Iconoclast

I don't know how much he makes but I read in a Wall Street Journal article that for his age and the age group he attracts to his content, he's one of the highest viewed youtubers/influencers channels. Very rare for his age group AND the demographic that they're selling ads for. I don't get all the hate? I seriously thought everyone kinda liked this guy. There is relentless pressure to produce content in his world so I'll allow him a couple misses. He's had some episodes that I thought were really great and his interviews of some famous guys are well done IMHO. Everyone is allowed to rant now and again, and in fact I'd say that a couple posts in this thread would qualify as proto-rants.

I've sold on SweetH20 GX and I think it's a great way to buy and sell gear. A bit of a smoother experience than Reverb. My only problem with GX is the market is SO much smaller than Reverb. There's just not near enough available. And I wish they had the pricing guide that Reverb has. But shipping and everything else was a bit smoother on GX than reverb. FedEx is an easier shipping experience than UPS and GX gets you a discount and you can print the shipping label at home. I will not hesitate to use them again.

Others have said this but I'll ad my vote: If you already have a Mac and are somewhat familiar with how a DAW works, Mainstage is just too cheap and easy not to be your starting point. Synthwise, you can cover almost anything to 95% accuracy with what is already in there. The organ is really good. The electric pianos are maybe not hi fidelity to the originals, but I find they're very useful in a live situation. The only thing I don't like in Mainstage are the acoustic piano, and for that I use Keyscape, although there's many cheaper alternatives for Pianos. It can be resource heavy, but through the use of alias patches and channel strips you can really cut down on the number of same instances you have running. Also...Space Designer. It's a fantastic reverb and for some reason it's in a lot of the standard patches in Mainstage. Minimize it's use! Other reverbs are indistinguishable in a live situation and use way less resources. If you have one of the new Apple silicon computers, they seem to be able to run ridiculous amounts of stuff simultaneously.

So around 11am on the west coast on the 9th. Got my credit card ready! Also waiting for any of the online retailers to slip up today and jump the gun.

I find their Kurzweil editors to be a waste of time. And yes, they've wasted a lot of my time Their ob-6 editor is barely functional. How they stay in business is beyond me

The biggest problem I've seen, already described, is that they do a good job of separating out drums, bass, and vox, and pretty much put everything else in the same track. So getting a separate keyboard track is near impossible. What I like about Moises is it also has loop/key change/speed change so, even though the mechanization of it isn't stellar, it's a great rehearsal tool, especially if you're a guitar player. But if anyone finds one that can split out the guitar and keyboards with any clarity just let us know that!

It's in the OP. Elmwood Modena. The complication was that the amp takes two separate input relays, one is TS and one is TRS. I learned from another owner that the TS controls controls the channel 1/2 switch, I think the tip of the TRS is boost on/off, and the sleeve is MV 1/2. So a simple amp switch like the one above wouldn't be able to control all functions. Fortunately the dudes at Boss build their relay switches like puzzle pieces so you can slide them together to form a single piece.

Hmmm, are you sure that's the same as sending a relay channel switch? Or can you fool the amp into thinking it's a relay? Because if you can, you're right, there's a lot of products that will do that. If not, then there's not that many that expressly send relay switch info.

I've really learned up on this and there's actually several solutions depending on how integrated you want to be. The "easy peasy" wasn't as easy as I thought but I finally found what I think would be the most elegant cheap solution. Requires a 9v to light the lights I think. I haven't actually tried this yet because the amp is getting re-tubed at the moment. These switches have modular edges to fit together. The dual footswitch has a TRS jack with selectable polarities. Another solution, if you use any kind of midi controller in your rig, is this product by Voodoo labs that takes midi signals and turns them into TS relays. For my purposes I'd need to use 3 of the jacks and then join 2 of them with an adapter, a solution that I don't love. https://voodoolab.com/product/control-switcher/ Another option would be the Morningstar MC6 PRO. New, they're pretty pricey at around $500 but they're on Reverb for less than $400. They're super programmable and can control a whole lot of things and even have a lot of keyboard applications. The PRO version includes two mini TRS jacks that can be programmed as relay switches. https://www.morningstar.io/mc6-pro A really elegant, but slightly expensive solution is just use a Line6 HX FX as your pedalboard. It has 2 TRS jacks that can be set as relay switches that can change with either patch changes or snapshot changes, so it completely integrates your amplifier into your board. Additionally with two effects loops available, it's extremely versatile. Right now they're $499 brand new, which isn't cheap but you get an unreal amount of capability. This youtube shows a guy using one to change a two channel amp, but the principle would certainly apply to an amp with more capability. Two weeks ago I had no idea how to solve this problem but now I got a lot of info on how to fix this baby. I'm actually leaning towards getting an HX FX just because of all the other capability you get with it. But in the meantime I'll probably just piece together some Boss footswitches and see if that will work.

Not comitted to anything except witch makes the amp easy to use and is hopefully close to the original design intent, and as cheap as possible

Elmwood Modena. Not trying to be coy. They're pretty rare. There is no schematic to my knowledge. I thought my description in the OP had the material points. I don't know if that tells you anything the quote from the manual didn't tell you.

I understand that part of it. I'm hoping that someone can point me to the specific box that does this, i.e. takes a midi or physical command input and turns it into a voltage on a TS/TRS cord(s).

Several products here. I use an MC6 to command several function in my Mainstage rigs. I'm very happy with the MC6, but it is overkill. The MC3 would be just fine for my uses. https://www.morningstar.io/midi-controllers

Posted in this forum because this is where the MIDI genius's hang out. This is a tech issue with a guitar amp, but since it involves MIDI...it's wasted on most guitar players. I bought a used amplifier from an out of business manufacturer that is missing the original footswitch. The original footswitch controlled 3 two state switches: 1. Channel 1/2 2. Preamp distortion Boost on/off 3. Volume 1/2 (amp has 2 master volumes so you can pre-set a lead volume) The cable that connects the footswitch to the amp splits into 2 1/4 inch jacks. 1 is TS and 1 is TRS and they plug into the back of the amp. According to the amp documentation "The foot switch jack sockets can also be operated from a Patch bay/ MIDI switcher.This allows all the foot switchfunctions to be managed by a MIDI operated unit." I have no idea what piece of hardware they could be talking about. Anyone able to help or point me to the box/footswitch that would be midi programable that would output to 2 different 1/4 inch jacks, one of which would be a TS and the other TRS? I'm pretty MIDI literate when it comes to keyboard issues, but in this regime I'm clueless.

I would have to agree that in terms of just sound, that my soft synths are getting indistinguishable from the real thing. However, the one thing I can't get away from is the single knob per function immediacy of an instrument. That doesn't mean it has to be analog, I have as much fun on my Hydrasynth as anything. If I know the sound I'm going for, I can frequently get there quicker and better with a VST. But if I'm just experimenting, I seem to get to great places I didn't expect to be by just turning knobs. Every time that I touch a mouse I feel like some of the magic just got sucked away.

@Sergievsky Did you try your KL through different or shorter USB cables and if so what was the result?

Just got back in town and tried it again with different cables and it appears that it's the cable length and perhaps cable type that it's sensitive to. I was able to bypass the USB 2.0 hub with a shorter (and much older beat up looking) cord and even use it through a small USB-A to USB-C dongle, and it seems to be working fine now. The USB spec is 5 meters, and the cord I was using is 15 feet long, which is about a foot shorter than the spec. I have two of them that I use for some other longer runs in my studio and while they both work fine for those purposes, neither will function with the KL on either of my studio computers (MBP and the MacStudio). FWIW, I have used even longer cords for some purposes and never had a problem, even recording audio. So it doesn't appear to be an issue with not being backwards compatible, but more that the KL is just very sensitive to cable length? Or maybe that it just doesn't like this brand of USB cable, I don't know. But it's definitely the cable.

I really doubt that's the most effective way to address the problem. Any recently made Apple computer or even iPad should be able to run many instances of those with no problem. Most of those instruments haven't been updated in eons and I think I was running them just fine on my laptop 3-4 iterations ago when I first started using Mainstage in maybe 2010. I think even Retro Synth is essentially 20 years old? Released in 2004 I think? With Logic 7. So... more complex than Pong, but certainly not the V-collection. My advice is to looks somewhere else to free up memory.

This sounds similar to how my problem presented itself sometimes. Maybe try a shorter USB? Maybe run it through a different USB connection or a USB hub?

I'm not at home this week, but will check no the cable length issue. I know the cable I was using was way less than 5 meters but it was one of my longer USB cables.

You got me on a thought and...OMFG, it's not backwards compatible to USB 3.0. But if I run it through an old cord into a USB 2.0 HUB and then into the macbook it works perfectly. Thank you Elmer, and take the rest of the day off with pay.

Any Key Largo USB audio users out there? I recently thought I'd try out the KL (KeyLargo) as I use Mainstage and Hardware keyboards in the same rig. 1st KL showed up and all the analog stuff worked fine but any of the digital stuff coming through the USB sounded digitally choppy and almost unrecognizable. I called Sweetwater and spent some time on the phone with their tech guys who even took over my computer remotely and tried to work their way through the problem with no success. The computer recognizes the device, and no drivers are required for Mac's, but the audio is unusable/unrecognizable. So they send me a new one. Sweet. Only, I just got the new one and it has the exact same issue. So now of course, I'm thinking of course that it's me. Tried it with both my MacBookPro and my MacStudio. Both recognize the device. The MBP produces short digital slices of audio only. Nothing usable. The Mac Studio on the other had, produces NO audio at all through the KL. For the geeks the MBP is a 2018 Intel 6 core i9, the MacStudio is a 2022 M1 Max. They both have no problem with any of my other devices (UR44, UA Volt 476, Soundcraft Ui24) and I'm able to switch back and forth and get Mainstage to work on everything except the KL. Some google searches and a look at the Radial website produced no similar failure modes for anyone. So, anyone here using the KeyLargo and had any similar problems or advice?

You guys rock thanks so much for the help.

I used to have the isolated track. Can’t find it anymore. The clav is transformative to the song yet difficult to hear In the mastered track. Anyone have a lead on either the isolated track or a transcription?

Looks like I'm going to be selling my ver 1.0 Polybrute...