mauriziodececco

Exactly: the music rest is thin, and probably not at a favorable angle; even with paper sheet sometime is problematic. The iPad is on a plastic case, a cheap one from amazon, that introduce a new problem: the cover is slightly bigger than the iPad, so with the cover folder behind, the iPad actually sit on the cover; this can be fixed changing the case, anyway. Thanks for all the answer, i'll look around in the house if i find any rubbery material to put on the music stand. Glue, velcros, and nailing is out of question, is a vertical wood piano (a nice Rameau), not a stage keyboard :). Maurizio

I am trying to use an iPad for charts, forScore is absolutely great for RealBooks and similar, but i have a more mundane problem: how to avoid that the iPad fall on the floor while playing. The music holder in my vertical piano was not conceived for iPad, and the ipad doesn't feel safe on it. Any smart trick or accessory ? Thanks, Maurizio

No, not so simple to n France: it is only if you choose a specific fiscal status, where you have to keep a very precise account of all the money movements, controlled every year by a specific institution; i did it fir my IT activity and it is so complex (and mistakes are dangerous) that i gave up. It is worth doing if you have a real activity and you can pay somebody to do the job Actually your professional expenses are somewhat taken in account but the mechanism is too complex to go in details here

Follow up: this must be fun for those of you don't konw the french burocracy. I discovered after almost a year that even if i gained 2 euros (actually 11, see below), i am *really* taken seriously as professional in France: i have a been automatically registered to the URSSAF (no idea of USA, or other country equivalent, if any, is the agency that deal with pension, contribution to public health and other stuff) as an artist (i am already registered as an independent worker), that i have to declare each three month my huge gains, and a yearly resume. Actually, i gained 11 euros, but 9 of them went in contributions to the public system. That is ok, the ration will not stay like that if i gain more, of course :). The funny think is that the public institutions spent alreay a lot more in letters, timbres, IT resources and so on .... Maurizio

Thanks for your work ! Here is my modest contribution : https://music.apple.com/fr/album/quest/1538642934?i=1538642935&l=en https://music.apple.com/fr/album/halloween-party/1541842623?i=1541842624&l=en Maurizio

I do not think there is lid; in the spec they talk about "PLS-04: Metal leg set (4 pieces) + carry bag" in the accessory. I while ago i wrote to Crumar telling them that i was ready to sell my NEHP and buy a Seven in the Nord Electro form factor, or more specifically, if the weight went down to the Nord Electro HP area. Ehm, i am in a bit of a trouble now ... Maurizio

We (me and my wife) intentionally bought a flat within 15 minutes (walking) from our preferred Venue in Paris/France, the New Morning. You can seat at a small table, within a few meters from the musicians; from memory, we saw there: John Lurie's Lounge Lizard, his brother Evan Lurie, Pat Metheney, Dino Saluzzi, John McLaughlin and Shakti, Mike Stern, Roy Haynes, Joe Zawinul, Archie Sheep and other. I hope they'll have a subscription ticket when i retire :). An another even more "legend" was Dizzi Gillespie in a small venue in Viareggio in Italy, in the 80 s :). Maurizio

Well, i haven't used the Piano 2 in the past (i mostly use the analogue stuff) but i tried the two after the upgrade, and my first quick impression is they are two different VIs, not an incremental update. I do not like the V2, but trying the V3 for a few minutes suggested that i needed to try i for a longer time, it seems interesting, fuller, more expressive. Maurizio

Just received an official communication from them telling that they are closing the doors; all the software is still available and they atr publishing the sources under an open source license. Maurizio

Mirage is still , with Kind of Blues, my reference album 😐

My worse nightmare: having an IKEA style mounting instruction kit and a bag with 88 keys, 88 small weights and springs: hopefully electronics would come already soldered, but you would wonder for hours if the very small black stain near the cabling drawing is an accident or if it indicate the ribbon cable orientation ... Maurizui

I want a knobby synth using a ton of them

Well, same situation here, but i cured my personal fetish by buying an OB-6 (and selling my Matrix 1000, the poor men solution). I do not use it enough to justify the investment, but i cannot convince myself to sell it. May be for something even more Oberheim 😇

Ehi, what's wrong with a small finite state automata ? Maurizio 👹

A detail, but significant: Korg is insisting in the 100% compatibility between hardware and software versions, and is offering a special cross license price for people owning the hardware (49$ instead of 149/199); the view is interesting: take out the keyboard for gigging, work with your computer in the studio, share sounds. Maurizio

Are we all fired ?

Musically, a Davoli Synth (a very long time ago). https://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/davolisint.php But i got a lot of fun out of it by building a digital connection to a Z80 micro computer, using a parallel port, and writing assembler code to play pseudo random sequences. Yes, pre Midi, pre Atari :). Maurizio

I believed they were going to stop covering analog synths 😇 Maurizio

I am reading in different Mac related threads, here and on VI and elsewhere, the current opinion that the M1 (or whatever other platform you refer to) is enough for audio/music work. OK, i wrote my first set of compositions using the Atari ST, with a TX16W sample, a TX802 and a Matrix 1000. When i moved to a 32Mb Akai, i though: who ever will need more ? And i did music i still like at the time. But, our assessment of our computing needs is based on the tools we currently needs, whose limitations, paradigm and features are based on the computing power that today we are able to use. My back of an envelope estimation is that a Mac Studio can provide between 8 and 12 times the CPU power of my 2019 Mac Book Pro, without talking about GPUs and new things like the neural engine. Significant jumps like this in the available computing powers allows for the development of tools based on different paradigms: think a physically modelled orchestra with all instruments and musicians modelled one by one; using a neural engine to work on instrument articulations, together with a physical model. And god know what else :). So, computer power is enough for what you do today, but the history may be different in a couple of years. Maurizio

This is here most rumors seems more educated guesses that actual leaks: for exemple, rumors about the last keynote where quite vague, and references to the Mac Studio and Studio Display appareared just a couple of days before, and not even linked to the keynote. But the point is: will Apple make an M2 processor ? Well, yes, of course; i do not think you need inside information to know it. Will the M2 substitute the M1 in all the platforms, including the Mini ? Yes, of course; again, no need of any leak to know that. The only interesting question is when, and there you can have educated guesses also, even if the world situation is a bit troublesome to make long term forecasts ... Maurizio

What is really interesting reading this thread is that while there are broadly speaking common needs and rules, the point of views and the different experiences are massively different, especially wrt the user interfaces. By the way, for cphollis: yes, the ns3c was on my radar for a while, but it wasn't wallet compatible (and heavier of what i wanted, too, around 12 or 13 Kg including gig bag). Maurizio

I am going thru a number of changes lately, after a lot of thinking, so i find it may be interesting to share my thoughts here, even if i do not have any specific questions :). OK, in the beginning, as we all know, there was the Nord Lead. Well, almost; actually, the important point was the connection between the player and the instrument that the Nord Lead and other knobby instrument announced. I had a NL A1 for a while, and while it was a great little and light synth, it had strong limits on this side. The point is that what really count is not the one function per knob paradigm (that Nord keyboard more or less respect), but the What You See Is What You Get aspect. You look at the keyboard, and you see what you can do, before doing it. The oscillator configuration mechanism of the NLA1 is far from WYSIWYG: it is still a way of menu digging, done by moving knobs, but unless you remember very well the options available, it is not really immediate; you do not change the oscillator configuration in a unplanned way while you are improvising: careful planning is required (not that this is necessarily a negative point). If you add obvious things like no feedback on actual knob/parameter value after a patch change, and the dreaded shift button that require two hands for some changes, the live musicians/synth engine connection is a lot lower than what you would expect purely on paper. The only situation where i found the promises of knobby interfaces realised is when i use my OB6 and switch on the manual mode. OK, but how this is correlated with the Nord Electro: well, for a number of reasons, around 2015 (?) i choose a NE5HP as my new piano; the main reason was the weight, since real Parisians bring their keyboards on their shoulders and move around using public transport. But i really appreciated the knobby UI; in the case of the NE, i found that the instrument is a lot closer of the WYSIWYG paradigm: for exemple, the effect section clearly list the effects available; you can really look at the instrument and decide sound changes on the fly. So i used it for a number of years, and i was quite happy; but, at the end, weight is not so low; adding the bag, cables and so on the total is more than 15 Kg, and for most of this time the NE exited my studio only for concerts and final rehersals, and i used a NS rented in the rehersal studio. Than a new project ask for more "other", not EP/AP/Organ, sounds, so i started to look around, including re-evaluating options on the piano side; i really loved how the YC61 sound, for example, but playing it helped me realise that the one function/one knobby approach works only if the instrument stay simple: just moving from the very reduced set of effects on the Nord to the long list in the YC61 change completely the approach; it is again menu diving, even if you have dedicated buttons to navigate the menu; if you do not know very well the effects available, you will not able to take decisions on the fly; planning is again required. OK, i suppose you all know all this very well :); at the end, the Nord approach works only if the instrument stay simple; and this is probably the base of Nord philosophy and the base for many criticisms to the Nord instruments. So, what all this bring us : well, for me, it was: since the knobby approach have its limit, may be it is time to look elsewhere. After a brief experimentation with a controller keyboard plus computer that i dropper for various reasons (that are too long to be discussed here), i came to the MODX; i found that sonically corresponds perfectly to the need of the second project. After spending half an hour in the shop i realised that the screen based approach have its own advantages in terms of WYSIWYG (like, you see the levels of the different parts); and after all, coming from a lot of work on VI, a screen approach seems natural to me today. I decided to go for the MODX7, initially to have more keyboard estate for splits; the weight is a complete different story: around 9Kg total, including the gig bag; today i am bringing the keyboard to all rehearsals. And then, it was natural to bring the MODX to my first projet rehearsals (thanks also to the choice of the longer keyboard) where i mostly used EPs; with the Purgatory Creek library, EPs sound (in my context) as good as the Nord ones. My big doubt was about the keybed; my first impression was very bad (but the shop did not had the keyboard horizontal, so the perception was faked); i realised that the end, being technically a very bad pianist, does seems to make a big difference 🤔, after practicing a bit with the MODX; there are even things that i can do with the semi-weighted MODX keybed that i clearly couldn't do with the NE. And finally, i am starting using other sounds with the Jazz Funk project, like moving from the 70s EP sound scape to some 80 FM+Analog pads for Miles Davis 80s stuff 🙂. So the result is that even it wasn't what i planned, i took out the NE from the studio (i do not have really room for both in a 4 square meters home studio), and put it in a closet, and thinking about selling it; if i'll ever need a weighted keybed again, there is always a Studiologic controller option + laptop, but for the moment i doubt it (ok, i am keeping my acoustic piano, of course). OK, hoping you'll find all this interesting ... Maurizio

I know there are many MODX owners in KC and some BBC2 owner too: has anybody succeed in connecting the BBC directly to the MODX "To Device" port ? Thanks, Maurizio

Just bought a MODX7; getting older, needed a lighter setup than my NE5HP (down to 9 kg including the bag from 15 Kg). Also needed some more different kind of sound for one of the projets i am in. I'll get used to the keyboard .... 🙃

Echos, Pink Floyd in Pompei Maurizio