Aidan

A more mundane (but accurate) reply

...and...I succumbed. 88 on order, mostly so I can use one keyboard for the Joni shows. Cheers Woody...my credit card salutes you.

Konaboy live streaming it now... [video:youtube]

Especially on a Saturday night gig with a crowd of drunks shouting over a Peavey PA.

Of course it is. That's business.

TP100s are not created equal. It's a mystery of the universe. It's long been a Nord claim that they customise standard Fatar keybeds in one way or another these observations would seem to back up that claim.

I never thought I'd see the day when people on KC were salivating about FM piano sounds!

Not wishing to hone in on either of those manufacturers in particular, but it does make the point that there are other potential costs to factor in when you ponder deviating in your choices from the products of the big corporations with multi-national distribution and service operations.

Scott, I certainly take your point on the maintenance thing (much as I would like a Rhodes/Wurli for the studio, my lack of practical skills is one thing which has put me off that idea) and the Hammond comparison, to some extent. But there are lots of other boards around many of them lighter and cheaper which offer a wide range of great electro mechanical sounds but also offer so much more. My CP4, for example, has models of 1971, 73, 75 and 78 Rhodes, plus a Dyno, all of which are pretty good and can be quite deeply edited to suit your taste. But it also has three really good piano samples and more. I'm sure there will be people for whom the Seven is a fit, but overall I see it as a pretty narrow market, sitting between two extremes the absolute purist (who will buy, maintain and gig the real thing, usually with crew) and the workaday road warrior who needs a board that will do most things pretty well.

Never had the pleasure, Gary, but there you go...

Isn't it really going to be the case that if your gig is so 'EP-centric', most players will prefer to use the real thing anyway, both for feel and authenticity? Sure, lifting and moving a Rhodes or Wurli is a two person job but it's not the same level of challenge as bringing along a Steinway. And there's still a reasonable second hand supply of vintage instruments in decent condition to feed the fairly modest size of that market.

Anything played through the amplification you mention (especially the first) is going to sound miles away from a real piano. I'm failing to understand the love for this, I have to say. Pug ugly design and considering its compass, in a weight category reminiscent of a bygone age.

Oh dear, that 'Rhodes' sounds rather less than 'Superb' to these ears, I'm afraid...

One of the first synths I was ever exposed to was the Juno 60, and I used it to get some great textures that I used in the electro-acoustic stuff I was composing at university. So for nostalgia's sake, I have already looked quite closely at the Deepmind. You're only strengthening my GAS for this!

Chris Martirano doing his normal great demo job - the SP6 sounds really good... [video:youtube]

Has anyone looked at the Kurzweil line recently and thought it has just _too many_ products? Including the various keybed variants, I now count 21 keyboards in their pro line alone. While I know we get excited here about almost any new gear, from a business efficiency perspective, the above worries me. The SP6 is only just beginning to hit the stores, yet already Kurzweil is potentially diverting a chunk of its prospective buyers with the announcement of the cheaper SP1.

Hmm that guy looks kinda familiar...can't quite place him, though...

Bound to be Fatar. Actually, I think the keybed is one of the best things about the SK series, at least for organ playing. Very nicely balanced.

Yup, VASE III disappointing but predictable. As I said, I can't imagine Hammond will want to cannibalise the XK5 engine yet for fear of undermining that product's sales. It'll be interesting to see what they've achieved with the extra voices. It's at least useful that they've removed the restriction on combining types of sound (essentially getting one up on the Electro, in one sense at least) but the samples need to have improved dramatically.

Actually, the technology was already present and ready when Hammond released the original SKs but Nord had the leap on them in terms of the vast amount of work and investment they'd put in to their piano and sample libraries. In retrospect, the extra voices feature was a bit of a half-assed attempt to move in on Nord's territory, and in the intervening years, they've spent almost zero time and investment expanding or improving the library (reed organ, handbell, anybody?). During the same period, Nord has released several new grand pianos alone. It could be, of course, that the amount of memory in the SKs just wasn't sufficient for decent size samples I'm not sure how much memory there is on an SK but I'm guessing the fact that Hammond never mentions it means it's negligible compared with its Scandinavian counterpart. Of course, it could be that the reason Hammond hasn't bothered much with the current SK library is that it realised its limitations and decided to work on a new library for a more capacious successor (the SKX?). Let's hope so.

Yeah, Scott, I am also totally unmoved by the EPs, I have to say. Dexibell seem to be bringing out products left, right and centre at the moment. As a business proposition, I wonder whether they may be a bit thinly spread by having so many different variants.

Hammond are more about evolution than revolution. It's probably too early in the XK5 product cycle to see that engine drip down to a cheaper model, even without the busbar simulation in the action. As for Hammond incorporating the Vent, forget about it. That ship sailed long ago, as I understand the relationship (or lack of one) between Neo and H-S. They were approached, and weren't interested, I believe. More on board memory and some proper, high quality non-organ voices might make things more interesting and give Nord a few sleepless nights. But I doubt that's going to happen, either, especially as there doesn't appear to be a single manual equivalent. My instinct is that it's just a quick fix to keep up with the competition. I love my SK1, but I just found the SK2 too fiddly to use with a single set of drawbars. This answers at least one important criticism.

Could scratch an itch for some, especially those nostalgic for the Kurzweil Micro Piano? [video:youtube]

Drunk girl came up to me after a pub gig and begged me: "Take me home and play me like you play that f***ing piano!" Which really upset me. Because I was playing my Hammond that night.