stoken6

For some reason I love the whole modular scene, without in any way desiring to own one. I think it's just too impractical to gig vs the flexibility of modern digital all-in-one boards. Cheers, Mike.

@LarsHarner are you driving a software rig? The Mixface outputs MIDI over USB, meaning you can only connect it to a USB host (PC/Mac, Kronos and certain other, but not all, boards). Cheers, Mike.

If you pinned me up against the wall and forced me to predict a price, I would probably have gone "it's worth £1399, and it will be priced at £1499". So that advertised price is actually a nice surprise. Cheers, Mike.

for Tom Lehrer. If you enjoy that song, check out UK comedienne Victoria Wood's "The Ballad of Barry and Freda", for a uniquely British take on related subject matter: Cheers, Mike.

My slight nuance on that: trap is of course a valid rhythmic style, and the Axis progression the basis of many great songs - but lazy overuse of them is not acceptable. I would put "Autotune as a creative effect" in the same bucket - "Believe" was at least innovative, even if you don't enjoy the resulting song/product. "Autotune as an effect most people wouldn't notice" is like covering your food in salt and spices - you can't discern the quality of the underlying ingredients. Cheers, Mike.

That does look secure. Good choice. Cheers, Mike

Tell them the buttons are superficial - it's what's on the inside that counts... Cheers, Mike.

That's crazy (and not in a good way)! The guy we use regularly will tell me things like "this mic is for your trombone player, it's amazing on baritone sax and cello as well". Cheers, Mike.

The 197xx family are great, but the 19791 is intended for attaching to a cylindrical tube. ( @Paul Woodward how do you attach yours to your 18881?). The 19795 is the same thing without the "clamp-to-a-tube" bit, it fits a standard mic thread. I would couple it with something like a 23700 table clamp, that's designed for flat surfaces. Cheers, Mike.

The second sentence definitely sums me up. I hate "separate boards", and I feel restricted by "less than two boards", so any two boards I choose need to be jacks-(or better)of-many-trades. Cheers, Mike.

Point 3 is only really software, and point 4 requires components that cost $ not $$$ (and software) so I definitely agree with you there. I'd love to see the ability to load samples into the piano section (or even some "pianos" that are actually string, horn, pad samples). Regarding points 3 and 4, the particular memory that Nord uses (NOR flash, I think?) allows it to stream directly but costs much more than the NAND flash in your SSD, for example. I think this has been discussed here in the past, in that an extra $100 component cost can easily translate into $500 addition to the purchase price. And also, yeah, market forces. If Nord can sell sufficient quantity of a board for $5000 at 40% margin, there's no incentive to sell for $4000 at 20% margin. Cheers, Mike.

And is it velocity-sensitive over MIDI? (I know I could RTFM...) Cheers, Mike.

I don't have a problem with tuning being used as a creative effect. (Auto-tune was originally demo'ed using a Theremin!). But if it's the default on every pop record, it's lazy and uninspiring. EDIT: @ElmerJFudd has posted something similar ahead of me. Cheers, Mike.

I didn't realise the M-solo didn't have waterfall keys. Does it have high trigger? The synth is more powerful than I expected, but it desperately needs real pitch/mod wheels. The topic of a "organ+VA" board has come up before here, and this is the closest I've seen. Cheers, Mike.

That (sadly no longer manufactured) Kurz was a secret weapon - because it supports high trigger, it makes a great lower manual under a clonewheel. But if we're leaving speakers behind, the Vox Konti, Roland VR730, and Hammond SK1-73/SK Pro all appear on the radar. Studiologic's Numa Compact 2x is worth a mention (with speakers, although not dramatically better than Casio's), with a slightly unusual 88-note format. Cheers, Mike.

Absolutely. The Nord Electro is a ready-made template for these kinds of boards, and it's a proven success. (Although even the latest Electro only supports 3-way split I think). Cheers, Mike.

Casio's WK700 gives you 2 and 3, I don't know about 4 and I suspect not 1! Regards, Mike.

I like that it's named for/inspired by a real place (just down the road from me) - in the same way as Penny Lane. Cheers, Mike.

Love that old-school desk @Leroy C. My gig last Saturday used a Bose ToneMatch mixer - so unintuitive. I think there's a feature where if if you unplug a cable, that channel gets muted. So if you're pulling cables to resolve a problem, you have to remember to keep unmuting. A simple analog(ue) mixer wouldn't have that problem. Cheers, Mike.

@eric nails it. One other option is to consider a keyboardless synth module if you need more analog(ue)-style goodness than your Electro+MODX can provide. Cheers, Mike.

Presumably you'd offset the two boards by an octave, in honour of the M3? Or, if you're brave/handy with a soldering iron, wire a dual-throw switch to a pair of TS cables? Cheers, Mike.

A boutique-format organ module running their V-Combo model would be pretty sweet as well. Cheers, Mike.

Cool fact. Even better than "Black Velvet is synth bass", and "7 Nation Army is a guitar through a pedal". Cheers, Mike.

I'm going to use this. "Wiggle factory" instead of "modulation matrix". Cheers, Mike.

Some good advice above. If it's "synth" sounds you want, there isn't an "instant noob method" to get from a song to a sound. You really should start by listening to e.g. square/triangle/sawtooth waves (and PWM), oscillator sync, low/band/high-pass filters (2-pole and 4-pole), ADSR envelopes and so on. The Sound on Sound articles that @NewImprov mentioned above are a great tutorial for starting at the "sound" end of the journey. Unfortunately the Kurzweil board you're getting, while a superb instrument, is not the best platform for learning about subtractive synthesis from square one. Do you have a PC/Mac/iPad that you could run a VA app on? That might make things easier. Finally - your Helix will be a fabulous synth-effects platform. Cheers, Mike.