Jump to content
Please subscribe to MPN’s YouTube Channel!

stoken6

Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    5,136

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by stoken6

    Looking for songs with this type of percussion loop

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    @AROIOS wins the forum for today with his post. How could I forget DeBarge and Ritchie!

     

    Toto's Africa has perhaps the most explicitly overt use of this technique. 

     

    But yeah, it was everywhere in the nineties. Perc loop, acoustic guitar, cute girl singer... My first thought was Natalie Imbruglia's Torn, but that's not really latin percussion in the loop - sounds like hi-hat samples.

     

    Cheers, Mike.

    • Like 1
    • Love 1

    A Quality Keyboard Amplifier

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    1 hour ago, AUSSIEKEYS said:

    One thats over looked a Hartke KM60 Keyboard Amplifier (60 Watts, 1x10")

    I've got an *old* Hartke 2x10" bass amp with the alumin(i)um drivers. Sounds very nice. I remember I took my tiny Yamaha CBX-K1XG to the shop to audition it for keyboards!

     

    Cheers, Mike.

    Introducing UB-Xa

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    52 minutes ago, RABid said:

    I've never seen that output configuration before. Left - Mono - Right. I wonder why they went this way rather than just having left default to mono if nothing is plugged into right?

    It potentially gives you the option of simultaneous stereo and mono feeds, I guess? Not sure why you would ever want that. Unless the mono out is low-pass-filtered for a subwoofer?😁

     

    Cheers, Mike.

    OT - Rant : The guitar player and his view on keyboard amps

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    6 hours ago, niacin said:

    You might assume the guitarist was hearing too much keys - remember you’re both occupying the same bandwidth - accept it as a valid concern, ignore the speaker size comment (which is just ignorant), and apologise and tell him next time if he can let you know that you’re too loud in his ears you’d be happy to angle your amp more away from him, noting the mix out front as evidenced by audience comments and the recordings was really good. You really don’t want to get into a volume war cause he turns up cause he can’t hear himself over your keys. That he didn't just turn his amp up is a pretty big plus imo. 

    +120 (decibels). 

     

    6 hours ago, niacin said:

    Or buy the most powerful 8-inch powered speaker you can find, make a song and dance about agreeing with him and taking on his advice, put it on an pole, roll off the bottom end, aim it at his head, and fire. And invest in some ear protection cause you'll need it for the ensuing war.

    And that's the point at which it gets stupid. If your band colleagues can't be sensible and mature about volume, it's time to quit, I'm afraid..

     

    Cheers, Mike.

    • Like 1

    OT - Rant : The guitar player and his view on keyboard amps

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    20 hours ago, RABid said:

    A 10" 2 way cabinet is perfect for most situations. Patch level balance can be tricky and a lot of manufacturers do a poor job of balancing presets. This is made worse by playing single notes on some songs and full chords on others. Just tell the guitarist that if he has issues with your volume on specific songs you are willing to take that into consideration, and that you will be happy to critique his volume levels in return.

    This. I will say that I've been in plenty of "guitar is too loud" situations, so I can't deny a guitar player the right to complain about excessive volumes. The point about having to balance/compromise on stage volume vs FoH volume also applies. It may be a question of repositioning your amp so that it doesn't "spill" at the guitar player as much.

     

    But there's a reason why 50w of guitar amp can be deafening but 500w of keyboard amp might not be. Headroom is important to ensure clear transients (that are so brief that they won't damage the speakers). 

     

    Cheers, Mike.

    • Like 1

    A Quality Keyboard Amplifier

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    12 hours ago, CEB said:

    Yes. All my serious Keyboard stage amplification rigs were 3-way passive cabs  with 15” bottom drivers.   For mids I’ve had both mid horns and mid cone drivers.  I usually favored the cone speakers because I didn’t need to throw very long and they sounded less harsh to my ears.  But it all could have been a self inflicted Jedi Mind Trick. 

    Three-way's the charm. A midrange driver puts both crossover frequencies outside the sensitive zone of the ear. Heavy though.

    12 hours ago, The Real MC said:

    Bose 802s.  A pair of those with the companion Bose 802c processor and a good power amp

    The 802s do sound nice, but they slurp amp power.

     

    Cheers, Mike.

    Let's see your pedalboard!

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    Your post comes at a good time Jose, as I've been reworking my pedalboard recently.

     

    The background is that I've always felt my Nord Stage 2 wasn't quite enough for my most complex gig setups. It's not uncommon for me to need piano, strings, horns, and a VA synth or two all in the same song. I considered adding a little module (Roland Boutique or similar), and then realised that my lower-tier board (which I was using just as a controller) could help me out without spending money. So I would need to add a mixer to my rig - luckily I had a little three-input passive mixer in my junk drawer in the basement. 

     

    I also had a case from an old projector that I had picked up in an office clearout - if I could use that, it would save more money.

     

    So here's what I came up with, simply velcro to a sheet of plywood. If I'm honest I could do with about 1/2in more length, but that's what fits in the case:

    IMG_0032(Small).jpg.67ccf875837ac466cc3cca597847ea10.jpg

     

    You can see two sustain pedals (I've removed the fixed cable and replaced with two TS sockets), and a volume pedal. The passive mixer is at the top left, and my Rockboard MODX3 patchbay is next to it. As well as a three-way Y-splitter power cable, three looms are permanently wired to the pedalboard - two for each of my two keyboards, and one to my Rolls PM351 headphone amp/monitor controller. I've mounted the Rolls on a kind of wooden "clip" or "hook" that allows me to leave it pre-wired and simply hang it off my stand at gigs.

    IMG_0029(Small).jpg.58c28b4932d0d137b47578e6ad70c516.jpg

    IMG_0030(Small).jpg.ad31eb3b10b1c869b2463760f53f600f.jpg

     

    The other "interesting" fact is that I modified the MOD3 - out of the box it's a simple passthru: front<->back. I needed two "back" sockets to be paralleled so I could connect the mixer's output to the Rolls input. This was fairly straightforward soldering:

    IMG_5676(Small).JPG.0513ab1c04c09a9d2246a88498425982.JPG

     

    Not the most beautiful work, but it allows me to keep the "front" sockets (the ones facing the audience" clear, which reduces the overall dimensions. So both "channel one" sockets (front+back) and both "channel two" sockets are all paralleled together.

     

    Cheers, Mike.

     

    • Like 2

    Vox Continental on sale at Sweetwater

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    3 hours ago, JamieT said:

    I realize that the Continental is designed primarily as an organ (i.e. waterfall keys), but how the heck do they not include a pitch bend and mod wheel??? It has 38 built-in synth sounds and people are going to want to use this as a MIDI controller for their sound modules and soft synths.  

     

    iirc there's a pitch wheel mounted sideways, and one of the touch-drawbar things can adjust modulation. But I agree that's a compromise when compared to e.g. Roland's VR730 or Yamaha's YC.

     

    Cheers, Mike.

    A Quality Keyboard Amplifier

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    I've always thought 15in+tweeter is a poor compromise for keys, as the midrange region is outside the sweet spot of both drivers.

     

    I've used cheap-ish B wedge monitors in the past, and was pleasantly impressed by the sound, and the low weight. So feedback on the KXD is interesting. The only full-range amp/speaker I own is a 10in PA speaker rated at (old-school) 65 watts - rising to 100 if you add a passive cab! Wooden construction, sounds nice, indestructible, not-quite-loud-enough (115dB).

     

    Cheers, Mike.

    No wonder it's so easy these days - NI S88 MK III...

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    14 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:

    It reminds me of John Henry vs the Steam Engine.  Do we loose something when technology eliminates or changes tasks and jobs?  We do, but we gain other things.  

    When the "tasks and jobs" are art, we lose a lot more than when when technology replaces drudgery. I don't consider hauling a carriage, or washing clothes by hand, or map-reading, to be art, so I am not concerned about technology's advance in these areas. 

     

    7 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:

    Most keyboard players would wonder why anyone needs a scale mode or auto generator of any aspect of music making? Isn’t that what we are for?  Our own minds and our own hands.

    +1

     

    Cheers, Mike.

    Should MPN set up a rant sub forum?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    1 hour ago, marczellm said:

    I frequent another forum where there is a subforum for discussing controversial topics including politics etc. It fulfills the intended purpose of keeping the rest of the forum clean from these topics. But it has caused situations where some member is unwilling to interact with another member outside of the cage too, because now their politics is known.

    Yeah continue to keep politics out of this forum. Beyond that, I can easily skip over the rant posts if I don't feel the need to read them. Provided a rant post doesn't break the rules, it's fine to post imho.

     

    Cheers, Mike.

     

    • Like 2
×
×
  • Create New...