Greg Mein

Nice wood working and it looks handy, always great when things are easy to reach and conveniently located.

All the info I was gathering indicated that the Casio bag was the best fit and the measurements seem to confirm. I added one to my list on Sweetwater but then found a different one, much cheaper, on Amazon. It seems a little too good to be true but I ordered it and we'll check it out. If it sucks I'll send it back. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2JM8HKT?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details I thought it was a little odd that google searches brought up a lot of cases/bags from European countries, I don't want to pay to ship overseas. Appreciate the feedback and suggestions.

My wife recently bought the RD-88 to use for local gigs. I had a reasonably sized and lightweight hard case I thought we'd use for it but when we got the keyboard home I discovered the case didn't have enough height. The RD-88 is somewhat odd shaped; not very deep and rather tall. I have a huge flight case that would work but it's ridiculously bulky for this keyboard and our little local gigs so we put it in the gig bag the Privia PX-3 came with. That works fine but is not a long term solution. So I'd be interested to know if others are using this keyboard and what they're using for transport. Hard cases are great but a padded gig bag is almost preferred. Appreciate the knowledge and advice from the community.

Nice work and I really admire the DIY impetus. I've also built my own rack units on a couple of occasions. Although mine were more function than aesthetic I rather like the raw look. I'd once built a mixer rack unit that I actually took to gigs for a while and around the same time I built a rather tall rack case. Years later, as I thinned out some of my rack gear, I modified the tall rack case to accommodate my SL1642 mixer. It continues to be my home studio rack case. Many years ago I built a pedal board using a power supply I built myself from my well stocked hobbyist supply. I most likely used industry application notes for that as it would have been the early days of the internet.

That thought did occur to me and perhaps could make a difference. I had the movers position it as it sits so the top opens towards the wall and mics go under the "hood" from within the room. The piano wheels sit on plastic casters that will slide on the tile floor without great difficulty and I have a little space to maneuver it around without having to move a bunch of other stuff. One of the frustrations is that I've been trying to do it all myself. I really need to have my wife playing it while I move things around or have someone else come over who can move things around while I play and listen. Actually I probably need three people; one to play and one to move things around while I'm in a different room listening on headphones. I should be able to make it happen but it's just not as simple as I fooled myself into believing, top quality vintage instrument and a good sized room looks good on paper but it's really only the start. Mics are probably my weakest link, Studio Projects C1 and a Rode NT1-A are currently my only condensers. I'm confident that the UAD Apollo Solo should be up to the task albeit only having two inputs. I have other options if I thought I needed to use more mics but apparently some pro studios do it with just one. My impression is that I need a little less "room sound". I'll keep at it and see what happens, it's all in fun anyway!

I've always been a fan of ST, and IK Multimedia stuff in general, I have ver 4 and I'm pretty sure I installed it on my gig mac not long ago. If I were to record our gig backing tracks to audio I would use ST for most the sounds except drums. I wish I could use it live for MIDI backing tracks but I'd never trust running that and DP all together on the same computer. I almost certainly used it on the recordings I did so many years ago.

It's an interesting article certainly but I figured most anyone who cared already knew about this. I'd be a lot more interested in deeper details; musician/amp placement, where the mics were (room mics, amp mics, etc.), what about the gobos and/or other absorption/deflection? I've tried recording our Steinway and so far have not been too pleased with the results because, ironically, it always sounds like it's being recorded in a big room. Now I'll admit I haven't spent a whole lot of time trying different methods. When I went online to do some research it only made it more confusing, no two were doing it the same, often radically different in fact. I can always go into the little studio room, use the FA-08 or whatever, record to MIDI and use one of the fine software emulations but here I have this amazing piano and a big room. I haven't tried for a while but I haven't given up yet either and so it goes.

The trouble with iPads, in as far as I'm up to date, is that there is only one connector. I have a couple; a newer one I use regularly at home and a bit older one that has been laying around doing nothing for a couple years. Also going back a ways I have an IKMultimedia MIDI interface and a Line 6 audio interface for these iPads but you can only connect one of them at a time and, of course, the power cable is also excluded then. Maybe things have changed, I dunno?

I'll need to get into character...

The last one I had was the Roland Fantom XR. A versatile and great sounding unit that featured multi-sampling I used live as my Digital Performer/MIDI sound unit. It was rather large and heavy though as I recall, stuck out farther back than anything else in the rack and increased the overall weight significantly. I remember wishing they'd come out with one that had similar functionality but be smaller and lighter but that never happened. I quit using it in my live rig and sold it. I kind of wish I'd held onto it but I suppose I figured I didn't need it anymore after I bought the FA-08.

This is a strong point and very valid when it comes to actually learning, playing and practicing these instruments. I was looking at it more from the perspective that I hadn't even touched the instrument yet and am only looking at the layout.

I used the term baseline standard for a couple of particular reasons; the full range of 88 keys, of course, but also because it's laid out in a linear fashion as opposed to a guitar, for example, that can have five middle C notes along the neck. Anyone can sit down to a piano and begin to understand about notes and octaves as, at your left it begins with the lowest notes and works to the highest at the right. It's the essence of the 12 tone western music scale where sharps/flats are easily distinguishable as black keys. As far as what's the best sounding, most fun, loudest, quietest, most easily transportable, etc. instrument, that's an entirely different discussion, in my mind anyway. I'm always open to entertain other ideas on the matter. 😼

I had a nice basement space with big plans for treating the room. My research lead me to buy some boxes of the Owens Corning 703 rigid fiberglass panels I was going to use to make isolation panels and I stuffed the ceiling with batt 30. Sadly though I moved away before I could finish that whole project.

Ah, the reason I bought the old Casio Privia PX-3 although in that event I can go even smaller and lighter with the 61 key Krome! I certainly didn't intend to insult other instruments or players, after all, I also have a respectable little collection of guitars, a bass, a five string banjo, several harmonicas and a fiddle that will send cats running for their lives while, aside from keys, my wife also has/plays a couple of mandolins, a flute and the EWI5000 electronic wind instrument. The indisputable point about the piano however is that with 88 keys, no other instrument has its range. When I played keyboards for the rock hits show with the symphony orchestra the conductor had me play an A note for the orchestra players to tune with. At my age though, I'm not in competition with other players/instruments or whatever. I'm not interested in being the fastest player tossing out the most notes with technical perfection. I just enjoy having fun playing.

The FA-08 was a bit of a paradigm shift for me. I was still in the band when I got it so had to get busy figuring it out quickly. It didn't turn out to be overly difficult to learn the basics and I soon had all the studio sets that I needed to get through the night with the wide variety of music we were doing. Whereas before I would switch between patches or performances as needed to maximize efficiency of user locations, it didn't matter whether a studio set was a 16 part multi-sound extravaganza with splits, octave shifts and effects or if it was a simple piano patch, the amount of storage locations made it a non-issue. I also used the pads for some samples and the only feature I would have wished for was multi-sampling but I also missed not having an editor/librarian program for the computer. The FA-08 is the centerpiece keyboard for my studio now but sadly hasn't seen much action for a while. The studio time lately has been dedicated to updating and tweaking our live gig where, aside from a couple guitars, I take my Korg Krome 61 while my wife is using her new Roland RD-88.

After four moves inside of the last 10 years I developed an ability to let all kinds of things go, the more you do the easier it gets.

I would argue all day that a piano is the baseline standard instrument for a musician. With the top propped open our baby grand easily drowns out my acoustic guitar, an amazing sound that fills the room. Yours looks fabulous and I'm sure it sounds incredible. I hope it provides great joy and musical inspiration for many years!

Don't quite understand this, whenever I've modified a patch it had to be saved to a user location in the user bank. I never knew it to be possible to alter a patch in its original location.

I've always been a Roland fan, they're arguably at the top of the list in the category of 'working man's keyboard'. I bought an XP-30 new, must have been around 2000 and played it at a lot of gigs up until I sold it six or seven years ago. It was a step up from an older model ( possibly an XP-10) I'd bought at a pawn shop. Back then keys weren't my main function so these really did the trick for me. As much as I liked the XP-30 though the pull of more preset storage eventually got to me, especially after I joined a band where my main focus was keys. At one point I even bought a used JV-1080, the rack mount version. I can't even remember why I thought I needed it but kept it for a couple of years. The old bank/patch and performance method always worked well for me and I don't fully understand why they've drifted away from that. Thinking about it brings back good memories.

When we moved from IA to NV in late '21 we knew we'd need a specialty company for the Steinway (legs must be removed and all padded, crated, etc.) but it turned out that same moving company could also move all of our stuff which really helped simplify things. They were a great bunch of guys and did a stellar job moving us. My guitars and some other gear got priority in my truck though of course. I certainly never had as much gear as you do, at least not at any one time, and I've never had most of those high end keyboards you do, nice collection there! Over the years (starting with my introduction to MIDI) I wholeheartedly embraced adapting to ITB; it was convenient, cheaper, took up less space and working with computers was a big hobby of mine. Even so, I've cycled through a great deal of outboard gear as well. Best of luck as you get your studio up and running again, some great looking stuff there!

I just recently purchased a Dell 27 Gaming Monitor G2722HS to replace an old 27" Samsung that's had intermittent problems for quite a while. I was amazed at the $150 price tag, expected to pay a lot more and looking now I see the price has shot up significantly. I jumped on it without enough thought, the monitor has only HDMI and Display Port input while the 10 year old Dell XPS I was connecting to was DVI-D single link and HDMI outputs. Wouldn't have been a problem except I'm not happy unless I can dual monitor with my 43" LG. I ordered a DVI to Display Port cable without realizing they are one way, the opposite way. So I had to actually do a little research and discovered that a DVI to HDMI cable is bi-directional. I returned the first cable, got the one I needed for a couple dollars less and am real happy with the speed and sharpness of this new monitor.

It's hard to visualize what this performance must have been like, is there any video of you doing this?

This has been at the back of my mind for a while, I really need to mix all our backing tracks down and have them on a player for a backup. We honestly haven't done many gigs this year and I often hesitate to fire up that system at home and work on adding new stuff, tweaking, etc. in favor of just writing and trying to record my own stuff for my own satisfaction, fun and because my creative impulse compels me. It would be a pretty big project. Currently I use my Korg Krome to play midi backing tracks with SD3 for beats. To do it properly I'd prefer to use Sample Tank for the sounds and mix all those midi tracks to audio. I keep telling myself I'm going to do it but honestly gigs aren't that important to me anymore and I don't actively pursue them myself. I can't explain what happened to my motivation for live gigs other than I dislike hauling, setup/teardown and dealing with the publicity end at my age.

My NY resolution couldn't be more cliché, get back to the rec center where we have membership and also spend some serious time with the weight machine on the back porch. Things changed a lot after I retired, it was hard to develop or maintain a fitness routine. While I was still working it was basically robotic; get up at 5am work out and then prepare for work everyday. It's something I've got to get back to albeit without the early rising.

Ever had one of those times when something failed or needed replaced just days before a gig? It happened to us yesterday when the old Casio Privia PX-3 flaked out beyond a simple power cycle reset. I bought this keyboard probably 10 years ago because it got rave reviews and sounded great but mostly because it was way lighter than most 88 key boards and so was easy to transport to jams, parties or similar laid back fun time events. When my wife and I started doing our duo gigs a few years ago she took to it for the same reasons; it's light, has good sounds and is easy to operate. We knew however that this one would need to be replaced when it began to have intermittent issues that required a power cycle. Yesterday though something weirder started happening with odd pitch bending like every key had some kind of portamento going on. A power cycle didn't "fix" it right away. No more gigs for that thing and we have NYE! So we needed a replacement and fast. Now, she could have been using my Roland FA-08 for a while, it hasn't seen a gig since I got out of the last band in 2018 but it's more complicated, bigger and heavier and she was completely intimidated by it. The Privia PX-5S would have been a familiar update but I kind of thought we needed a step up from the Casio with better MIDI implementation and after a little research began to zone in on the Roland RD-88. Guitar Center wouldn't answer the phone but we were able to talk with someone at Sam Ash in Las Vegas who was very helpful. We drove down there today, they had one on the floor to try out, she liked it and we brought one home. She's managing to get up to speed with it quickly and seems to be taking a real liking to it in no small part due to the helpful youtube videos created by Ed Diaz at Roland. Ed did a great series of helpful videos I absorbed back when I bought the FA-08 and I told him how much I appreciated them when I saw him at Sweetwater Gearfest a few years back. So it seems that she'll be able to find the sounds she needs and get them placed in easy reach to get through the NYE gig without my assistance which is great news because I have some other issues I'm still working on. Not long ago we bought a couple of the Xvive U4 in-ear monitor units which work great but are a big change for us and required me to make some extensive and time consuming alterations to our DP sequences file. Also today I changed the channel on my Line 6 G90 guitar wireless unit because I believe all those things are operating in the same frequency range and could cause problems. In addition to these things we've also worked on a few songs we'll be performing with a local guest singer and now one of our musician friends is flying out to surprise my wife and will also do some performing with us. So I'm inclined to stay positive and believe this will be a fun and interesting gig, I'm quite certain it will be anything but routine!