Greg Mein
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Posts posted by Greg Mein
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It's a fantastic video and appears to be a great product but I need more keys!
Then check out the CDP-S100/150/350, or the PX-S1000/3000. They don't say AiX but you should recognize the sounds.
My wife prefers to use my old PX-3 at gigs, it's simple, has great sounds and of course is lightweight. She hasn't even bothered to try my Roland FA-08 which has been sitting around unused since I got out of the last band I was in. There won't be any new gear purchases around here though until we've moved and settled in elsewhere.
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It's a fantastic video and appears to be a great product but I need more keys!
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That song needs to be banned!
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I installed Reason 11 a while back but to date I'm not sure that I've even opened it, things are hectic for me and the only music work I've had time for is backing track building for our duo. That's all going to change after July when my wife and I are retired. We'll still be busy getting our house ready to sell and looking for our new place but when we get settled I really look forward to getting back to some of my own recording projects. At that point I'll find out how far behind I am on all that has changed with recording software and plug-ins.
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I've certainly used Rewire but admittedly it's been a while. It wasn't hard to do and worked quite well as I recall.
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Stupid me back in the 80's once traded a Gibson Les Paul Custom for a 1978 Fender Twin Reverb. It was the heaviest and loudest amp I ever owned, the 135 watt version. The "Normal" inputs never worked and the tremolo didn't either. When eventually I tore into that thing I discovered that some of the wires to the Normal input preamp tube had never been installed. Later I replaced the "roach" in the tremolo circuit, the 300V opto-coupler type thingie, bought a foot switch and had some fun cranking that amp up with some serious vintage tremolo. I finally sold that amp a couple years ago and also finally, it was in 100% working order.
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How was being left-handed advantageous? With pianos geared towards right-handed players, I would have thought the opposite was true
It's more something I was always told rather than something I can attempt to explain or verify. I believe the idea is that I don't need to concentrate as much to get the bass lines under my hands which may or may not be true although it's for sure that I can't sit at the piano without almost subliminally banging out a steady bass line.
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I find piano to be the most important instrument by far but you really need to determine what it is you hope to accomplish with it because it can be as complicated or as simple as you like depending on your goals and the musical knowledge you already possess.
It was my first instrument where I, like perhaps many others, was given no choice but to start taking lessons at 5. I wasn't overly enthusiastic about it but seemed to have some advantage due to being left handed and did well overall. Of course in the early years all I knew was to play the notes on the music sheet and try to develop some timing ability, it was a fairly narrow focus back then.
I really longed to be a guitar player though and eventually broke away and began to explore that. After a while I became enamored with the idea of mastering guitar noodling and that's when I began to explore music theory. I learned a great deal from that and so many years later I returned to keyboards bringing that knowledge along. That helped greatly in my ability to figure songs out more on the fly using chord charts and improv techniques.
So I'm not sure if I've actually made any kind of a point here but for me I know I'll never be a great classical or jazz piano player but I'm quite happy just being able to throw it down with others on pop/rock tunes and get around the keyboard with some rock/blues/country style playing and licks.
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The two gigs we've done this year so far have been blockbusters with great attendance, people were really having a great time!
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I keep one old Mac on hand to run SoundDiver, and I would gladly take that one as a backup, for just that reason. I can't imagine collecting them, otherwise? Maybe if someone was devoted to old Power PC games.
I remember SoundDiver well, the program that came with my Roland XP-30 in an OEM version. It really made it so much easier to set up patches and programs although I actually had better luck using the PC version which continued to work through a lot of Windows updates. I did have the OS9 version on the 'ole Lombard computer and it worked using midi cables but I could never get it to work using the old round serial port cable, frustrated me no end.
The XP-30 got replaced by a Korg Krome and eventually got sold during an "inventory reduction" but it was a great solid working man's keyboard I had for many years.
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That looks like a "Lombard" model. I remember buying one on ebay years ago so I could have OS9 for some old MOTU hardware programs. I had it for quite a while but I believe the HD was beginning, or perhaps did, go bad so I sold it on ebay again on "as is" status.
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There is more than one right way to do this. This is my way.
Notes
Our methods are quite different but then so is our presentation. I couldn't play a wind instrument to save my life but my wife plays flute and the EWI 5000. We both play keyboards but for her it's the main instrument while I mostly play guitar. 95% of what my system spews is midi and that's where the USB comes in. I'm using plugins, sometimes with automation, on my vocal and guitar and the Thunderbolt interface helps keep that running smoothly as Firewire had in earlier years. Superior Drummer 3 is in a plugin track and being played by a midi track.
I'm disappointed with my MBP but I have gotten eight years of good service from it being my main machine. I've had worse MBP experiences, the 2008 model I bought new was a real turkey and the motherboard crapped out after a couple of years. Turned out that was a common occurrence on that series. These things are expensive and that was really upsetting. Overall though the Macs I've been using over the years have made for a smooth experience.
I always have PC's around also, there's a Dell desktop sitting next to me and I have a Dell laptop over by the lounge chair that I turn on occasionally. I wouldn't rule out using a PC again if this Thunderbolt 3/USB-C thing is here to stay for a while. Up until recently Digital Performer was Mac only. I wouldn't be able to just grab another computer though, I need the driver for my Korg Krome, the MOTU 828x interface software, Superior Drummer 3, transfer licenses for some plugins and probably some other things.
I know we don't have the large repertoire that you do. At this point there are probably 50 songs we can do. My wife is a skilled musician but doesn't have the experience of playing 100's of songs in different bands and being able to pick up and improvise with others the way I do. At the end of the day, although I've put much time and effort into it, it's a hobby for us and is actually going along real well. We've become established and always get call backs.
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It now looks as though the problems I've had recently actually link back to my MBP. Quite a while back the USB port on the right side became intermittent and flakey. Not long after that the speaker on the right side crapped out and has the broken cone sound. The problem appears to have crept over to the left side USB port now. The Thunderbolt 2 ports seem to be the only reliable connections at this point.
Well, that's just not going to do, I need this computer for our upcoming gigs and the USB connection is essential for the Krome keyboard I play and use for backing tracks plus the little Akai LPK25 I use for transport controls. I went to "mac of all trades" and ordered a model that's two years newer and has twice the SSD space and RAM. It's half the price of a new one but also it still has the Thunderbolt 2 ports I need for connecting to my 828x and external drive without the need for adapters. I've been spending many hours creating more tracks for our next gig and a failure would really upset me!
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I've only tried Studio One briefly back when it was fairly new. It may have been a copy that came with the Presonus SL1642 I bought several years ago. I'm hoping that later this Summer or perhaps by Fall when I get moved and settled in I'll have the time to explore some new programs.
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All of the doctors and scientist don't agree. Not even close. I could post dozens/hundreds of examples from highly regarded experts around the world but it's probably a waste of time.
I apologize for being disruptive and will no longer comment on this topic.
If folks were to stop and think about it, we're actually quite fortunate that people can sit around arguing about masks, selfishness, being civilized and so forth on and on for months.
In a true catastrophic event the supply chain would have gone down, stores would have been emptied and regular folks would have been hunting for rabbits and scrounging for grubs in their back yards. You would fear leaving your house but not because of a virus, you'd be terrified of being shot in the street by marauding gangs of thugs seeking to survive by taking what you have.
The struggle just to survive through a winter is a long forgotten memory for modern people and with any luck we'll never have to experience it.
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The 2013 MBP I bought new was the first computer I had with a SSD. It's still going strong but quite a while back I bought a USB drive reader/writer that is a flat unit with a cover and a SSD that could be put in that computer if a fail occurs. I use the Carbon Copy Cloner program to keep a bootable mirror image of the computer's drive. I try to update the clone often and actually had to use the clone once when an update screwed up the computer although I hadn't been keeping up and was reverted back several months.
On my backing track MOTU setup I'm using a Thunderbolt 2 Transcend 256G SSD for my all important Digital Performer files. Every time I work on them (and I've been doing a lot lately) I backup those files to a USB stick but also over the network to the PC that is sitting next to me on my bench. It recently occurred to me that I don't have a direct replacement for the Transcend SSD so I started looking and discovered Thunderbolt 2 is near impossible to find now. Searching through my previous orders I found that I could still get one though and, in fact, was able to order a 512G model of the same drive for less that the 256G would have cost.
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That's really interesting, I can imagine great multi-sampling possibilities. Thanks for posting!
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My travel kit is a RAM 1500 and we do a pretty good job of filling it up when we go to a gig. Out first gig of the year was Jan 20 and it went real well. I try to have a variety of extension cables and a backup cable for nearly everything. Even if my backing track system goes down we can still perform our sets but if we lose an amp the show is probably over.
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For example, I think one reason why Buddy Holly has remained semi-well-known is because so many people have covered his songs, which gives them new life.
We recently visited the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock when we took our vacation trip to Texas late Dec/early Jan. I believe it was a Tuesday and we were lucky to have the place to ourselves. I also finally made it to the Surf Ballroom which is a lot closer for me. That's all 100% history for me because he died before I was born.
On another note we went to see a Buddy Holly/Roy Orbison hologram show, may have been in '19. It was actually really good with a great production and excellent backup musicians.
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Just speaking generally, I've had considerably better luck if I use a USB stick that has an outer casing made of metal. The plastic ones seem to split more often and cause mounting issues.
The stick that became unreadable was a metal case Sandisk 128g, I paid a little more for it because I wanted it "road worthy". The disk refused to mount although the system knew it was there but couldn't see anything on it. Mac Disk Utility told me it repaired it but it really didn't. Oddly enough the stick still seems to work but I had to reformat it. It won't be used for any huge sound content files again.
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What a fun read, really enjoyed that.
I developed a fascination with guitar effect petals back when I was in electronics school for a couple obvious reasons. First because I played guitar but also because they were typically fairly simple analog circuits that I could analyze and try to copy. Being audio frequency it was easy to breadboard the circuits and experiment without the inherent problems associated with RF. I really liked the idea of digital conversion and manipulation but that quickly became more complicated when you needed ADC/DAC, oscillators and +/- supplies so that never got off the ground during my earliest years of garage hobbyist activity.
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I mix our tracks to 192kbps MP3 files, and I've been doing this since 2002. If I had to start all over, I'd keep them in WAV format,
This would probably be the best backup plan for my live tracks, mix them to stereo audio files with one channel click and put them on a player device. It's certainly not practical for me to put together the system Craig mentions at the Shania Twain show. That way if my little MOTU setup were to go down I could still just plug the player in and keep our full sound albeit without the little bit of automation and midi control I'm using.
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I don't like using USB drives but they're small, quick and handy so it's a matter of keeping things slim and trim for live performances. Although it took some time, it wasn't a problem to download the sound file and I didn't lose anything that couldn't be replaced although I'll probably avoid putting the Waves licenses on a stick again. At first I went ahead and installed to another flash drive I had here but decided I should just put it on the thunderbolt SSD that already has my performance file. It appeared that I was allowed to install in two places so the stick can serve as a backup although if the thunderbolt SSD goes down we're back to being a plain 'ole duo show anyway.
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I don't know if you can transfer licenses back to the cloud with Waves and then bring them on to a new USB stick.
Indeed you can. I just had Waves Central up and discovered I had 5 licenses on that dead stick and I was able to transfer them back to the cloud, it says you can do that once a year. Fortunately the one I actually use live was installed on this computer, that one was my main concern. I'm not worried about the rest right now but with them back to the cloud I assume I'll be able to transfer them to a different device later. I have two installed on my older MBP that's packed away in the garage probably until we move, hope it will still be working then!
OT: I just submitted some photos to AdobeStock...
in Craig Anderton's Sound, Studio, and Stage
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Right, after paying a small fortune for their programs it would be interesting to know.