a company that is trying to be somewhere in between boutique and japan giant like I feel Moog Music was. Mr. Miagi say: "Left side, safe. Right side, safe. In the middle get squished like grape." The sad thing is Moog provided jobs for an area that has few jobs and that's the sad part.
  3. I can't say I'm surprised about this - AT ALL. I posted on Synth Anatomy and want to make sure manufacturers are held accountable for their failures and understand what they did. Seems common sense to me but Moog was obviously always oblivious to their problem. Quality Control and poor mechanical engineering. A lot have people have said: “-inMusic fired the people that made Moog a brand you want to buy from.” This is not true. The person that made me want to buy a Moog was Jan Hammer, Kit Watkins, Stu Goldberg, Benoit Widemann, Eddie Jobson, Rick Wakeman, T. Lavitz, Larry Dunn, Mark Kelly, Bernie Worrell etc etc… not the hipster assemblyman with no electronics background that doesn’t bother to wear an anti-static wrist strap while assembling electronics. Whether it was the Moog Voyager that i bought brand new in 2004 whose mod and pitch wheels rubbed on the wheel housing assembly or the reissue Minimoogs with aftertouch strip and low F that rubbed. After my experience with the Minimoog Voyager, I never bought another Moog product again. Every…Single…Person that bought a Minimoog reissue that I know of has had quality control issues with their units. All over Gearspace, all over Moogmusic forum. It’s enough that it made me NOT open my wallet and buy a reissue Minimoog both in 2016 and then again in 2023. I just read horror story after horror story about people having to send this heavy beautiful $5,000 purchase back again. Their issue was quality control. Bad quality control= people scared to make a $5,000 purchase. People scared to make a $5,000 purchase=your company makes no money and they go out of business. Just think of all the Minimoogs they would have sold if they took quality control seriously. Let this be a textbook whitepaper lesson to all manufacturers that cut corners and don’t take QC seriously and don’t think QC will affect your bottom line. In my little meaningless amateur musician, non-famous person bubble I know 5 people x $5,000 that didn’t buy a Minimoog reissue but wanted to but were scared of the QC issues. That’s $25,000 right there. Their attention to detail was not there. Let’s talk about the Minimoog reissue. Other than all the quality control issues from a design standpoint, they put aftertouch (always was a stupid useless feature) on an instrument that never needed aftertouch and didn’t originally have it either. They put an extra LFO on there that didn’t need to be there because the folks that work at Moog Music couldn’t remember that the best of best Minimoog players like Jan Hammer used 1 or 2 oscillators at a time and the 3rd was used as an LFO. They put the “oreo cookie” pitch and mod wheels from a 9 hole, rev3, 75-81 Minimoog on a 6 hole rev 2 reissue that should have had either the smooth clear wheels from a Musonics rev 1 (best looking wheels) or the smooth cream wheels from a rev 2. What a disappointment of a company Moog music was ever since Bob died. Thank god there are folks that are passionate about sound that are still making quality products that actually know what they’re doing. (Thank you Studio Electronics)
  4. ReezeKeys - Thank you for sharing all this. A couple questions: 1) what apps you're running for your sounds on your phone/ipad. Example- I use____ for B3 sounds, I use ______ for electromechanical keyboard sounds. I use ______ for all my synth sounds. Do you switch those sounds by just having different sounds in different apps set to different Midi channels? Wouldn't that mean you have to have all the apps open at the same time? 2) How do you get sound out of this rig? From the headphone jack? 3) and most importantly- what do you do if someone calls your phone during a gig? Isn't that a risk? Or is it not hooked up to any cell provider? Thank you so much, -Al
  5. This thread has turned into a very interesting dialogue and I’ve learned so much from you guys that have “been there and done that.” The whole point of my wanting to explore a iPad rig was hopes of low cost, portability, and state of the art sound using the latest technology but the more I read, I think I am just going to stick to hardware. In the studio, iPad is definitely not needed with the real thing on standby with real instruments like a real Rhodes, Model D etc on standby but for gigs I thought iPad might work for the sake of portability but sounds like cords and batteries etc are more fiddly than worth the hassle. For playing live with friends the smaller and simpler the rig is, the more intriguing and practical it becomes for me. I used to be into huge rigs kinda like drummers who have big kits but the older I get the smaller the rig is the better. In the studio who cares go heavy and esoteric but live smaller and lighter is better. I knew a world famous session player who has toured with Bonnie Raitt and all sorts of folks and I saw him on a gig with a Yamaha Reface YC and a Yamaha Reface CP and he killed it. No joke. Anyway I’m probably gonna stick with hardware but as far as sound quality goes I’m sure software can sound as good as hardware live. Mark Kelly from Marillion was one of the earliest adopters of software live with MainStage and he sounds great. This is a neat comparison I found that compared Keyscape to the latest romplers and it comes out on top. The comparison doesn’t say if the sound quality sounds better live with a band or if it’s just through a computer. My experience has taught me that my guess is hardware through various transformers live would sound equal to or better than keyscape but it’s interesting nonetheless.
  6. Thank you for the video etc. Audio and MIDI both have to come out of the iPad but also how does one keep the battery from running out on the iPad? Do you guys make sure it’s charged before the gig or do you keep it plugged in when playing and how do you do that with so few ports available on the iPad? It seems tricky because the iPad has so few ports like a Lightning and a headphone jack and that is it.
  7. BenWaB3 - sorry I'm a novice when it comes to computers/iPads. Where would bluetooth come in? I mean once you have those apps on your iPad you don't need to be connected to the internet to run your rig do you? Lord I hope not that would rule out all rural gigs as I was just wanting to use the iPad as a standalone sound module. How would you run a midi cable from an iPad to a controller keyboard? Do they make 5pin midi to Lightning cable for iPad? I'm quickly seeing the connections available for an iPad are limited to 1 Lightning connection and 1 3.5 stereo headphone minjack, It seems like that would drain a battery pretty quickly if you're using the lightning jack for MIDI and the headphone minijack for audio. So connection wise would I do this?: Controller Keyboard--->midi cable --->iPad--->Audio out of iPad via thunderbolt to 1/4" cable--->Mixer--->Powered speakers. or this: Controller Keyboard--->midi cable--->iPad--->Audio out of iPad via thunderbolt to 1/4" cable--->Mixer--->Powered speakers. Controller Keyboard--->midi cable--->iPad--->Audio out of iPad via thunderbolt--->Audio Interface--->Mixer--->Powered speakers. Would love to see someone's suggested wiring diagram to get audio and midi out of an iPad. Am I missing a piece? Basically I need Midi to connect to iPad- not sure quite what cable I would use for that. I also need audio out of iPad to my mixer. Don't know if I should use the headphone jack or if I should use Thunderbolt or whatever to go to a dedicated audio interface and then from the audio interface to my mixer with standard 1/4" cables.
  8. Thanks for the response guys. Is latency a non-issue these days going from iPad to controller or is that still an issue? So when using an iPad did you use a cable like this to connect to a mixer? I'm trying to avoid buying an audio interface and go from iPad straight to a mixer.
  9. Hey keys brothers - I'd really like to hear about your experience from you players out there who have switched from a traditional hardware keyboard rig like a Nord Stage 3 or 4 or YC73/88 whatever etc...that you use in the bottom keyboard role to cover your bread and butter keyboard sounds and who have switched to a controller and an iPad rig to do their thing instead. Honest confession: For the last 20 years I've had a Motif Rack (original version) and a controller to cover my bread and butter sounds mainly Piano and Rhodes and Clav and I've been petrified of going to a laptop keyboard rig. I realize my hardware is old and tired sounding and in dire need of an upgrade. I've wanted to stick with hardware but I'm also wondering if I need to really spend 5k and go for a Nord Stage 4 or similar, and if it would be possible to just get a nice controller and a top of the line iPad and a few great apps instead for a lot less coin and perhaps just as good results for Piano, Rhodes Clav? Do you think that's possible? I normally play a 2 keyboard rig- an analog synth on the top like a Model D or sometimes a Sequential Prophet 6 or whatever for leads and sound effects but my bottom board I use for Piano, Rhodes, Clav and basically electro mechanical keyboard sounds with an occasional mellotron in there. On my bottom board, when I do a gig, I honestly use only use about 4 sounds. I think this comes from my olden days when I actually gigged with a Rhodes and Minimoog like Jan Hammer, so I'm not used to needing a lot of sounds nor do I want a ton of sounds. I just want to be able to switch and access those couple sounds quickly which is why I thought of the iPad since it has touchscreen capability vs a Apple laptop. I don't want to scroll through sounds when I'm on a gig and I want to get to those sounds quickly even though I might only use 3 or 4 sounds on a gig. That's why hardware has always appealed to me because I can program my favorite 3 or 4 sounds to some hot buttons so switching sounds is quick and easy. Can you do this with an iPad? I'm hoping someone has had the same thoughts as me and could share their experience. Thanks keys brothers. I appreciate you sharing your experiences and any tips or neighborhood knowledge you've acquired from your experience.
  10. So I heard a few weeks ago that Yamaha sampled some clavinets (FINALLY) because people were so tired of the 2 clav samples from 1990 they've had including the duck quack wah clav sound that they've had since the days of the Yamaha S-80. Is this going to go into a new YC OS update? Hopefully! Hey Yamaha if you're reading this: If you have to remove some stupid brass/horn, trumpet, saxophone, slap bass or drum loop or other annoying unnecessary sounds for a stage keyboard to make room for the Clav samples with all it's pickup settings, you have my blessing. Better yet put it in a YC73 with waterfall keys.
  11. Man that’s what I like to hear! Don’t you love that when something catches you by surprise and gets you wanting to play more and reignites the fire? Love it!!!! Now the question is YC73 on bottom and SK Pro 61 on top or SK Pro 73 on bottom and YC61 on top?
  12. CEB I love Yomamaha too overall it’s been my favorite brand over the last 40 years. 😊 Al Quinn and Outkaster I do believe you keyboard brothers are on to something as a YC and SK Pro would be a superb setup together and a fun combination for sure. My question is have you been able to coax some good mono synth leads out of that VA engine in the SK Pro? Never played one before but its engine looks pretty flexible. SK Pro for the occasional Jan Hammer licks for the win would be awesome if it’s up to the task. Let me know your thoughts.
  13. Fantastic ideas for a fantastic world. We make the illogical logical. Let me introduce to you, the Bathroom Buddy.... or It's the new flagship Yamaha Aperitif super knob!
  14. I had several Motifs and I remember all my friends making fun of what a stupid name Motif was. They would always call it my "Mo' Teef" or say: "Hey did you bring the Mo' Toofases? I got a cavity and my toofases are killing me!" Montage was a pretty ridiculous name as well. What's next? Introducing... the Yamaha Aperitif or............. the Yamaha Montague? What I didn't like about he Montage: Superknob I thought was gimmicky and child-like- equally as lame as Roland's D-beam. Obviously something marketing thought of. The rounded chassis looks like it should say Tupperware on the outside of it. Same with the MODX. C'mon Yamaha give us some metal and some angles again like on the Motif. The thing is huge! A lot of the real estate is taken up by all these faders. Like I don't need my keyboard to look like a recording console. Everyone uses their computers to record. I agree with what some others have said and I never use the onboard sequencer. Workstations are dead and a 1987 concept.
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