Greg Mein

Yes I saw your photo in a recent email from the midi association, congrats!

My wife bought me a new suitcase...........hmmmmmm. Actually we've done a lot of traveling and she didn't like the ones I had so she got me a model like the one she recently purchased. I used it on our New Years trip which this year was Charleston, SC for several days. As for her I bought the Roland Mobile Cube amp which I hope we can use for the keyboard when traveling or perhaps even in small places.

My main MBP is also of this vintage and continues to be a strong performer. While I was still in the band I used a MOTU 828x thunderbolt interface and connected keyboards via a USB hub while running Digital Performer/Reason Rewired. Never had a problem or glitch and it continues to be my main laptop although I've refrained from upgrading beyond 10.13.6.

I follow the apparent consensus here; listen to the song but occasionally don't like a mix or parts in a mix. Really what I do though is analyse everything, oh they've moved to the flatted 7th, he went up to the iii, there's a real Strat sound! etc.. My wife, who is an accomplished musician albeit more in the sight reading vein, says I've ruined music for her now that I've got her analyzing everything also.

I can't remember the last time I had a turntable but I have managed to hold on to a small stack of LP's, perhaps 100 or more. I suspect we'll be moving this summer so I've been trying to hold off on purchases but I look forward to getting a turntable again and listening to some records, it was a big part of my youth for sure!

Sounds like something from a tropical climate which incidentally is where I'd prefer to be!

Sorry, Greg, but this IS some outdated, misguided impression. Maybe true around 1985 or so. Yes I'm certain it is. I've had a few of both over the years and I definitely felt it was true at least as late as the 90's and perhaps into the 2000's but I've always had the "kitchen sink" models if you will. The keyboards I was most recently using for band gigs are an FA-08 and a Krome 61 and overall I've found what I believe to be good organ and piano sounds on both. Since the Krome was just a 61 it sat on top and was typically used when I needed organ sound. I've actually been pretty happy with the Casio Privia PX-3, I think it has some great piano, organ and other sounds. It's the one my wife uses for our duo gigs and it gets massive bonus points for being so light weight. I doubt that there's anything I'd ever find plugged into a wall outlet that would sound as good as our 1920 Steinway Model O and I don't have a Hammond for organ comparisons. I'm thinking that with the improvements in memory size and technology most keyboards you can buy these days have some great sound.

Is this some outdated, misguided impression that somehow got into my head or is/was there some basis in truth for this idea I seem to have?

I'm using my i5 MBP which was the last 17" version as my main studio computer. I have video out to a huge Samsung HDTV and I'm using the original Presonus SL1642 which I've had for a number of years but have hardly used until recently. That setup is working well for me and I've finally gotten back into some recording work after a long lull. I was sad when I upgraded it to 10.13.6 because I lost Logic Pro 9 but I still have Digital Performer, Reason and others. One of the big reasons I cling to this setup is because that computer has the expresscard slot for my UAD solo laptop which fortunately still works but I'll not upgrade the OS on that computer ever again for the remainder of it's life!

After our final move, possibly this coming summer but no later that the one after, I will unpack the CD's and albums and they will have a special place in the house!

You can record it for your grand kids to watch!

The short version is that I can likely pass the audition for most any pop/rock band playing guitar and/or keys. My background is that I was essentially forced to play piano from age 5 by my mother. It wasn't really a struggle for me, my left handedness gave me an advantage and we had a very good teacher from the hollywood hills. Looking back on it though I believe I could have benefited greatly if I'd also had a good mentor, someone to really show me the ropes on the Jerry Lee Lewis style could have probably made me a monster! Anyway, after moving to the mid-west the teachers were never as good or engaging and I rebelled against the keys since I'd always had a strong desire to play the guitar. I was off and on with that but then found some good mentors and also became enthralled with the study of music theory and improv. After a number of years I began to realize that keys added a lot to the pop/rock style of music that is my preference and decided I needed to re-incorporate some of that. I came back to keys with a strong foundation in theory which helped me approach it in new ways rather than the early years of just sight reading. Over the course of time I've messed around with other instruments. I have an American Fender Precision bass that I've used for my recordings. I'm certain I have the skill to join a band with that however I don't know if my fingers would have the stamina for a full night on it! I have a banjo that I spent some time learning but not nearly enough to be of any use to anyone. I bought an old accordion and discovered it's quite a challenge to learn. It was quite a fascinating story when a gal from Chicago tracked that instrument down from a thread I'd started at the SSS forum on Harmony Central in hopes of buying it. Her father had had the same model as a child and she wanted to give it to him for Christmas. I also bought a violin a few years ago but have spent absolutely no time attempting to learn that up to this point. Although I don't dedicate nearly as much time to playing instruments as I used too, I always felt that playing more than one helped to keep it more fun, interesting and challenging.

I think it's a nice feature to have but I don't foresee us using it under any normal circumstances. There are only a handful of songs we do that don't benefit greatly from keyboards and ours require an outlet.

When my wife and I decided to pursue gigs as a duo I started looking at the "PA on a stick" options. I mentioned the JBL Eon One Pro as a possibility and before I felt like I'd had a chance to really research others my wife ordered it. Shortly after we started out I decided we'd just use it for our vocals and use amps for instruments. I'm using an old Roland KC100 I bought second hand years ago at Music Go Round for my keyboard and guitars and she uses a Behringer Ultratone K1800FX I've also had for a number of years for keys, flute, mandolin and EWI-5000. So far I've been satisfied with this setup, we play small places and this is a small and reasonably light load in/out.

I find it interesting that the OS upgrades (at least for Mac) are now freebies. As I recall, the OS upgrade used to be an expensive experience that required great fiscal consideration.

It really is about having fun. It hasn't always been fun for me either. I've been pulled in directions I didn't want to go and stressed out by the amount of work I've needed to do with some bands. I have a great full time job where I'm paid well and don't need to be out playing at all. I've certainly thought and dreamed about being a professional over the years but it most certainly has been better for me to keep it as a hobby. It's a hobby I now get to share with my wife which is totally awesome. Even so, I've been involved in playing essentially all of my life and in recent years it's gotten harder to remain motivated and inspired but since it's not a requirement I mostly do it at my leisure these days and don't spend a great deal of time at it.

I've been pretty johnny on the spot with Reason upgrades over the years but I may hold off on this one for a while.

On the Motown Museum tour (highly recommended) people are encouraged to sing into the opening that leads to the attic. That was the reverb used on countless hits from the 60's/70's!

After losing Logic 9 on one due to OS update I decided to leave my two MBP's alone and hopefully they can live at OS10.13.6 for their duration!

I've got a pretty respectable collection of guitars I've accumulated over the years. I Wanted a guitar the moment I became aware of the Beatles however my mom insisted on keeping with the piano lessons. At five I probably wouldn't have been able to play one anyway. I certainly dived head long into them later! I've been in many bands over the years playing either/and/or keys and guitar but these days most calls come in for keyboards. Keyboardists, in this area anyway, are extremely difficult to find and most bands don't even bother. Guitarists, on the other hand, seem to be a dime a dozen.

There was a great deal of buzz about it when it came out and I remember your demo video. It was fun and I liked it, it was part of my live rig for a while. Alas the software was required in order to get the most out of it and there were a couple of glitches that had no chance of being addressed after it got dropped. A trucker with a route that passed through the area bought it from my craigslist posting. Apparently he was going to mess with it during down time on his travels.

I've used rewire on live gigs with great success but actually just as a sampler where I "wired" NN-XT into my Digital Performer sequence. I have to say it was a really slick way to go! The NN-XT is intuitive and easy to get going as opposed to an external unit where I've had to work through menus and imports. Plus the software is already installed so there's no additional hardware or cabling. I'm pretty certain I've used rewire for recorded as well but it's been so long since I've recorded anything I don't remember any details.

I can't remember a time when award shows ever interested me and I'm not sure if anything would change that. What little I've heard about them, or snippets I've seen, in recent years makes them appear to have become a political bash fest.

I've also scaled back on keyboards. Over the last three years I've sold the XP-30, Venom, Fantom XR (rackmount) and Kawai CE220. Getting married required some consolidation and I just didn't need those. I continue to cling to a few however; the FA-08 and Krome 61 which I'd been using for gigs with the band up until a year ago. I'm still using the Krome 61 while my wife uses my Privia PX-3 on our duo gigs, such a great meat and potatoes lightweight full size. Otherwise I still have a Korg TR88 mostly because it's the only one that fits at my home made work station but the gem around here is my wife's 1920 Steinway Model O.

I'm not exactly sure what daft is but a couple of the silliest ones I wrote/recorded are these: Angels Taught Me (The Geek Song) And: Go