Justin Havu

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 It's since been replaced by an SY77.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.)

Only thing I wish they did differently would be to up the 128-voices in AWM2 to 192 or even 256, instead of allocating the extra 128 voices to user waveforms/libraries. Seems like having 128 elements available per part would greatly benefit from a polyphony increase.

I've had two Quadrasynths (non-Plus Piano) from 2011 to 2015. Both of which fell victim to a garbled LCD screen that even doing a battery change/factory reset couldn't cure. Sold both of them for parts, but man, I loved that instrument. I thought the stock piano to be quite playable, the rhodes EP was nice, too, and the synth sounds were incredible. Not to mention a great-feeling keybed with an aftertouch that didn't take all the strength in your hands to engage (*cough* Roland.)

It showed up in S1 as "iConnectMIDI2+", followed bt MIDIIN2, MIDIIN3, and MIDIIN4, which I'm assuming is the two DIN I/O's, then USB 1 and 2, in that order. The MIDI 1 LED will blink whenever it receives a MIDI message from my RD.

UPDATE! So, I started from scratch and uninstalled everything related to iConnect from my PC, including all of the drivers, iConfig, etc. Then, I just simply connected the ICM2+. Voila! S1 is seeing it as a MIDI interface. However, iConfig is a pain, as it gives off a communication error and restarts itself every 30 seconds-1 minute. Luckily, I managed to get a CC#123 filter on both DIN's. (The only thing I'm using the ICM2+ for is the RD-1000, so why not?) Played the RD through S1 using Falcon (one of the KeySuite pianos), and checked the MIDI monitor in S1, and all is well--no more CC#123! Now, I've read on other various forums that the ICM2+ is a bit flaky, so we'll see how long it lasts.