Justin Havu

So, I help out at a local Christian school, doing A/V, as well as some music stuff, and I started teaching piano last year for a 5th-grader, and he's doing okay at it. I've been creating material from scratch for him to study and learn, basically simple lead sheets (melody and chords, with the chord fingerings notated.) Now, I want to get him playing both hands independently (some really simple Bach stuff, like WTC I Prelude in C), and really get him good at reading. I told him if he can get good at reading music, he can pretty much learn anything. I haven't really started ear-training yet, but that may be coming soon. Now, I may have another 4th-grader interested in taking piano lessons from me, and this time, I'd like to look into using some beginner books, instead of creating the material from scratch. Anyone have any suggestions?

Just got Peter Gabriel's I/O (Dark-Side mix) on vinyl.

I used to do both, depending on the occasion. Most of the time nowadays, because I sing a lot, and I'll commonly use an L-shape or U-shape setup, I play standing.

I've always used powered PA speakers. Every keyboard amp I've ever played through, I hated.

The DX7 solo patch at 2:23. Simple, but expertly played.

Written for the season. "The Light" The Light.mp3

DeepMind 12 has an internal PSU.

I get that, especially where you're on a laptop, and for the price EW charges, you'd think 2 licenses wouldn't be an issue. Not an issue for me, as I use a single desktop PC. The tradeoff for having the extra power and expandability that a desktop can offer, is lack of portability.

The only way around having just one activation, I think, would be to place it on an actual iLok dongle, then move that between computers, unless EW doesn't allow for that. However, I've only ever used an iLok for a few months back when I had ProTools 9, and that was over 13 years ago.

Have you tried the EastWest stuff? A ton of variety as far as I'm concerned, with many different articulations.

One of the bands I play in just released a new video, live in studio.

Yes. I've got it, and while someone mentioned the Full Bucket plugins, those are great, but the only one that's a duplicate of what KC4 has is the MonoPoly. Everything in KC4 sounds great. I'm quite fond of the M1, Triton, Wavestation, Prophecy, and the MiniKorg.

This. In addition to running, which I enjoy a lot, I started strength-training a couple of months ago, with the same idea as yourself: lighter weights, more reps, and I definitely feel stronger for it. Anything to keep from having to purchase and gig a Privia. However, I'll need to take a month or two off from that due to recovering from a recent epigastric hernia surgery. Not a big deal, I just can't lift anything over 15-20 lbs for 4-6 weeks.

Arturia's black Friday sale, 50% off flagship software Clonkety Clonk If you've already got some Arturia stuff, the discount is even greater, at least for me. Pigments for $49? I think I might...

One of the bands I play in just did some live-in-studio videos. Here are a couple of the tunes, both written by Jack, lead singer/guitarist.

A couple of new ones: "In Perfect Peace" In Perfect Peace.mp3 "Nocturne #1 in B-minor" Nocturne 1 In B-Minor.mp3

Latest family portrait, taken back in June of this year. The MS20-mini has since been sold as I haven't really been using it much and it was just taking up space. It's since been replaced by an SY77. The Impact LX88+ controller has also been sold--hated the keybed and found it very difficult to play any piano stuff on it. I usually don't have an issue with a good semi-weighted keybed, but that one was awful.

Also, I looked up the Nektar Impact GX49. Weighs in at 4.8 lbs according to Nektar's website. https://nektartech.com/impact-gx49-61/

Found that here. https://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-9900-52320-00-Session-KeyStudio/dp/B000ODLWNW Maybe the newer Keystations may be lighter weight. Not sure. And yes, I tried looking at the manual, and there's no specs about size and weight at all.

Maybe a Korg Micro-X would do the trick. They're going for less than $300 on the Bay. I've done it with a MIDIBoard on the bottom, MIDI'd to a Triton, with a Micro-X on the left, sitting on top of the MIDIBoard.

6.6 lbs. I'm imagining it's pretty much a Keystation 49e.

Just googled. 7.5 lbs for the KeyStudio 49i.

Maybe the Nekar Impact GX or GXP? Can't comment on the action, but last time I played an M-Audio Keystation (many years ago when it was still the silver MkI), I hated that keybed so much that I never bought another M-Audio.

It depends on what I'm doing. My go-to weighted is my beloved Roland RD-1000 Piano. It's just the most pleasant-feeling keybed under my hands--and I've tried many weighted/hammer action keybeds. Nothing comes even remotely close to the RD (except maybe the MIDIBoard.) Synth/semi-weighted action: This one, right now, is between my KeyLab 61 MkII and my Karma. The DX7 would probably be my go-to if I had the SuperMax upgrade which extends the velocity all the way to 127, among the many other things it offers. However, if I ever got my hands on an old Quadrasynth, that would probably win it for me.

For $1300, I could probably build an i9 12th gen w/ 32GB of RAM and at least 2TB of high-speed M.2 storage. It's best to do a custom build unless one wants to manually uninstall all the bloatware that usually comes with a pre-built system. I recently upgraded my 3-year old i5 9600K w/32GB or RAM to an i9 12900K w/ 64 GB of RAM for around $800-850. The other nice thing about a custom build is that as your needs change, the system can grow with those needs. If you ever need a new PC, you can simply reuse the case, the power supply, and in some instances, the storage drives, and save some money that way (unless, of course, the manufacturing standards and sizing changes.)