Stokely

I love the idea of Bigwig, but yeah I wonder if I'd use all that power and flexibility. At this point I'm pretty used to and invested in Logic, though I'm just a hobbyist and really don't need to be fluent in more than one software at a time. When occasionally working with others not on Logic we just share midi and audio files.

I haven't bought much music in recent years (nor have I listened to much for that matter), the albums I've bought have been high-quality wavs from hdtracks.com. Specifically for referencing mixes. I have the files so nobody can remove my access, and can render them as mp3 if desired or just play them as-is. I doubt cds are higher quality than those wavs, but that is a guess on my part. I had to think about it, I think I have an old blu-ray player (not hooked up), not sure it can play cds. I have a cd rom in my older gaming pc, I've never used it I download games from Steam mostly.

In my experience, I don't really agree about polyphony being that important, within reason. I used to gig a lot with a Roland JX10 as my only keyboard, with the max polyphony of 12 with one tone, doubled to 6 or split to 6 in each zone. I made it work. Within reason...I mean a piano with 20 notes of polyphony is likely to have issues. People have been making great recordings with Prophet 5s for decades, though I doubt anyone is going to throw a Prophet 10 out of bed In the studio, it's moot especially with software synths. If I was recording with hardware synths I could always record each part as audio and move on. I tend to do multiple, simpler parts at home vs larger layered things. I have no idea of whether any of my current keyboards other than my Summit even have polyphony limits. I've never hit them knowingly if they do. Granted, I don't sequence live and I don't really do much layering beyond adding a pad to piano, or organ to horns etc sometimes--I feel that often "less is more" sonically and layering can actually detract from the sound.

Personally, when it comes to rehearsal I don't intend to ever sit in a loud practice again. I regret all the jet-plane-loud practices I used to do. After doing a few "semi-acoustic" ones to learn songs when our drummer was out of town (he already knew the songs in question), it was so nice to be able to talk through changes without shouting Now I won't go back, even if the drummer is there. step 1 - everyone learns the songs at home (!) step 2 - quietly go through endings/breaks/trouble spots in practice step 3 - pick an easier gig to debut the new songs. That said, we have a new drummer and a rehearsal scheduled. If I had my preference he'd whack a chair cushion or something for most of it, as i say to work out the changes and endings. I may have to resort to IEMs at practice, and if the bandleader doesn't set up the mixer I'll stuff my ears and simply won't be able to hear shit (I already know the songs, the drummer is the one getting up to speed.)

Yep, $200. I know because I've been looking at the Fantom 6, which before any coupons was selling everywhere for $2999. Sweetwater shows the "Fantom 6 EX" on preorder for $3199.

Weight, and size. Equally a factor IMO. My old large Moxf8 was not that heavy (less than 30 pounds) yet it was cumbersome to move around. And to make it worse, the angles of the chassis were such that it was easy to lose your grip on it. That said, yeah--over 60 pounds. And humongous, when I first saw one in a music store I could not believe how huge it was. Even a semi-rigid 88 case like I own (the rolling Gator one) adds more that 20 pounds to that, and just think of a flight case... Starsky Carr has a comparison with a few tones between Zencore and ACB, and unless you get to the extremes (high resonance etc) they sounded very close. That said, options aren't a bad thing. I compared the Fantom-0 to my Modx a while back, and it was interesting. The Modx had more clarity and "depth" if that makes sense, while the Fantom was more forward and had more color/presence to the sound. That color sounded good to my ear and I felt it would work well as a live keyboard, where subtlety can get lost. The Modx has really nice non-keyboard instruments (guitars, orchestral etc) but I rarely use those.

Yep, too big and heavy for me to tote to gigs. My buddy does it, but he has an awesome "kidnapper white" van for toting his stuff

Can you still get the EX upgrade for those? So $400 off, then pay $200 for the upgrade?

Well, that is interesting. I'm trying to sell some gear to (probably) fund a Fantom, and would definitely be wanting the EX upgrade if I did. I did see one odd thing, I think at Sweetwater--the other day, the Fantom 6 showed up as "unavailable". Not "out of stock" as I'd expect. That said, just now I checked and it seems available again so probably not related. The way my gear selling is going--meaning it isn't--I'll be ready to buy in 2028, so it's hardly a hurry.

As an aside, that Vulfpeck concert is one the best things I've seen and heard in a long time. I knew very little of them when someone first showed me that. The fun part is that it's basically one shot, one camera for the whole show! No tracks, just great musicians looking like they are having a blast. Gives me some hope for the future, considering a lot of that crowd looked pretty young. I will be looking out for those guys. I don't go out to see big synced up glorified karaoke shows anymore (though ok Muse might do it), but I might travel to see Vulfpeck. All this AI "creativity" seems like it belongs in the Incredibles (one of my fave movies.) "Everyone is special, Dash." "Which is another way of saying no-one is."

Eh I like (some) disco. Granted it was just slightly before "my time". I like it better than "AI" that's for sure.

HEARD AND WITNESSED! Funny thing, spousal approval. I made a pitch for a new keyboard, saying there's a great sale going on (there is) and I'm in the process of selling at least one of my current ones (I am, though no real sniffs yet). She just says "go ahead, you deserve it!" .... O_o Wasn't expecting that.... frankly, I have made enough at shows to justify it but I really do need to thin the unused herd first. If I miss the sale, another will be along....

To be just as equally crude as the OP, "AI"* can **** off. As can anyone or any company spouting about it. If I never hear those two letters again it'll be too soon. Even my coworkers are infected with the nonsense. Well if it takes my job, it takes it. I'm relatively close to retiring. *As a sci-fi buff, it's not AI. Not even close to it. That makes it even more annoying.

Beyond analog vs digital, workstation vs simple synth, one thing I definitely appreciate: build quality. Other than the key feel, this doesn't make a ton of logical sense--once the thing is on a stand, does it matter if it's metal and wood, or cheap plastic? For me, whatever the reason, it does. I never have warmed up to my Modx7 despite the fact that it's really a powerhouse of sound and functionality. Logic and reason sometimes get checked at the door I have friends who hardly have Scrooge McDuck money yet buy or lease luxury cars. I'm NOT a car person, it just needs to get me there reliably. But that's their thing, to each their own

Someone else mentioned it, but live vs in a studio are very different things. At home I will usually to take reverb and delay off the synth patches in favor of sends/returns using a DAW reverb (Cinematic Rooms, Valhalla Delay, Tai Chi, etc). That way you get less different reverb sounds all mingling together and the tracks can sort of share a space. Not always though--if the patch is doing something interesting with the effect, like modulating it, it might stay. Or the stock patch effect just might work better for whatever reason Depending on the song, I might have smaller rooms/chambers for some instruments, delays and maybe a really long reverb that is more felt than heard etc. You can have fun with ducking a reverb or delay tail down when the dry instrument plays, that can help it pop out. Some plugins have ducking built in, but you can use a compressor sidechain to do it to the return. Another fun simple "trick" (that I've used mostly used on vocals) is to automate the sends of a long delay up at the end of a phrase--so you get this cool tail trailing off into the emptiness for that last few syllables or notes, but it doesn't get in the way before that. Fun topic!

Not so much for pianos, but for vocals, guitars and most other sounds I like to use delay. Having tap tempo right there on the Nord stage 3 is nice as I can set the delay in time. For vocals especially delay can preserve the clarity while still giving it a bit of space. Same with synth leads. Dense reverb in wedges can really aggravate feedback if you have problems with it. Anything goes! Fx definitely can be fun. Made a killer patch for "Gold Dust Woman" that has a rhodes running through a leslie (heretic!) with some delay (again, tap to put in time) and a pad that comes in slowly if you hold a key. That's a pretty sparse song and that's another factor--if you have some fast rock tune with blazing guitars filling things up, drier is probably better if you want to have your part heard.

I feel that in many venues, any verb is too much. Because those spaces provide more than you want! In other words, no matter what you do as a sound engineer, it's going to be a muddy mess for the audience. In some clubs full of people, not a problem. I'm talking more some of the corporate spaces where they put us in a "ballroom" that is not great acoustically. That said, I have played in clubs that were all hard surfaces and were awful too. A completely dry instrument ends up washed out by the time it hits all the corners, that type of nightmare place. So on top of that goes any reverb from instruments and vocals, magnifying the problem. This issue is one reason I've considered going with a reverb pedal--I have a single control I can set based on the venue before the show starts. I haven't, simply because my reverb levels are mostly turned down on my main patches anyway. Basically, anything where it's important to hear the notes (some ethereal pad, not a big deal). Believe you me since I use in-ears, dry keyboards or vocals sound pretty jarring. I'm used to the dry vocals, both in studio and live, and I keep in mind that out front there's more "tail" to the sound--so it won't sound so unnatural as it does to me. Same for keys if I turn off reverb. The tendency is to overplay to fill up the jarring emptiness.... Our guitarist never takes his echo off, he wants to hear it, and there have been times where I've gone out front to check out the sound and yeah his guitar is a bit of a mess. EQ won't help, more volume just makes it overpowering without clarity. When he used a wedge it was a constant problem, now in in-ears he's happy but (IMO) the mix can suffer. I wish he'd do what our singer has done for her in-ear vocal--she has a send that only returns into her monitors. If the sound engineer wants to turn verb/delay up or down out front, she won't hear it and her reverb doesn't affect the mix. Come to think of it, both the guitarist and I could do this, but it has a big drawback: it only works when we have our PA and mixer and our sound guy running things. Caveat: depends on genre and tastes...but in general for pop and rock I kind of tend toward "enough verb to add space but not heard as an effect" pretty often. The old trick of turning up the send until you barely hear the verb, then turning it down a notch Maybe because of this, echoey venues bug me more than some.

Huh, that's pretty wild. In practical use, probably not much different from how I do things now--hold notes, hit the next patch a second or so before I need it. I don't often switch right exactly when I need the next sound. Considering there have been keyboards around for a while now that have pretty big sample libraries, and don't take any time to load, having loading time seems like a step backward.

"one second switch time"....is that for real? That's a non-starter for any live keyboard I'd ever use. Heck at this point I'm so used to seamless transitions those are a requirement for anything new I buy. Knowing this is analog lab in a keyboard makes a bit more sense...as far as screen size, it depends on what's going to be on it. There's very little that actually goes onto the Nord screens. My Modx screen is way bigger but some of the things on it can be a bit hard to see because they are jamming a lot on each one. I still think the lack of controls is baffling if this is intended to be a live instrument. I do like the white and wood/metal look though, I'll end on a nice note!

Whoa, I never even heard of that Gee, I've only lived here a million years. Yeah, don't get out much except for weekend gigs and (for the past 20 years) constant kids' soccer practices and games. The link on that page is mighty odd, went to some Thai language page.

Eh, I doubt even hardcore "in the boxers" (like me) would ever hate on a room full of vintage synths I got to play on Arps and old Moogs and other vintage gear while at college (synth labs for the music production dept) and later ran rooms full of midi gear. It was inspiring and definitely a fun place to be. Flip flip side, that stuff uses a lot of power and takes up a lot of room! Having everything on the computer--assuming you'd need the computer regardless--is way cheaper and miles more convenient if you are doing tunes with lots of tracks, that's why I stay in my box. The sound is there, for me, or even the convenience wouldn't be enough. But if someone else dislikes using software or digital, more power to them. Lots of ways to skin a cat or however that saying goes. There's part of me hoping not everyone gets like me, because then why would the synth makers keep making synths? I get as excited as anyone when an OBX8 gets released, even if there's no way for me to justify getting one just for live gigging.

I only run a powered speaker or IEMs for my personal on stage. For the audience I'd say 99% of our gigs have me going direct to a PA...I take it that is not the case, or is stage volume hella loud?

I didn't end up gigging with it, but I tested Midiflow to send patches to two different keyboards. Worked fine. Midiflow also does a ton more, the main thing I wanted to do was to route either keyboard to each other and also to the ipad. That also worked. E.G. have my Novation Summit able to play: 1) itself or 2)Sounds from the ipad or 3) sounds from the Modx. And pretty similar for the Modx. The ipad was only running B-3X organ app so the scenario I'd use would depend on the type of song. In the end I opted to just keep things simple, I'm not very adventurous when it comes to gigging with a tech-heavy setup I like to plug in, hit the switch and go! My biggest beef with the app is that I didn't really like the song list options--it basically listed them in alphabetical order and that was it. -- Different app might also work. I have used Songbook pro for lyrics and (I think) it will send program changes when you pull up a song. I believe Onsong (which might be subscription only at this point) will do that and a lot more.

A bit of aside on the whole "how many splits is enough"...definitely something I've wrestled with. With older keyboards--those without a song mode or scenes or patch holdover (hold the previous patch as long as you hold the keys)--I felt more compelled to program splits. I don't play a ton of songs that require it, in one band there were more of them--the "worst" example I can recall being Relax (Don't Do It!) There's like a billion sounds in that thing. I had four zones on my Motif and iirc four also on my Virus b. What a nightmare remembering where those split points were and it was a real struggle since both of those were 61. After using keyboards with more of those features I mentioned, I really see those as more important than splits. My nord stage 3 can switch between the patches in song mode using a footswitch if I like, so *click* and my hands are right there for the chorus patch parts...and with that patch holdover there's no abrupt cutoff. E.g. for Comfortably numb I have verse, chorus and outro patches strung together in song mode. (To be fair for that song I could also use the panels or realtime controls, 3 patches is a bit overkill, but then I re-use a couple of these for other songs.) Not sure what this has in that regard, but I could certainly make two zones work if it had features like that. Without them, it would be relegated to 2nd keyboard at best I think. The more I look at this thing the more I can't believe they went to production with that screen. Holy form over function batman.

I'm one of those, I even put it that way--that I'm looking over the set list thinking of patches where i can use my Summit The thing is, if you get a tune where it fits, it kills. It's super fun to play. It helps if your other keyboard is a do-everything one, so that means your synth (or clone, or vocoder string machine etc) is sort of icing on the cake if you don't mind doing most songs on the main one. All that said, I'm leaning toward a Fantom for my 2nd board if I can sell a couple things. I played a Fantom-0 and the synth tones were great, and they should be even better on the big daddy with more engines and the optional EX upgrade. The Summit might be moving on, I really like it but someone else, especially someone with a hardware studio, will get more use from it.