Iconoclast

Everyone's got an opinion...and this one's mine. The best bands I've ever been in usually got a little louder during solo sections and then got back out of the way when the singer started again. We just knew how to not step on the same part of the frequency spectrum at the same time so the solos don't get drowned out. How? I don't know, we just did. We probably started by having more than a little headroom to begin with and a drummer who could play busy without playing loud, leaving everyone else with a little space to play with. I recently replaced the drums in my home studio from a DW super pro set to a smaller vintage Ludwig set. I can't believe how much better EVERYTHING sounds because we're not competing with that much louder drumset (As an aside, if you own a studio and aren't a drummer, don't worry, some drummer you know will need a place to store a drumset and practice. I've had a studio for 15 years and have never bought a single piece of drum equipment and we've always had a drumset in there. I'm on the 4th one now, and without a doubt, the smaller the drum kit, the better the band sounds). Guitar players get blamed for volume issues, but my experience is those problems frequently start with the Drummer, then the Bass player, and the guitar player is the last link in that chain of events. When guitars get loud they operate in a frequency spectrum that hurts...so we blame the guitar player. I know there are guitar players who blow this right out. They frequently play a vintage plexi with no master volume etc. that they can't stop raving about. Classic rock bands with 2 guitar players are the most difficult unless the guys really know how to mix. But a loud bass player won't hurt your ears, he'll just take up all the soundscape and force everyone to turn up until they're hurting your ears. I also think that turning down during someone else's solo is frequently difficult because frequently the rhythm section of a band gets BUSIER during a solo, not to mention that usually AFTER the solo, there's vocals, which you REALLY need to get out of the way of, so where does that lead you? In an eternal spiral of lower volumes? Like that ever happens.

Thanks guys. I've been very interested in this setup but because of the poor documentation on it's flexibility (coupled with it's cost) I've been holding off. I hate to say it, but for a lot of 2 tier options, you're better off using 2 x stands.

I've played on both teams and I am a firm believer in knobs. I had played VSTs for years in mainstage, and thought I understood synths. Then on a whim I bought an OB-6. It's incredibly limited compared to almost any VST synth. But within a few weeks of playing with it I realized that knobs move at the speed of your brain and you just flow with it. Menu diving and even mouse-tweaking seems to use up more of your brain that you should be using listening/playing. Menus are where inspiration goes to die.

I really like having a dedicate I/O device because it gives you so much more flexibility. Using a UR44 right now but considering upgrading to more inputs. A UR44 is less money than the product you're looking at. But there's many that might fit the bill. 1. Gives you the ability to run other instruments through your VST's. For example, if you play guitar for a couple songs, they can run right into the I/O device. 2. Gives you the ability to run other keyboards in your rig back through your channel strips. I actually do this all the time and that way I have meters and a mixer right on the computer. 3. Gives you instant stereo IEMs from the headphone jack. You can run your monitor aux to the inputs of the I/O device and then mix your own Aux mix. Saves on monitor floor space too. 4. I've actually run a microphone into it and used the Arturia Vocoder V...pretty cool. There's a lot of other killer vocal processing that you can do with the normal Logic VSTs 5. I/O devices are pretty bulletproof; I've never had one break at a gig and I've been using Mainstage for nearly a decade now. I'm on my 3rd one but I've upgraded primarily because older products have been orphaned and then wouldn't work with the next IOS upgrade. 6. Although I don't do it this way: You could route separate outs to different locations if you wanted to a. Send a Click to the band that didn't go to the mains or b. Send specific patches to say...a leslie speaker. You may not want to do any of these things now, but given that you can get this capability with less money, I don't know why you wouldn't. I'm sure there's other uses I haven't thought of either.

Might be too obvious, but you can always just bring another X stand for the 2nd keyboard and adjust it to the proper height. It won't tilt if that's what you need/want, but I've used them a lot to get the 2nd board in real tight to the 1st board.

I didn't get double-vaccinated so that I could keep wearing a mask. As a general rule, nowadays I don't wear one anywhere. I usually keep one with me if I'm in a business and I'll happily wear it if someone asks me nicely and I can't distance myself.

Well, the video sure didn't make it seem like Dave was organizing his fishing flies...

Unemployment Fraud has reached ludicrous levels. Probably 30% of the people I know received a 1099 for unemployment they didn't apply for. Or they were notified about a claim in their name they didn't make. In my case it was over $3000. Audits are showing that at least 10% and probably much more of unemployment is fraudulent. But the system is so permissive that it's extremely difficult to even prove fraud, and now add on top the system is overloaded with fraud, it's even harder to catch and prove. The numbers are almost unbelievable. ANY SYSTEM THAT CAN BE CHEATED WILL BE CHEATED. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-25/california-unemployment-fraud-11-billion-investigations https://www.freep.com/story/money/business/2021/04/07/unemployment-agency-fraudulent-claims/7127075002/ https://www.cnbc.com/select/how-to-protect-yourself-from-unemployment-fraud/

He's 71yrs old and not stupid. Still has his health...as far as I know. Some guys don't want to die on the job, and he's certainly earned whatever payday he was able to negotiate. Good for him. Selfishly I'm hoping he still carries some weight and inspiration over there for at least the immediate future, but I think we might be at "peak analog". Look at what modellers are doing to the guitar industry. It took a while but even the cork sniffing tube snobs are dwindling in numbers and Line6, Fractal and Kemper are clearly the future trend. As much as I love my hardware synths, I realize that they're fun studio toys. I gig and record mostly with VSTs. Wouldn't hurt my feelings if I'm wrong though.

Anything you put on the internet will eventually be stolen. Anyone who thinks their data is ever secure is fooling themselves. I mean the Chinese hacked all the security clearance background check info for the entire military about 10 years ago. You put your entire life on those background check forms.

Please post pics! Very interested but no idea how these lower tiers can adjust.

Also, kind of a well kept secret is this: https://www.k-m.de/en/products/keyboard-stands/keyboard-tables/18823-support-arm-xl-black Basically it's a bigger rail for the bottom stacker. The stock bottom stacker is kind of shallow if a 3rd tier is added on. It wouldn't fit a lot of keyboards in depth, so they added a deeper arm to accommodate deeper keyboards. Also, and I may be wrong, it appears to have more holes drilled in it so it might be more adjustable than the stock arm?

That's not the keyboard stand he's asking about. That's the 18880 stand which ironically is one of the same stands I use. He's asking about the Omega Pro stand https://www.k-m.de/en/products/keyboard-stands/keyboard-tables/18820-table-style-keyboard-stand-omega-pro-black?c=171

I've been considering this Omega Pro system also. They don't give out a lot of the dimensions that you really want to know do they? The arms on the stacker are 11 inches long. If you call up the pictures of it on the Sweetwater website, they have a profile view that blows up pretty big. I actually held the edge of a piece of paper against the computer screen to make a "ruler" and made some estimations based on that. Probably get you to within an inch of accuracy. I'm finding that for most of my multi tiered setups, I want the second tier lower and farther away than most stands can adjust. For a lot of my setups I've been using just a second stand behind the first and slightly higher. The prices on the Omega pro are kinda ridiculous too. 2 tiers will get you into the $400+ range. Add a couple accessories and you can easily be dropping $700-900. Makes the Gibraltar stands suddenly look affordable.

As a Nord owner, it's just not as simple as pull up the rhodes and play it. There's a lot of front panel buttons that you can set that immediately change the character of the thing. What's the KB touch settings at? What's the Timbre setting at? These have a drastic effect on the tone. I use keyscape in my rig and switch back and forth frequently between Nord patches and VST's. Depends on the song and the settings but to me it's just not as simple as this test would seem to frame it.

I've taken plenty of jobs that helped me in the long run that I hated doing. That's all I was saying. This seems like a great opportunity. My point was, it's sure going to be a different gig than rippin VooDoo Chile on the WhammyClav. And there's plenty of dudes in the world I wouldn't work for no matter how much you paid me. From what I've read and seen, Roger Waters is someone I'd approach cautiously and keep a valid exit strategy. SRV turned down David Bowie when he was a relative unknown.

$20 for 500 presets is usually worth it, depending on the presets of course. But I find that even if you only get 5 usable ones from it, it's worth $20. I mean I can burn hours building presets. I only wish they spent more time on building sounds that are specific to songs/bands and they labelled them that way. That would be a serious time saver. I've purchased some of their tribute blocks of sounds, but they're very limited on what they have (Floyd, Genesis, ELP.) and I think if they packaged some more of those there's more guys like me who would easily spend $20 to save several hours programming. And yes, last time they had a major upgrade...I think the last V collection?...their system didn't work for at least a day. I think the servers are smoking right now. (As an interesting or boring, aside, it's very predictable how hot the servers are because because the transfer of information expends energy and there's no way around it. I read a non-fiction book called, "The Black Hole Wars" about physics and black holes and eventually the nature of EVERYTHING and it's stunning the amount of physical properties that INFORMATION has and how it interacts with the world of physics. Transferring information causes a very predictable release of energy and there's no way around it. It's why your CPU fan is so critical. The world is a strange place. I highly recommend the book and there's actually no math required to understand the premise but it is quite mind bending.)

Because Roger Waters (or literally anyone executing an international tour) will be hiring weekend warriors with attitude Merely pointing out the Irony. None of us became musicians for the money or because we really enjoyed taking orders or working for the man. Maybe what you're picking up on is my disdain for "Mr Waters". He doesn't have a history of being easy to work with. I'm hoping Lachey has a better experience with him than Rick Wright did. Remember Rick was only allowed to tour with Floyd on the Wall as a flat fee paid support musician...and then ended up making more money than the rest of the band because the tour lost money.

If you're a full timer whose house payment depends on your next gig/tour/session and your musical resume, of course it's a phenomenal gig. But I'd start practicing saying, "Yes Mr Waters."

My mother was my first piano teacher too. She passed a long time ago, way too young. Weirdly, within this hour I was kind of randomly missing my parents. I think she wanted me to play in church more and with the blokes less...but I think in the end she was happy how my musical journey played out. My condolences.

I almost feel like he deserves better than that. I wish him all the good paying gigs in the world, and I'm sure Roger Waters is at the top of that list, but musically.... Well, let's just say that I'd much rather see the Lachey Doley trio in a 500 seater than Roger Waters in a 15,000 seater. So yeah: good for Lachey, can't help but root for dudes like him.

This is pretty much exactly how I run it. "Set 1" is my generic patches and usually includes a piano or two, a fully mapped out Organ (drawbars work on my controller etc.), and a couple electric pianos of various flavors and a synth lead or two. Then each "set" folder is actually a Song Title and has all the aliases or specific unique programs that that song requires in order. I set up a pedal to advance to the next song and I always advance forward. Mainstage does this smoother than any keyboard I've ever played. BL sends a new setlist? I just drop/drag rearrange folders in the new order. I think for an alias, if you change the volume on the VST it carries across all the aliases but I'm not sure that's true for the volume on the channel strip. Not near the studio so I wont' be able to double check for a bit. Honestly, they need an update to the organization of Mainstage. In my mind they need three layers of hierarchies Concert>Sets>Songs and a Concert level folder for exactly what you are using "Instruments" as. Then they'd need to only open the programs in the current Set and Instruments folders.

I started out as a Prog keyboard player in my teens but when college came along I quickly dropped music all together in favor of food that wasn't shoplifted. A decade later, solid day job secured, recent divorce freeing up time and living in a foreign country I took a leap and joined a band that needed a guitar player. I'd really never played much guitar but had been in bands observing guitarists. With my background and lack of distractions I was, with a couple months, the main guitar player in the band and within a year I was actually a pretty good picker. During the rest of the 90s there was a lot of guitar centric alternative that I played the living crap out of. Almost exclusively a guitar player for a decade...then Alternative died and weirdly, Classic Rock bands had a bit of a re-surgence. So I took another chance and joined a band that needed a keyboard player but already had 2 great guitar players. That worked out great and eventually I ended up replacing one of the guitar players when he moved away but still kept my keyboard duties so I was gigging with a good 50/50 mix of guitar and keys. Branched out to a couple of tribute acts and had no problem staying busier than I wanted to be with music. Lately though I've bought into the synth bug, and I've been gravitating more and more towards where my real talent is, keys. Currently playing in 3-4 bands and almost exclusively a keyboard player. Still do studio work in guitar but almost no live guitar work. Lately I've been thinking about taking drum lessons...

The live versions with Blackmore on guitar (and drugs) leave a lot of room to hear what Jon is playing and there's a lot of improv in there. I've done this song numerous times and never thought it justified the time to write it down. I feel like if you're playing Jon Lord you have to improv part of it to keep it true to the original. And even if you have it written down, the guitar player won't have the timing at the end correct... Here's two different versions where you can get a better listen to Jon's parts than the studio record. They have two different endings also. Good luck. [video:youtube] [video:youtube]

SL88 Grand owner here. I've had it for about 6 or 7 months and use it with the SL mixface and Keyscape. As a pure piano controller it's great. Really does have a proper quality feel to it. Took me a couple of weeks to adjust to it but for piano based stuff I think it's great. Heavier than both my Kurz Forte and Nord Stage 3 (which are basically the same Fatar keybed without wood). Keyscape pairs very well with it but is a bit of a resource hog and takes a while to load each program. I would also recommend the SL triple pedal as it was the only continuous sustain pedal that I could get to work satisfactorily with it. The triple pedal only takes up one jack on the back and the other pedals can be reassigned to whatever purpose you need. Personally I use them for sustain, next patch, last patch, and it works flawlessly at that. It's kinda pricey...but cheap compared to the Nord triple (which I think is the same pedal rebranded and re-wired so you can't buy the cheaper SL pedal). It did not like my Roland EV5 volume pedals and generated a lot of midi noise that made the volume jump around. I've currently got a moog pedal in it and it tracks smooth as glass. Cons: The little pitch/mod/x-y sticks are not my fave, and I have not adjusted to them. Usable but not awesome. Also the SL88 is surprisingly heavy for how small it is. Action is piano centric and is not organ friendly for those who like the percussive aspects of organ playing, and may be a little heavy for those who want something light and fast. Pros: Great integration with the SLMixface and the SL editor. The optional magnetic shelves for a music stand and/or laptop computer are brilliant and if I'm using the SL88 by itself they let me keep the laptop and music stand at home, and take up much less stage and schlep space. The lack of controls or depth on the SL88 allow you to put a second keyboard almost right up against the SL88s keys, so that your rig doesn't get too tall or far away from you. I'm able to put my XK3c right up against it and easily play both seated.