Alkeys

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.

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.

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)

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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.

Allan I didn't know the SK1 had good clavs. I had no idea. Good info. That means that the SK Pro and certainly the new XK-4 probably is a good allrounder too. I have never tried the Hammond/Suzuki offerings but always been curious about how they measure up to Yamaha and Clavia because I've never seen them in the flesh-much like many of Kurzweil offerings I just don't see them out there to try where I live. Maybe a Hammond/Suzuki XK-4 with a YC-61 on top or a YC73 with a SK Pro on top? I love playing mono synth leads on waterfall keys- it feels so smooth! Paul thank you for the idea of the Grandstage. I have to try that one out. The Crumar mojo looked really cool to me to but didn't buy it because it didn't have pitch/mod joystick or wheels. You know how some guitarists can't play on a hardtail and always have to have a guitar with a whammy bar? I guess I'm a bit like that on keys. If there's no pitch and mod capabilities the instrument doesn't speak to me because I'll have less fun flying around on it. I have to say it seems like Hammond Suzuki is really killing it these days and stepping up their game. I might have to go Hammond Suzuki/ Yamaha rig.

David Emm- I appreciate your perspective of all keyboard players as I have something to learn from everyone. Even though I love Yamaha I’m open to suggestions. What’s your live rig or what would you recommend for a good 2 board rig?

Thanks you guys I appreciate all your responses. Everyone brings up good points- just wanted to say that it’s why I appreciate this forum. I guess I get so particular with what I am looking at because a) I rarely upgrade my gear and haven’t in a long time and b) I am obsessed with keeping my rig small and want / appreciate small rigs that can do it all. My rigs are always limited to 2 boards. And since I grew up on Rhodes, I have a tendency to like 73 or 76 keys and 88 seems unnecessary because I never use the top couple or bottom couple keys anyway but 61keys seems weird because I like the low notes to be an A or a E and not a C. My dream rig to cover it all for me would be a Nord Lead A1 as a top board and a YC73 with waterfall keys with updated clavinets as my bottom board. The 73/76 keys make me feel more confident on Rhodes playing. Keyboard feel and weight are more important than # of keys overall and I have come to love the feeling of waterfall keys. So getting a YC61 would be a compromise.

Elmer = appreciate you man PJD = You're right. Pipe organ would be nice. Sorry about the Reface YC. I thought it was modeled. My bad. I understand needing the right sounds in worship. On that note I wish the good lord would anoint yamaha with some new clavinet sounds. I'd be high fiving jebus and thanking sweet baby jebus all day long and with microtunings, I can send the good word around the globe transcending space and time. Amen! Maybe when Yamaha does a OS 1.4 update I will get me some new Clavs and then I'll finally be able to pull the trigger on a YC61, although a YC73v2 with waterfall keys and new clav would be an answer to my prayers!

I would like to first say although I use many brands of keyboards, I've been consistently most loyal to Yamaha my whole life and they are my favorite company. I still have a crusty Motif rack classic that I reluctantly carry around only because I've programmed the shit out of it. I don't know how many times I almost pulled the trigger on a new piece of Yamaha gear but it didn't quite have what I'm looking for. My A37 is getting long in the tooth and I need a new board. I would like to hear from those with a similar experience. For me it's this: Abandoning their modeling technology. Dude the R&D is already done and you shelved it. Why???? EX5, FS1R, Reface. Need I say more? Where is the modeling or an updated analog synth model like the one used in the EX5 or AN1X anywhere in their current offerings? Nowhere. Did they use the modeling they used in the Reface CP in the CP73/88 or YC61/73? Nope, samples instead. Did they use the organ modeled in the reface YC in the CK? Nope. Samples. You guys blow my mind. Yamaha CK: Sample based organ. Why are you trying to reinvent the wheel? Just port it over from the Reface YC. The R&D is already done. You've already paid for the R&D many fiscal years ago. Why do you have a sample based organ on the CK when a modeled version that you own already exists? Yamaha Reface series: Form-factor: I even grew to accept the microkeys for portability but give us some range. How bout 61 microkeys instead of 37? Would have been nice to have a 1 space rack Reface YC and a 1 space rack Reface CP. Yamaha YC series as a whole YC 61 and YC73: CLAVINETS: Yamaha please for god sake update your Clavinets and Harpsichords. Why are clavinets so overlooked? I don't get it. They are as iconic as a Rhodes or Wurli yet you spend no time upgrading them. You have the same 2 whack or should I say "quack" clavinet sounds as you've had since the Yamaha S80. The silly T-wah clav and the superstition clav and the effects really just mask the poor quality of the samples. You haven't updated your clavinet samples since the mid 90s. There are 4 pickups on a clavinet and various combinations and resonances. The real thing sounds marvelous and fun. To leave any of them out and rely on 30 year old samples seems like an oversight on a keyboard focused on keyboard sounds. If you update your clav samples, I will purchase a YC. Waterfall keys on Yamaha YC73: probably would have bought it but it didn't have waterfall keys. That was a dealbreaker for me. Soundsets: For the YC, let's focus on mechanical keyboard instrument sounds. I don't need horns, strings and choirs (unless it's mellotron) in my YC. Yamaha if you're limited on memory space for the YC61, get rid of all the useless filler sounds. The soundset for the YC61/73 needs to be this: Pianos, Electric pianos (Rhodes, Wurli, CP80, DX7), Clavinet (all 4 pickups and combinations), Harpsichord, Clavichord, Pianet, RMI, Mellotron sounds, the organs B3, Vox, Farfisa, Acetone, Glockenspiel, Orchestra Celeste (basically all sounds that come from a keyboard instrument) No ability to load DX7 patches: Seems like an oversight since it has an FM engine. No Microtuning: Wasn't the DX7II famous for it's microtuning and alternate tunings? Carry this feature over in the YC so I can get freaky with scales from around the world. Pitch bend range. My Motif rack has a pitch bend range of something ridiculous like +/- 1-127. The YC is +/- 24. C'mon that seems a bit tame. Let me be able to divebomb with a YC like I can on my ancient Motif rack.

Horn players are awesome and badass 100% and I respect them 100% also keyboard players like Greg Phillingaines and David Foster for example who can orchestrate and write horn parts or any part of the orchestra- that's an awesome talent and not knocking it. And keyboard players like for example Wally Minko are super into horns and arranging but I never seen cats like that or someone like George Duke or Herbie Hancock playing horn rompler sounds when they would just rather have an actual horn player play those parts. It's as disrespectful as asking the drummer to play flute parts and see how he reacts. Same thing LOL. Why should it be okay for keyboard players to be expected to play horn parts but a drummer gets a pass for not wanting to play flute parts? LOL! I think I'm going to ask my drummer to play flute parts and see his reaction and have a good laugh over it. This was a hot button for me because I just can't stand horn parts played by anything other than a horn. LOL But all in all, just trying to defend my brother keyboard players! Hate seeing other band members with unreasonable expectations of us keys players.

Jeez it's absolutely crazy to me you're in a band that requires you to play horn parts. It's crazy this thread even exists. That is unfathomable to me. You should quit that band immediately. It tells me that the other guys that are in your "band" don't really give a %^&^&*(* about you as a person or as a musician. I only play music with guys I've known for 20+ years that treat me and my role as a KEYBOARD player not a horn player, and what I bring to the table with respect. None of them expect me to play horn parts nor have they ever asked me to play horn parts in any gig I've played with them-whether it was in a reggae setting, fusion jazz setting, prog setting or heavy metal setting. The closest thing I've ever played to a part that is not a keyboard instrument is a string section and that has been as Mellotron strings (which technically is a keyboard instrument so that counts). As a keyboard player you should only play keyboard sounds from keyboard instruments and that's it- that's means B3, pipe organ, harpsichord, CP70, MKS-20, Clav, Rhodes, Wurli, Piano, synths, Mellotron. That's it. But you should never play or be expected to play instruments like guitars, horns, flutes drums etc- non keyboard instruments nor should you ever entertain doing so and there should never be any part of you that thinks that playing other acoustic instruments from a keyboard is okay. I would never play those sounds and I despise keyboard manufacturers that include those stupid sounds in their presets and keyboard players who think it is okay to do so. If you are a keyboard player that plays non-keyboard instrument parts on your instrument and has agreed to do so, you're part of the problem- the players that have given keyboard players a bad name over the last 50 years. That's where "cheesy keyboard players" association comes from-and I've been fighting it all my life to distance myself from those players. All those jackasses who played brass sounds on Roland D-50s etc. I can't stand those guys as they've given us real players who play only keyboard instruments a bad name because it never sounds good or right to be playing horns, flutes, or guitars or drums or anything else from a keyboard that isn't a keyboard instrument. Every time you play brass sounds on your keyboard you shit all over real players like Jan Hammer, Lyle Mays, Stu Goldberg, Bill Evans, Joe Zawinul, Rupert Greenall, Alan Pasqua, Keith Jarrett, Gary Husband, Steve Hunt, T Lavitz, Geoff Downes, Rick Wakeman, Greg Giuffria, Hannes Folberth, Tony MacAlpine, Kenny Kirkland, Benoit Widemann, Jens Johansson, Don Airey, Philippe Saisse, Wall Badarou, Richard Barbieri, Mark Kelly, Jon Lord, Vangelis, Tony Banks, Gerhard Fuhrs, Quennel Gaskin, Art Tatum, Richard Tee, Kit Watkins, Józef Skrzek, David Sancious, Manfred Mann, Jackie Mittoo...etc... I don't care if "your gig calls for it". The "gig" needs to hire a horn section and if you agree to play horns from a keyboard well I feel sorry for you..... I would never be caught dead playing horn sounds from a keyboard nor would I be proud to hear that sound come out of my amps in front of a live crowd of people or in private. If horn sounds came out of my amps, I would hang my head in shame or rather be behind a curtain on the side of the stage, which is also where a keyboard player should not be. For god sake! Get yourself together man! Have some dignity and respect for your honorable role as a keyboard player and quit that band and never entertain that horseshit again. Loius Vierne would never play horns from his keyboard manuals and never should you my friend!

Thanks for all the responses. I'm looking really seriously at this thing. I've read the manual online for the Gemini Rack but I'm wondering 2 things: 1) The Gemini Rack has 2 screens, looks like 2 engines-that makes sense when it's hooked up as an expander to a 2 manual organ, 1 screen/patch selector for each manual, but if hooked up to 1 keyboard controller like a Roland A-800 or something, do you just use 1 screen and ignore the other? 2) I wonder how the headroom S/n ratio of this unit is compared to a Motif Rack or similar? Hope it has higher headroom.

In my research, I stumbled on a GSI Gemini Rack. Seems like it would be pretty awesome way to get bread and butter sounds live in a rugged format. I've read the user manual and it seems like a pretty unique instrument. It seems like you can edit your presets using a computer, store them and load them to the unit and then use the unit live without being hooked up to a computer. There's not much on YouTube on the GSI Gemini Rack. Any users out there care to give their feedback on how they like it because it looks pretty awesome and would like to hear how you like it! Thanks!