jeffincltnc

80's New Wave tribute with a Korg Nautilus 73 on the bottom board and a Nord Wave 2 on top for hands on knob twisting. Not much piano, organ or rhodes/wurly/clav for this band, it's over 95% synth.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but he was my brother's bass teacher at the Ithaca College School of Music in the late 80's and they are still very good friends. (not to mention that my bro is a monster bass player to say the least - clearly the more talented musician in the family - lol!)

I do an 80's tribute that is all new-wave and synth oriented and do use some sequencing on tunes like "Rio", "Hungry Like The Wolf", "Blue Monday", "Bizarre Love Triangle", "Just Can't Get Enough", "Don't You Want Me Baby", "The Promise", "You Spin Me Round", etc. If it goes with the song properly, I use sequencing to nail the tune.

I haven't posted in a while, but, yes, I am keeping very busy with an 80's New Wave Tribute show and use the Nord Wave 2 as my top board over a 73 key Korg Nautilus in that rig. The Wave 2 is ideal for me for the hands on controls, knobby and fader controls, aftertouch, flagship build quality and small form factor and I especially use the sample space quite a bit to sample a lot of critical sounds from my plug ins and soft synths like Arturia V-Collection but leave the laptop setup at home for shows. Because I also have used Nord Stages for so many years, I know the Nord workflow and I can build patches much much faster in Nord Wave 2 than in alternatives and the use of sampling and four layers is perfect for me in a gigging setup. I had a Jupiter X for some time but it was too big for me to gig with.

I had a really great run working for them from 1993-1999 as a reseller of Media Composer and used to build/install Avid nonlinear editing suites and Softimage compositing workstations into tv stations, post production houses, ad agencies and corporate marketing departments. It was a great product and had very little competition back then. I made a pretty good living at it given my younger age at the time.

The parts aren't available to build them anymore and they aren't licensing KARMA anymore either.

I've acquired two new boards in the last couple of months - a Nord Stage 4 and a Nautilus, and have been buying lots of lights, so I would say my GAS is alive and well. lol

My theory is that they are selling way at the new price discount and the market is still soft so the discount is meeting its purpose to maximize sales volume and profitability to build them. I know I bought a Nautilus during this sale and so did Prof D. Not sure who else picked one up.

I think I'm right in the same spot as Eric. 2-3 gigs per month with an 80's New Wave Tribute band in Charlotte, NC and into South Carolina, and one weekly rehearsal which is usually attended by all unless business travel gets in the way. Everyone has a day job, kids of some age and a significant other. I have teenagers and one in college so they are fairly independent but we spend weekend time together as a family too. But the show is pretty polished now and we could gig a whole lot more if we wanted to be more aggressive on the festival and tribute band circuit especially in the summers. I also will still hit the high quality open stage jam sessions and do pickup gigs with a guitar player/singer as an accompanist to play song book type tunes. But that's up to me whether I want to get out vs. stay in.

I don't like the term "on par with" things like Summit and Hydrasynth. They are all different. Nord Stage 4 and Wave 2 synths are VA, FM, Wavetable and Sample. They don't have infinite routings and modulations but the Nord synths are both really fast and quick to dial in whatever you want but also kind of walled enough so you really can't get a bad sound on it. Others are deeper in some areas but don't have the ability to do some of the things Nord can do like load samples, etc.

And maybe this year Piano Man Chuck has to stretch out a little bit and review the new Clavinova?

I built a rack unit with a Midas MR18 and a few other things. It’s nice. Be aware of mixing on an iPad that new updates to iOS can make your mixing apps unusable. (This is an issue for Behringer but you can also use Mixing Station). I’m really not a fan of anything Behringer or Music Tribe but the Midas MR18 is a great piece of kit.

The word “Montage” makes me think of “Rocky IV” or “Baywatch” editing.

I’ve always doubled the horn riff on an organ with fast Leslie.

I’m pretty sure Reezekeys plays this in his set since he’s…. ummmm…. the keyboardist for the Average White Band. 🙂

Just the fact of knowing I got like 20 replies to this probably means I spend a lot of time here chatting about gear and keyboard music life.

I like it. It doesn’t have the same depth of jazz or soul music that Pittsburgh has, which is a treasure trove city of locals who live there. It took me a little time to find my tribe but also not very long after the move. I have been in a few bands here from an 80’s new wave tribute, to a reggae band, to live band karaoke to a funky bar band, plus lots of open jam nights. Have met several interesting keyboard players here who are great. I’ve hung out with Macsaint a few times, and another friend plays a Hammond C3 for the AHL pro hockey team here, so there are players everywhere. There is a lot of church bands here too which I don’t do, but literally something for everybody. I have also thrown my hat in with an 8 piece jazz/funk horn band and a Sade tribute show who didn’t give me a steady gig for trying out but I would have loved those, too. Can’t go wrong here as a player but maybe less hair bands playing out would be an improvement to me.

I’m thinking about sampling the sounds of the crickets I’m hearing so far.

Considering that I relocated from Pittsburgh to Charlotte almost 8 years ago, I have updated my display name, but wanted to let you know that since I am very active on this forum every day, I am still very much the same person. Jeff

Mint condition, except for a missing knob and some scratches on the wood. Easy to fix. New in box, barely used it at home only a few times. Gently used floor model. Top of the line, sells for over $3,000 new (but is a 15 year old model out of production) Never gigged, only used at our church.

David Weiser can program this in his sleep on a Kurzweil. 🙂

I make notes when I'm learning a tune or arranging things with a band. For my band that has a setlist planned each time we go out -- the show we are going to do in order - I just have everything scanned into a PDF file and use Adobe Acrobat to change up the order, which is also the same order that I have my patches to power up. Nothing high tech here. I just view my show notes in order of song to song in a good old fashioned Adobe Acrobat viewer and swipe my finger to scroll pages. Same thinking with my keyboards. I use Nord Sound Manager and just drag and drop the order of my patches in order from start to finish. Nothing is MIDI or automated, but everything is in order as it needs to be. I have an older iPad from about 2015 that I just use as a PDF viewer and to make tweaks to Mixing Station if I need to, but isn't really doing any kind of processing as a sound source. I have a second iPad that I bought last year in 2022 that is newer as a sound source. I have other trios where we just pick from a few hundred songs on the fly and I still have an old school binder in alphabetical order, but I have been too busy or lazy to actually scan that many sheets of paper.

I really want to improve as a backup singer - both in timing, preciseness as well as singing harmony. I don't like how in videos seeing how much I am tweaking knobs and all over the place with controls as much as I am. I need to improve stage wardrobe and dress like someone who is performing.

There's a few things there for a wide range of the gigging keyboardist in what may be a muted year for new keyboard launches. I am always surprised by something or another that I didn't see coming, but I suspect this most likely isn't the NAMM where the next generation of Montage or Kronos replacement drops. With the Nord Stage 4 on preorder and the addition of a Nautilus in my gigging toolbox I'm really good on keyboards for the year for sure.

How is it as a piano? Does it pass the Keyboard Corner forum test for being playable as an AP? Is it just a sample or is it robust in terms of velocity layers, velocity curves, string resonance, or even things like close/ambient options?