jeffincltnc

I’m going to make an educated guess with supporting evidence that a Nord Stage 4 is going to announce within the next 4 months and skipping the interim pattern of a Nord Stage 3EX. There are already Nord Stage 4 formats in the registry of Windows computers running the latest versions of Nord Sound Manager and Nord Sample Editor on Windows, such as .ns4b, .ns4p and .ns4pbundle (backups, programs and bundles) Screenshots of this are on the Nord Support forum and these versions of Sound and Sample manager have been available for a while, so assume this has been in development for a while. Would assume the new sample format for round robin samples is going to be in the update.

Mitch - I was just wondering if your Yamaha YC's were replacing your Crumar Seven for Rhodes. You've made some comments that the YC has some good Rhodes effects and I thing some of the Rhodes are really good, too. I'm just wondering if you would put the Yamaha up against the Crumar Seven for gigging?

+ Ike & Tina Turner's "Proud Mary" and Aretha Franklin's "Respect"

The Beatles "Twist and Shout" Jeff Buckley "Hallelujah" Janis Joplin "Me and Bobby McGee" Santana "Black Magic Woman" The Animals "House of the Rising Sun" Sinead O'Connor "Nothing Compares 2 U"

Upgraded Arturia V-Collection 8 to V9 for $99 Black Friday. No brainer. Arturia can take my money whenever they want.

Peter Frampton tribute band ready to go.

I use Korg PlugKey with the Lightning style connector, but they don't make them anymore and most iPads are USB-C now. But it's a good device.

I wouldn't say they are overpriced if people are buying them and given how many owners find them as enjoyable to play. For me personally, the price increases on new Nords over the last year will probably have me keeping mine longer and well into the life cycle of whatever comes next to replace Stage 3 and Wave 2, if and when such a thing exists.

Michael Jackson wins this title. He played the 4-chord vamp on "Billie Jean" himself on his CS-80.

I’ve been spending this year on PA, mixing, IEM and Apple stuff this year, especially since a lot of what I wanted from Sennheiser, Yamaha, Midas and QSC were backordered for a long time due to supply chain issues. I also picked up a Yamaha YC88 used for a great price. So I guess it hasn’t affected me too much. I am a flagship keyboard junkie and other than the new Kurzweil K2700 there haven’t been many new products from Nord, Korg, Roland or Yamaha as a new king of the hill to replace Stage 3, Kronos or Montage. I think Fantom and Jupiter will stick around for a long while too, so no big new flagship from them any time soon.

I’ve had an on again/off again relationship with Nords and have owned every generation of Stage at some point, and currently gig in a band with a Wave 2 over a Stage 3 Compact in a standup rig. I don’t care for the way Nord Stage sounds through headphones or in ear monitors in my own practice room at home, but they always sounds fantastic in a band mix through front of house where it matters. They are lightweight, built very well and have learned to get the most out of their synths and doing my own sampling and they are really intuitive for me live onstage. Never a menu dive on a gig. I do think that I was getting better synths, EP and clav out of my Kurzweil Forte when I had it but I would take it to gigs and didn’t love the pianos in a live band context through front of house. I put a lot of time into customizing the sound set for my Forte and I can program my Nords in a ridiculously short period of time. So for build quality, weight, reliability, ease of use and front of house sound, Nord checks the most boxes for me and I have other options for workstations, stage pianos, dual manual organs and software based systems in MainStage if I ever need them. Exception for me is the TP/100 HP keybed which is a non starter for me.

Well... I haven't bought a new keyboard in a little while but I have just done a new rackbox for my personal mixing and small band mixing by getting a few new things and now putting them all together in a rackmount case: Midas MR18 Behringer X-Touch Compact Mixer MOTU M2 interface Sennheiser XSW in ear monitoring system Klark Teknik 20 BR Bluetooth Receiver Furman power conditioner new iPad TP Link AC750 router SKB 6U Shallow molded rack case Rack shelf Looking forward to using this setup for lots of things in home studio and on gigs.

Lots of representation from North and South Carolina here. I'm in Charlotte! (after 20 years in Pittsburgh, I moved here in 2015)

Miter? I hardly even KNOW her.

I love Soniccouture. They are my favorites for The Canterbury Suitcase, EP73 Deconstructed, Clav and The Broken Wurly. Add The Hammersmith piano or their Vibraphone (both very excellent) and you have one hell of a bundle for $249 with this sale that you should run, not walk, to your credit card and purchase. And... yes, I really do prefer The Canterbury, EP73, Clav and Broken Wurly from Soniccouture over Keyscape. That's me and your mileage may vary. This bundle is also $130 less than Keyscape.

And she never had a single wrinkle in her shirt, either.

Maybe it's just me... I am in a new genre at the moment as the sole keyboardist in a 5-piece 80's New Wave band, and I haven't played any of these tunes before, especially at a level with weekly rehearsals and polish. We close our first set with "Our House" by Madness and I am doing the horns and strings on a Nord Wave 2. I think the song slams and it is sounding great in FOH. 4 vocalists, and I am kicking a lot of the signature bass notes on piano and using layers and splits up top with horns and strings. There are several key changes in the chorus and outro. It's a joy to be doing the horns on that tune. This is a band that played over in-ear clicks and had backing tracks for so many of the 80's songs and I feel like I am taking them to the next level as an all-live band without backing tracks since I joined. So, anyway... I will post a video here of us covering Madness after our next gig or start a new thread called "Keyboard Horns That Don't Suck". :-)

I use a Radial Key Largo for 2 keyboards + computer. For larger I would also put the Presonus StudioLive 16R and 24R (or even 32R) on the list as well. The 16R only takes one Rack unit which is a great form factor although I think that 4 inputs go into the back instead of the front. The 24R has 24 inputs into the front and lots of output options for monitor/IEM mixes. I think the Fat Channel effects and form factor are great on these products. The XR18 and MR18 from Behringer are pretty much out of stock for the foreseeable future, but you can find them for sale at prices over $1,000++ and I think I would look elsewhere if the price was going into this range. (so -- Allen & Heaeth Qu-SB and Soundcraft Ui24R come to mind). Behringer does have a nice ecosystem of physical faders, headphone distribution systems and expansion boxes that are good to bridge a stage/monitoring amplification system to front of house (which is what cphollis does). Keep in mind, I am a person who is not a fan of Behringer because I don't agree with many of their business practices and philosophies, but I believe the X-Air and X-32 products and the Midas badged versions with the better preamps and connectors are excellent products. I think a lot of it also comes down to what kind of tool you want to submix. I love the quality of a Radial Key Largo, but in other cases, I prefer to make adjustments on my phone or an iPad. Mackie has the DL32S and a 16 channel version as well, but I think they are like Behringer and not manufacturing anything right now due to parts and chip shortages. (not sure if QSC is making Touchmixes either). So you have to kind of work with what is available these days, too. For all of the iPad based products from Behringer, Allen & Heath, Presonus, Soundcraft and Mackie you can also download their app for free and see which interface you like best. Soundcraft does not use an app and is actually an application server that mixes in a standard web browser, so you don't have to worry about OS or compatibility issues there.

I can give high marks to my DXR 8 Mk2 as my preference. I mostly use them when I need stereo wedge monitors and practice. I gig more often with the QSC K10.2 pair though.

I enjoy playing covers and doing it well as long as there are fresh tunes to pick up. I don’t have much interest in 60’s, 70’s and 80’s oldies anymore. Or at least I didn’t. I’m playing with a cover band as the sole keyboardist that is doing Depeche Mode, Madness, Erasure, The Cure, The Cars, Tears for Fears, Howard Jones and various other new wave era stuff that nobody else is doing and without backing tracks. So… it’s a lot of work to learn and do that well. I also like covering newer and more recent stuff now. Dua Lipa, The Weeknd and stuff gives me a fresh assignment. The 70’s were a long time ago. I am fine with covers as long as I feel like I am staying current and relevant in my approach, what I’m listening to, how I use newer gear like in ear monitors and such, and not just letting myself being an old dog who can’t learn any new tricks.

If there is flexibility on the weight limit, the Korg SV2 73 meets the budget cap as does the Kawai ES920 on the 88 list. Both have their merits.

What will these digital mixers achieve? Aside from a massive reduction of stage footprint, a portable console on an iPad to walk around the room - or mix FOH in a bar from a proper position without running snakes around a little room, giving everyone their own in-ear-mix feed and letting them do whatever they want in the "more me" department on their phone without having to worry about "give me a little more volume on my bass in my monitor, please", and of course, when you gig in the same places over and over again you have your settings saved for the room to call up with a press of a button. Carry it around in a little 4U rack bag with a couple accessories and you are ready to go.

I'm not sure if you saw my post back in May (I know, our memory isn't what it used to be), but I basically said I was in Raleigh for a couple of days of training for work and found that Joe Jackson was opening his tour that night at a small theater in Durham. Headed over after work and walked up to get a single ticket and caught the show. I have all of the same sentiment as you, but he still has a lot of gas left in the tank to do a show. Graham Maby is also on another planet as far as how excellent of a bass player he is with Joe Jackson.

Thanks, many of the suggestions here, I've either decided are not for me, or are recommendations for things that are not attainable and not for sale anywhere (like the MR18 - they aren't being made, there aren't any listed on Reverb or eBay or Amazon either, and even though it has a 10 year warranty, it doesn't transfer to a new owner when a used one is sold). I'd also get the Mackie DL32S -- if you could actually get one, which you can't.

Definitely yes if the gig is playing a lot of Rhodes along with a compact guitar amp like a JC40, it sounds great. If it's two guitarists dueling it out with their Marshall stacks and a drummer kicking Alex Van Halen double bass drums all night.... well.... you know what my answer is already.