MuzikTeechur

Yes! I was listening to "Burnin' Down the House" and that song is heavily reliant on the Clavinet!

We bought an early-90's Escort wagon for our oldest when she was in HS. She passed it down through three more kids, and if it hadn't been totaled by the youngest I suspect it'd still be in service. Those things can take a BEATING.

I've had Minivans, a Tahoe, sedans with fold-down seats... For the last two years, this has been my GigMobile - the "Band Wagon"; 2008 BMW 535xi

500 HP?!!! Hell no, they had a 400M 2 barrel carb; 167 HP tops. But lots of torque. We had one for the family band. Hauled a Hammond Porta-B, Leslie, Drum set, Guitar, amp, and PA. Awesome! I think those wagons had 500 hp engines. And extra points for pretty much being the National Lampoon Vacation car.

The blue lights are funky and fun, but the LED that lights up the "PC4" on the backside is positioned perfectly so that it shines right into my left eye through the gap for the mod wheel - and is maddeningly distracting in a $2K board. I know I can shut off the PC4 light, but I shouldn't have to.

I'll put up with a lot of shit in and around the bandstand. However, the following are certain to elicit a pissy prima donna response from me *every time*: 1) Tell me there's not enough room on the stage, so I need to set up off stage - Stage Left/Right (3' below everyone else, in the dark) 2) Cram me in next to the drummer with his crash cymbal 12" from my right ear 3) Ask me to set up in front of the bass stack or the guitar stack. 4) And my favorite: do a sound check before I'm plugged in, and then say it "sounds great!"

I think we've all just been Rick-Rolled.

I was hired for a wedding. For Prelude music, they wanted me to "play the Goldberg Variations." "Yeah. OK. I'll get right on that. You're getting married in 2050, right?" I don't think they really understood that there are varying degrees of "Piano player."

I think that's the very first 70's variety show performance I've ever seen that was actually live. Most of them are laughably lip-syncing - guitars not plugged into anything, strings on the recording but nowhere in sight on the stage, etc. That band can really groove, and Linda had the pipes. Long before auto-tune and "backing tracks."

Don't forget the Casio PX-5s. Incredibly versatile keyboard, good weighted action, light weight. Question: With any of these keyboards, which don't have on-board speakers, you'll need an amp or P.A. system, which will have to be plugged in. I don't see the advantage of a battery-powered keyboard. It's one more cable, and you're going to need power anyway for your amp. So.. what's the advantage? I've only used the batteries on my Casio once on a gig - somehow left my power cord at home, and sent my friend out to the store for batteries.

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS ^^^^^^^^ I've owned so many types of stands I've lost count. This is light, easy to set up, strong, and infinitely adjustable. Only downside is that it's a little pricey compared to others (lesser stands).

Yes, in my youth I listened to lots of music by young (teen and pre-teen) people: Wayne Newton Michael Jackson Donny Osmond

I have a Tascam DR-05 that I love love love. You can use the built-in stereo mics, or plug in a line. Line levels are fully adjustable, and it takes micro SD cards. I use 4 GB cards and they will hold a LOT of music. I recently used it to digitize a couple of record albums not available on digital and it did a great job of that. Very versatile, and not expensive. The DR-05x is currently on sale on Musicians Friend for $89.

ProTip: (because I didn't find it anywhere and had to go by trial-and-error). USB Thumb Drives must be formatted in MS-DOS FAT, or the Kurz won't recognize the files. It's probably a good thing that my gig schedule is so sparse right now. What with teaching Remotely AND "In Person" in a hybrid model (public school) I'm going to need a few weeks (months?) to really learn this board. At one point I had a Kurz SP88x (927 pounds) which I used both as a main board and a controller. Main complaint: it had a tiny two-character alphanumeric LED display that used cryptic codes for stuff. It was laborious (on a good day) to program. The PC4 has a beautiful display that has great information in performance mode, and a huge amount of information in programming mode. I'm glad someone at Kurz was listening!

Well, it arrived yesterday morning (two days early: Thanks FedEx!). I'd like to say I didn't dig into the packaging like a kid on Christmas morning, but it was close. First off: it's very light. EXCEPTIONALLY light for a Kurz. My last Kurz (PC1x) with case was in excess of 75 lbs. Second: LOTS of inputs and outputs. Two CC inputs, Two L/R outputs, L/R INPUTS, and 1/8" input. Holy smokes! Decisions! Choices! I took the easy way out and wired it into my mondo stereo (400W should do it, right?) from the headphone jack - thinking: "if there's anything to hear, it'll be in the headphone jack, right?" So, the pianos are great, the organs (KB3) are great, exactly what you'd expect from a Kurz. I still think I'm going to need my Neo Vent, but we'll see... The effects suite is amazing - someone really put some time and effort into these. With the reverb you can just give the piano a little wash, or make it sound like it's 300 yards away in an empty stadium. Phaser, chorus, Wah, etc. All adjustable in real-time without menu-diving. 9 sliders - of course; and the drawbars are represented on the screen so you know exactly what each organ patch is "doing" - and you can grab a slider and change them on the fly. Did I mention it's exceptionally light for an 88-key controller? My Casio PX-5s is also light, but in more of a plastic-y way. Perhaps this has been done elsewhere but a first for me: Finally someone put a dedicated tempo knob on a keyboard so those patches with a beat/rhythm/arpeggiation can be set to match YOUR tempo, not just what someone at the factory deemed appropriate. In real time. No menu diving. Key action: a little more like the Korgs - but a good weight for piano playing. I like my keys to "fight back" a little; a little resistance so I can 'dig in' when I want, hold back when I want. Still playable in organ mode, too. Dave Weiser hooked me up with some resources and a sound bank he had done - great guy - so today I'll be doing the recommended OS update and loading in some custom sounds. Can't wait! With this Covid mess my gig schedule is a shadow of its former self, but I'll have this out in a live situation soon enough. Again: can't wait!

Chuck says: 'You shop here, Why not work here? Find your dream job ...' https://www.sweetwater.com/careers/openings/?utm_content=hero&utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20200925-hrrecruitment-t1 I only have four more school years after this one before I can retire (6% penalty for every year before age 62 otherwise). However, given the current restrictions on what I can do in the classroom (for instance: no playing in band or chorus unless it's OUTSIDE [we're in Maine] and distanced at 14'), I'd pull the plug today and bank my retirement if I could find something else to pay the bills for a few years. Hell - I'm still young: I'd do something until I were 65 or more if I liked it.

I had an SRM150. It died after about 2 years. Just failed to to power up on the gig one night. Disappointed.

Yesterday I was reading in one of the threads here where someone had suggested some keyboards to someone else... so I followed a link to the Sweetwater site and found myself perusing Kurzweil keyboards. Now, I haven't bought many brand new keyboards in my life - I prefer slightly used and let someone else take the initial depreciation (like with my cars). However... I started drooling over the Kurz PC4 88. Before I knew it, I had watched the demo, and ...oh? What's this? 0% financing for 36 months? Well, don't mind if I do! It'll be here Monday. When I came to the forums yesterday, I had zero intention of purchasing a new keyboard. So.. thanks for that. Anyone want to buy a well-loved but perfectly functional PX-5S?

I use a Casio PX-5s for my lower board (piano action, piano, EP, synth, horns, strings) and a Nord Electro 6D/73 up top, but a Nord Electro 2 or 3/61 would do great for Organ, Clav, EP sounds. Not a fan of the Casio for organ sounds. the EP's are passable, and good enough if I'm using the Nord as a Clonewheel.

I've had my PX-5s for a few years now. I bought it used on eBay, so it only cost about half of retail. Great buy. I've had to go inside a few times to fix a broken key, clean contacts, etc. If you have some time, you might consider re-flowing the solder on contacts on the audio trace - especially those where larger components are soldered. SMT stuff usually doesn't crack, but connectors and heat sinks/transistors often succumb to vibration. (I'm sure you know all this)

I use the 18880 with a 2nd Tier. I have a Casio PX-5s down bottom and a Nord Electro 6D/73 up top. It is stable, it takes seconds to set up, and it's so light I can't believe it every time I pick it up. Every other keyboard stand I've tried (and, like others, I've used many) has had good points, but there's always a "but" statement in there. Too heavy... not stable enough... takes too long to set up.. takes up too much room...no space for pedals/controllers on the floor... I bang my shins... None of that with this stand. Only two very small caveats: 1) Make sure that all screw/knobs are snugged down or you'll lose one in transit. 2) Use a velcro strap to keep the legs together when transporting, and to keep the crossbar from swinging all over the place. It's a little expensive, but worth it.

This is worse than the other one which is.. what.. some guy having a psychotic episode IIRC?

Saw this on my local FB Marketplace. I'm not certain that this began life as a keyboard stand, but I found it.. odd. Keyboard Stand? (I still don't know how to upload images to the KB Forum without hosting them off-site)

25 years as a public school music teacher, and another 5 to go before I retire (maybe). This has been just awful.. it's as though someone has put me in a straight jacket, put me alone in a small room, gave me a telephone, and told me to teach music. This semester I have two sections of Band, one section of Chorus, Jazz Band, Musical Theatre, and Piano 2. Musical Theatre and Piano 2 haven't been hard - I assign musicals for the kids to watch in MT then do a reflection (hey, at least they're watching good musicals, right?). Piano 2 I "meet" with each of the students (there are 6 in this class) each week for a video lesson (we use Google Meet for video conferencing). Works out fine, unless we try to play duets. Network lag kills that. When we *thought* we might be back in school as of May 4 (Maine), at least we had concerts, Memorial Day Parades, All-State, and Graduation performances to plan for. Now, we'll be out for the rest of the year and it's been really hard to come up with musical activities for my performance ensemble students that doesn't seem like "busy work." Plus, they all have their core academic classes and some are really struggling with this Remote Learning model. This sucks. Keep Rockin' in Place, friends!

This is exactly right. One of our electives where I teach is a Music Technology class. We use Garage Band extensively, because our students are given MacBook Air computers and Garage Band is free on those computers. Using Apple TV, I project my GB screen up to a large screen. I MIDI my Clavinova into the my computer to input tracks and demo instruments for the students. However, I have to keep my sound output coming from the headphone jack on my laptop and directly patched into the classroom sound system. Otherwise, the signal has to go from my computer, through wi-fi up to the server room, back down to the AppleTV, and then down to the sound system. The lag, just within the building, can be as much as a half-second. IMPOSSIBLE to play. And this is just within a school building with a very fast network. Way faster than most people's home routers and uplink. Here's a video that recently appeared on YouTube with some folks trying to have a band rehearsal online: Online Band Rehearsal Fail