John Tweed

All this info about the Vox is very interesting, but I thought the topic here is the Yamaha CK series itself. If I was looking for info on the Vox why would I look at a topic clearly marked Yamaha?

I was in a band with this guy (pr someone just like him) back when he played drums. Anytime he could hear keys at all they were too loud, according to him (it was an eighties tribute band, so lots of keys). He would always tell our sound guys he just needed to hear the guitar. Don’t miss that band at all.

My 251/147 is wired with a switch to cut power to the slow motors. In order to be able to go directly from stop to fast, the power has to be cut while in fast - the reason for this is when fast is engaged the upper motor’s drive shaft is physically moved into contact with the horn. Hitting slow at this point disengages the drive shaft. After cutting the power now If you try and engage fast the horn will not accelerate. Whereas if the slow motor power is cut while running fast, the drive shaft stays engaged, and so going from stop to fast is achieved. It took me a little while (ok, years) to figure out why sometimes stop to fast would not always work. I imagine a “brake kit” would resolve this issue more elegantly. The only real drawback with my setup is that when the Legend Live thinks it’s stopped, the Leslie interprets this as fast, so I can only sync the Leslie and onboard simulator with slow and fast, never stop. Good thing I’m not doing big stadium shows anymore 🙂

I have the 61 and I’d seriously like to have the 88 as well. That way I could pick the best keyboard for the gig at hand. Any CP4 owners tried the 88? I’d love to see a comparison.

Their website is definitely acting up. I had a lot of trouble with the password reset page untilI realised that it was not showing me the full verification code - it’s 6 letters but on the iPad I could only see the first 5! Now I’m waiting for their response. in the meantime I’ve gone a little cold on the idea of the purchase. My current organ rig is a Yammy CK61 with Vb3m on my iPhone. I can run a lean mean rig this way. I plan to use B3X on the ipad eventually, but need a better mount for it. Not really sure what I would use the Mac version for, since I’m not bothering with much home recording these days, and if I did I could get perfectly acceptable results with the iPad version.

Yamaha CP4, CF Mono if the gig suggests 88 notes. On my new CK61, the CFX mono, which I like more than the one on the CP4. At a regular gig that has a Casio Bechstein (not sure of exact model) I generally use the “Hamburg” variant, though I quite like the “Berlin” too. On the iPad I have been using Colossus Piano “U1” (I think). Generally if I’m playing a 61 note board, I’ll use a Wurlie sound instead of acoustic piano if I can get away with it. To my ears that sound sits almost in the same space as the piano, and the real Wurlie (never owned, but played a few) has a very light touch. I still have my Privia PX3 which has a great mono piano sound for blues gigs. Not so much for solo as the notes die away too quickly, imho. Prior to that I had a couple of Yamahas which I got rid of as soon an I realised that the mono acoustic sounds sucked. The first digital (semi) weighted board I had was an Ensoniq KS32, which was a great live board in its day. Had a Kurzweil micro piano with the Ensoniq but never really bonded with the sound; similarly the Yamaha P50m I liked initially but after a while something about the sound used to annoy me, so that went too.

Has anyone gone from a CP4 to a CK88? Personally I would miss the CF piano, but apart from that the sounds I use seem to be there. I played one at a jam recently and the keyboard felt fine. Anyone else considering the change?

Yamaha CP4 with the mono CF piano.

Thanks for the Rick Beato link - he does a deep dive on the theoretical concepts. What I found most intriguing is when he list the triads found in this scale. He includes three that I don't normally think of as chords - eg F Lydian (1,#4,5), B Locrian (1,4,b5) and G Phrygian (1,b2,5). I'm curious as to why these are included. There are 35 possible combinatrions of 3 notes out of 7, of which he names 17 triads. Interesting stuff.

I’m in with Patreon for a cuppa which seems the easiest thing in the short term to keep the lights on. Coming from Australia I have to pay our local 10% GST (tax). This is not ideal so I might look into other options in the future. My advice to db and other admins is to keep it as simple as possible on the admin end. My guess is that Patreon would be simplest, perhaps with an annual or occasional gofundme to top things up. Then possibly site-wide ads, and then membership tiers with extra offerings. I don’t mind ads so long as they are not too intrusive or annoying. Then again I’m retired and not planning on buying much in the future, since I have a nice piano and organ/leslie setup at home, and I’ve pretty much lost interest in synths and so forth. As a long-time reader and occasional poster, this site and its forerunners have been an invaluable resource, and one I read daily. FB and similar social media sites are ok for some things but the depth of knowledge accessible here is unparalleled. My since thanks to the admins and posters here for their contributions over the years.

While we are discussing various scales is there any love for the Harmonic Major. This scale doesn’t get a mention in most jazz books. It is mentioned in Mark Levine’s Jazz Theory, but mainly in the context of the major 7th b6 chord (Eb, B, D, G, Bb) as used by Herbie Hancock in Dolphin Dance. But it is a lovely sound which doesn’t need an exotic chord to justify its existence. For example, try Eb Harmonic Major over G7+ (or just G7), to a Cm69. LH: (G), F, B, D#, RH (scale) G, Ab, Bb, B, D, Eb, F, g resolving to (C), Eb, A, D Happy harmonising!

IMG_0268.MOV

Any Grant Green solo …

A couple of years ago I visited Vienna, and we went along to the main cemetery where many famous people are buried (Beethoven for example). Joe"s grave is there. But in the documentary they showed Joe seemingly buried next to his wife in the US. Mysterious!

I saw him with the Syndicate at Catalinas in LA in 1999! Sitting just in front and to the side of Joe (I was closer to him than Manolo Badrena on the other side of the stage). He had 11 volume pedals. That was the best night ever. We got to see two shows and met Joe in the intermission.

I like to practice scales with LH and RH at different note values - eg quarter notes in the LH, eights in the RH, over one/two octaves (LH) and two/four in the right. Also try this with contrary motion, or triplets in the RH etc etc. This mimics what"s going on when playing LH bass, as usually the RH is playing more notes than the LH.

My Leslie is a 251 converted to a 147. This was done for me 15 or so years ago by an experienced organ tech. I don"t know what was changed, other than the wiring change from the Conn setup as mentioned by Dave. It"s been working flawlessly ever since.

Thanks Darren. I"ll be in touch.

My Leslie is a 251, with its 6pin connector rewired as a 147. It connects to my Legend Live via an 1147 interface. While this fundamentally works and sounds good, there are some issues with speed switching. I"ve been told that it has no 'brake' kit, so in order to stop the rotors it has had a separate switch installed to disconnect power from the slow motors. However this means that it"s out of sync with the internal rotary simulator - when in the 'stop' position on the Legend the Leslie runs fast, meaning I can"t always use the two together if I need stop. A further issue is that switching speeds often causes very loud clicking. I am seeking advice on another interface that would resolve these issues. The Booker Lab stuff looks very promising, but I"m confused as to which of their offerings would be appropriate. A further complication is that our power in Australia is 240v which they currently don"t support, but they do apparently have something in the works. So my two questions are firstly, can anyone recommend an interface that would work with the Legend"s half-moon, and secondly, if anyone out there is using Booker Lab equipment to connect 11pin to 6pin, which interface/preamp are you using?

I"ve got a lap steel set up with C6 tuning, not that I can actually play it, but it"s fun to mess around with. Some of the chords and harmonies that can be coaxed out of it with bar slants (quarter tones) are very appealing. OTOH with E tuning under my hands it sounds like a strangled cat.

When I started in IT about 35 yrs ago we had rooms full of manuals. Awful things. I"m much happier now with online manuals. The few hard copy manuals I"ve got with instruments soon ended up out of date after system upgrades. Nowadays I still dabble in computer programming. Everything I need is on the internet. I can open up several pages at once in different windows. If I run into an error message I can search for that on the net. Plus there"s heaps of tutorials about everything. No going back for me.

Restrictions are easing in Australia, and, sooner than I expected, one of the gigs I had booked prior to the lockdown is back on in mid June. And here was me thinking I might just have retired completely. After stopping work a few years ago I have continued gigging, but after more than 50 years of humping gear around I"ve been feeling the strain. Since the lockdown I"ve had everything set up to use at home. Much as I enjoy playing with other folks, it"s not hard to enjoy just playing on my own, and I"ve enjoyed the couple of occasions when I"ve been able to have someone else to join in. As to how the gig will work, I have no idea. Our singer/sax/harmonica is the one band member who is most concerned about the situation and he certainly won"t be able to mask up. We are all of similar age, in the high risk category. I plan to ensure I have a mask, just in case - for example while loading, unloading and moving around. I won"t be singing so I could wear a mask while playing. They have an outdoor area, so weather permitting we could play outside, but normally we are inside, and I am right next to the entry door, so the air circulation there is good. Masks aren"t prevalent here at the moment, but this is a month away, so who knows. I might ask my daughter who is great with costumes if she could make something. We have been very lucky here and we may be able to safely move into the next stage of recovery. Personally I wish they would remove our internal state border closures, as I have family I desperately want to visit.

It"s still there. Go to Cabs, then hit the keyboard icon at the top. The SK setup is not correct in the Leslie switching between stop and fast, and the app gets out of sync with the SK. Select stop on the SK, then fast (both SK and app speed up) and then again. The SK shows 'stop' lit and 'fast' unlit and the internal sim is slows to a stop. The app will have switched 'stop' off when it went to fast and is now running at chorale speed.

I had similar problems. Solved them by flipping the Mojo and going to a Legend Live. To my ears the Mojo"s rotary and overdrive are slightly better. OTOH by the time I"ve spent as much time tweaking the Legend as I did with the Mojo it"ll probably come out even. In the meantime the Legend just sounds clearer to me and its onboard eq, especially the mids knob which the Mojo doesn"t have, means I can always dial up a good sound.

If you are worried about the price, try $159 in Australia. Nevertheless I think I"m going to get it. Up till now I"ve found Gallileo quite useful in some situations - it sounds better than the organs out of a CP4, for example - but I"m not exactly in love with it either. This will fit in nicely with my little organ family members, Legend Live and SK1.