Stephen Fortner

While at Summer NAMM I got to film brother Mike Martin showing off the new Casiotone series. They're an intentional shout back to what the Casiotone series was originally all about: fun, affordability, and music anywhere. IMHO a great "my first keyboard" choice for a young person. And check out the new MPN animated logo! [video:youtube]

First things first: Craig, this rocks ass. I've approached covers in two ways. (Note: Everything I'm saying is outside of the jazz world, which of course is a whole other thing...) There's being in a cover band and trying to get as close as you can to the sound of the original. I came up in a lot of corporate/wedding bands and did this going back to my teenage years, because having synths and knowing how to program them is a huge "make it like the record" factor. It's undoubtedly fun when you're with good musicians (and if you have a horn section and can cover Tower and EWF it's a total blast), and can be lucrative. Then there's approaching a cover artistically and trying to make it your own. When I see major acts doing this, I feel like they really need to add something beyond just an homage, however well-intentioned that may be. Not to rip on Counting Crows specifically, but their cover of Joni's "Big Yellow Taxi" popped into my head in the "why bother" category. So Craig, what you're doing is super cool in my book. I'm currently working on a robotic, Devo-like arrangement of Billy Squier's "Everybody Wants You" for a synthpop duo a friend of mine and I may put together. But yeah, you're gonna have the haters. For the inflexible purists, I suggest tribute bands. If they're good, their live experience is often more like seeing a "concert of the record" than the original acts are live.

I have a couple of guesses here but someone with more recent experience of trying to do the same might have a better answer. First, it's possible that some part of your adaptor chain is wired such that it's flipping the polarity of the path to your P115. When you press the sustain pedal down, do the sustained notes stop (i.e. does the pedal behave in reverse)? If so, see if the P115 has a pedal polarity option in its global settings or setup menu. Second â and this would be the harder scenario to correct â sustain pedals work by opening or closing a circuit, depending on the polarity. It could be that regardless of polarity, the split signal and extra cabling adds just enough impedance that your P115 is not seeing enough current to change the status of the circuit. If the notes are always on and pressing the pedal down does not turn them off, that suggests that your polarity is flipped AND that the P115 sustain jack isn't seeing enough electrons. If one keyboard can transmit sustain on/off messages via MIDI and the other can receive it, your best bet would be to connect the sustain pedal to the transmitting keyboard, connect it's MIDI out to the MIDI in of the receiving keyboard, and make appropriate menu settings so the pedal does double duty.

While at Summer NAMM 2019, I had the honor of moderating a panel of the most hired keyboard players in Nashville, though many of their accomplishments reach beyond the Nashville scene and country music. Sorry this is just a teaser, but the resulting discussion amounts to some of the most compelling content I've ever been a part of as a music journalist. I had to do very little to steer the discussion, and everybody had stuff to say that was absolute gold. Mike Martin caught it all on video, and we're now editing it all. Will likely do a series of clips as we have between one and two hours of footage. We even got some of the guys demonstrating go-to voicings and motifs on the Privia PX-S3000 Mike brought along. L to R in the attached photo: Myself, Matt Rollings, Michael Whittaker, Steve Nathan, Charlie Judge, David Cohen, David Dorn.

Here is full text of press release: NASHVILLE, TN (Friday, July 19, 2019) In a gesture of good will for the music instrument industry, Gibson and its President and CEO, James 'JC' Curleigh, have granted possession of the Oberheim brand and intellectual property back to its original owner and company founder, synthesizer pioneer Tom Oberheim. Gibson has owned the Oberheim brand name for several years as it sought to expand into other categories. With the renewed focus on its core business, Gibson is rationalizing their legacy portfolio accordingly, but the Oberheim brand deserved special attention. A chance encounter at Winter NAMM turned into a quest to return the Oberheim brand name back to its original owner and founder. 'Of the many stories I have heard and decisions I have made since joining Gibson, this situation seemed simple,' says James 'JC" Curleigh, President and CEO of Gibson. 'Let"s do the right thing by putting the Oberheim brand back in the hands of its" namesake founder Tom Oberheim.' The team have been working on this solution for the past few months, and recently, JC and Tom had a discussion to 'seal the deal". 'After over thirty years of being without it, I am thrilled to once again be able to use the Oberheim trademark for my products,' said Tom Oberheim. 'I am very grateful to the new leadership team of Gibson for making this possible.' Tom Oberheim continues to make classic analog synthesizers that are direct decendants of the legendary machines from the '70s and '80s that first carried his name (http://www.tomoberheim.com). In the spirit of collaboration and working together to create a healthy music industry, the new team at Gibson is excited to have Tom Oberheim officially be able to use his trademark once again and wish him the best for the future.

I'm on the floor at Summer NAMM when this comes across my feed. This one hits close to home in a very good way. I've talked to Tom many times about how much he'd like his trademark back, and once got in Gibson's face at a very high level and said, "Yamaha did it for Dave Smith, you can damned well do it for Tom." I don't think this has anything to do with that as the leadership (JC Curleigh) is totally different, but applause and kudos to Gibson for doing the right thing. Hopefully we'll see the old logo on some new synths! https://guitar.com/news/industry-news/gibson-returns-tom-oberheim-trademark/

It's a shame. They're nice pieces of furniture and tend to have high-quality keybeds and tactile feel to the controls, but ugh, the sounds. Even today's high-end home console organs like Lowrey, which parent company Kawai announced is being phased out are casino-like user interfaces wrapped around either Windows Embedded or Linux boxes, with licensed sound sets and auto-accompaniment features that even a mid-level Yamaha PSR portable smokes. I may be looking through rose-colored glasses due to nostalgia (home console organs of the '70s were my entry point into electronic keyboards as a kid) but I think that when manufacturers had only analog resources to work with, these instruments might have been more interesting. The higher end of Yamaha's Electone line borrowed synth-like features from beasts like the GX-1, including that mini-keys solo manual on which you could add vibrato by rocking your finger back and forth. Of course, Lowrey's auto-accompaniment and other novelty features were so notorious that Gotye immortalized them in the not-entirely-ironic song "State of the Art." Some of the old Wersi stuff (CX-1, Helios, etc.) was pretty trippy as well and is still sought after for its Italo-disco vibe. But when I see a modern console from companies like Bohm or Wersi, priced at five figures, I let out a heavy sigh at what's going on under the hood.

I've seen the Billy and Elton show a couple of times. IMHO Billy is the more pyrotechnic rock player. When Elton stretches out and solos though, it was clear to me he's more sophisticated harmonically. His understanding of New Orleans-style playing is unmistakable, too.

First post for me on the new forums! You'll be seeing a lot more of me around here now that brother Bryce â and all of us â have custody of this community. So, when I went to Synthplex in March I got to drop by Yamaha's offices in Buena Park, CA. There, Nate Tschetter had put together a "Synth Space," which is a functioning museum and petting zoo of classic Yamaha synthesizers. He showed me around, we got to play a few, and I shot a video. I already shared this on the MPN Facebook group and my personal FB page, but figured it should be here as well. It is of course Yamaha-centric but Nate isn't trying to sell us anything so it seems appropriate as a cool thing of interest. We go through the CS30, 50. 80; DX1 and DX5; the surprisingly warm-sounding GS2 (an early FM synth); and more. Enjoy! [video:youtube]

Haha! His name came up, actually. Bert is with Yamaha Europe and this was a Yamaha US event. I saw Bert's Montage demos a couple of Musikmesses ago and they were fantastic as always.

Hi all, FWIW I was there, wrote and filmed this: https://www.keyboardmag.com/gear/yamaha-modx-first-impressions

My Mojo review unit arrived this week and I just finished shooting an unboxing video for Keyboard. Gotta say I'm pretty impressed with the sound so far. I also have the Nord C2D showing up, hopefully just after Memorial Day. Planning on setting these up alongside the Studiologic Numa Organ, Hammond SK1 and my XK-3C system, and doing some serious comparing. If you're in the SF Bay area and would like to come check it out, PM me or email me at the mag at sfortner@musicplayer.com. Oh, and mate_stubb, just emailed ya!

Hey all, I'm working on our next clonewheel roundup, which is slated for the August issue but may move later based on gear availability. A bit of good news I just got is that Andrea and Guido are sending me a Mojo for review--actually it's slated to be Tony Monaco's. So here's my druthers list for what goes in: - Mojo - Nord C2D - Hammond SK2 (have the SK1 in hand but not the 2 yet) - Studiologic Numa Organ - Hammond XK-3C Pro System (lower manual, pedals, stand, etc., as a familiar reference) - DLQ KeyB Duo Hmmm, except for the Studiologic, there's a bit of a dual-manual theme going here. Also working on software list. But for hardware, any other must-includes? And yes, when I get all this stuff set up in one place, we should do a SF Bay area forum hang / clonewheel playing session.

Wow... so many gorgeous rigs. Y'all are making me feel like the cobbler whose kids go barefoot. I expect I'll be emailing a lot of you about "Dig My Rig" in the front of the magazine. Starting with The Real MC ... you sick, sick, man.

This is no joke. Late '99, a quasi-hippie-ish waif approaches me after a club gig in Santa Barbara, points to the Leslie 142 I was playing my Roland VK-7 through, and asks "Hey, is that a real Leslie?" Me: "Um, why yes." Her: "So that's why your Hammond sounds rocked. Do you wanna go home with me?" Me: "If you can wait til I get the Leslie in the truck..." So we get to her place, and random people are crashed on the living room floor, and one more on the floor of her room. "He won't care what we do," she re-assures me as she commences to smoke half of Humboldt county. I had to get out of there.

Provided all the right drivers are installed, your computer shouldn't have a problem with this... it should simply see the USB connection as another MIDI port. I've done this with a USB keyboard controller in Logic alongside other stuff hooked to my MTP/AV. I do know that a single keyboard, such as the Motif, usually can send MIDI either over USB or out its 5-pin jack, but not both at the same time.

On-line Citizenship To sum up policies we've explained in numerous threads over the years... 1. Please refrain from ad hominem attacks. This is when someone attacks another person's character, personality, politics, religion, sock mismatch, etc, instead of simply offering reasons against the truth of their claim. Simple example: Premise: Martha Stewart is a notoriously demanding, ruthless person to work for, routinely reducing assistants to tears. Conclusion: Of course she was guilty of stock trading fraud. With ad hominem, it doesn't matter if the premise is possibly true: Martha's personality is not sufficient factual reason to conclude anything about her guilt or innocence. 2. Charlie Brown said it best: Three things its best not to discuss are politics, religion, and the Great Pumpkin. We don't want to be too restrictive, so please feel free to discuss the Great Pumpkin! Seriously, it may come up that people want to talk about a certain news event, and do so with their fellow keyboarders. If it turns into a Democrats vs Republicans (or any other "vs") thing, though, we reserve the right to delete it. Things just get too uncivil too quickly. 3. Profanity. Please use common sense to keep this forum as work-friendly and kid-friendly as possible. Many corporate and school firewalls automatically block sites based on scanning for cuss words, and we all want to evangelize keyboard-playing to as many people as we can. If you link to something that has explicit content but musical or informational value relative to what this forum is about, that's OK, but please preface your link with something like "WARNING: Not work-safe!" One parent perceiving that their kid learned the F-word "because of" this site is all it takes to start a big sh-, excuse me, doodie-storm. Thanks for your understanding.

Makes sense to put all the rules in one thread, so we don't have too many stickies up top at once. Advertising, Soliciting, and SPAM It is the wish of the members of the Keyboard Corner that people do not use it for advertising their products and services to us. This includes manufacturers, retailers, people wanting to buy, trade, and/or sell gear, people wanting to showcase or sell their music, etc. There are a few exceptions to this rule: If you work for a music products manufacturer, and someone asks a question about your products or directly requests information from you or your company (for example, a post that begins "If anyone from Kormahaland is listening..."), your response is entirely welcome, as one mission of this forum is certainly to foster information exchange between manufacturers and users. However, please do not start topics about your company or products. During each major trade show, a member or myself may start a thread about new gear at that show. (NAMM, AES, Musikmesse, etc). Again, please leave it to a non-manufacturer to begin the topic, but you are encouraged to post summaries and links to new products introduced at the trade show on that thread only, please. A few guidelines for what a manfacturer response may contain: Feel free to cite all the design features and their attendant benefits that you want. "This is what we did, and this is why it makes our stuff great." No problem there. When it comes to negative statements about the competition, though, some care is needed to keep things fair. We don't mind statements about a general category of one's competition - for example, you might make a hardware VA synth and talk about why it's better than "workstations" or "soft synths" for a given purpose. But claims about a specific competitor that are either somewhat subjective (Example: "XYZ company's samples sound unrealistic and don't sit in a mix well") or hard for the average reader on these forums to verify as more than hearsay (Example: "I've had a lot of customers switch to my product after getting frustrated with XYZ") are to be avoided. If you are a regular contributing member of this forum, and have personal gear that you want to sell or trade, you are welcome to post about it in the Garage Sale/KC Classifieds subforum. If you are a regular contributing member of this forum, and you have music or merch you would like to sell, please do so in the Shameless Plugs subforum. NOTE: members who have an established track record of contributing and conversing here will have more leeway than those who might register for the sole or main purpose of posting about their product or music. We also ask that if you are posting in your capacity as employee of a manufacturer or other M.I. company that your signature or the body of your post contain your real name, position, and company name. You do not need to do this if you happen to work for such a company and are posting as a private citizen. We are happiest when the online environment feels like a group of colleagues, not like something we have to police. However, we have no problem banning posters who repeatedly violate the above rules. Thanks for your understanding and co-operation. This forum has been one where heavy-handed enforcement has rarely been necessary, and due to the character of its participants, we know it will continue to be that way.

Aww yeah! That is one of the funkiest, stankiest licks ever to come out of an analog synth. I remember covering it in my college band and trying to get anything similar out of a DX-7. I got some FM nastiness that was reasonably evocative, but it didn't really come close.

Oh, and for this one the disclaimer in my sig applies tenfold: Her ex, her ex Never got sex He only had Genelecs !!!

I just saw this from Rabid's link as well. ROTFLMAO !!! And now, all too late, here's my shot at a naughty Seussian ADAM commercial: Could I, could I entice a madam With Barry White played through some ADAMs ? If she likes accurate bass Will she then sit on my face? If she digs midrange detail Will I get a piece of tail ? If she swoons to sparkling highs Will she let me in those thighs? S3A, two-five, four-C Many choices, little mon-eeeee Which model will enable my vice? David Bryce, I need some advice!

Let us not forget "INT 7: MARIMBA", the electric piano's equally infamous next-door neighbor. This appeared on such iconic 80's tunes as "Axel F" and another one from Sting's Blue Turtles LP, "Love is the Seventh Wave" (the bouncy Carribean tune).That sound had more aliasing than the witness protection program, but there was something that made it hard to resist. I overused it myself. Thanks to plenty of food-service overtime, my teenage rig from 86-90 consisted of a DX-7 and Oberheim OB-8 I got a good used deal on. I was in hog heaven, and in demand for local top-40 bands, because with those two synths I could sound like any song on the radio! Ahhh, memories. Sold the Obie, kept the DX.