Stokely

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.

Well for me as a live cover band player, I don't give two craps what music is being made today with instruments I'd want for the gig! I suppose if I'm still gigging at age 110 our target audience will have moved into the 2020s, but I suspect I may have hung it up at that point! Hell I thank the stars I'm not being asked to play stuff like Uptown Funk where I'd actually have to work hard to program patches At home, I still gravitate toward my more vintage softsynths (Diva, Repro) simply because I like them. Not to say I don't fire up other ones like Massive X or am not interested in some of the newer plugs like those from Traktion, but I often find I just connect better with simpler vintage sounds. With some of the synths I've tried, one patch fills up the sonic space so much that I'm like "I've used my index finger to hold a note, what's left?" That of course is more about the programming than the tech used, in particular the effects, but it's a pretty common thing. -- To the main point, it's not unique to keys players. Our guitarist doesn't need his Axe III--he could easily use an HX Stomp (he has one as backup). Or bring out his expensive Les Pauls/PRSes. Nobody will notice but him as long as he stays in tune And so it goes for anyone playing live, some us pick gear because it's satisfying to play, and make whatever compromises we feel we have to. My buddy used to bring a (chopped?) b3 and leslie to bar gigs along with his other keyboards...the other band members told me "he takes too long to set up" and "he takes up too much room" But he likes playing it live even though it certainly wasn't needed or the easiest thing to do.

The thing about "influencers" is that their money is from views, and views are often driven by making people disagree with you (or at least the title you pick). I'm sure some of them actually mean what they say, but their vested interest is in saying whatever gets eyeballs on their spiel. Made-up example, "Is The Godfather actually one of the worst popular films ever made?" I make a point to never click on any title asking a negative question like that. And generally don't tune in to the more polished influencers with tons of subscribers like Beato. Youtube for me is mostly how-to-fix stuff.

I'm weird because I see both "sides" of this. I've happily let hardware go at home because it's so very, very, very convenient to have everything in the box. I don't even need to save tweaks to patches, the DAW does it for me. I don't miss the old days of fiddling with multitimbral modes and patch changes let along the audio cabling and non-automated mixing (which of course doesn't have to be the case now). I'm still drawn to "real" synths but yeah I could cover what I need to with "even" my relatively humble Modx (for FM, it's the real deal, for analog it's a pretty typical rompler). Nobody would notice but me if I brought an obx8 instead, unless it took me longer to set up or was too loud or went out of tune (then they'd notice!). I won't use computers live just yet so I live in both worlds, which unfortunately means I can't pool resources and justify more stuff that would work in both! There's a threshold of fun and "bonding" for lack of better term that I desire to have with my instruments that I want to meet even if nobody else cares, is how I see it. I don't particularly enjoy playing the Modx even though it's a great machine. Same with a Juno-D (older model) that I used in a pinch, even more so. I do enjoy playing my Summit (part analog) and Nord stage 3 (not analog) which I put down partly to build quality and key action more than synth sounds (though both are better at synth sounds than the Modx, FM aside). Of course for live gigs there's other things to consider like weight, chance of rain and pollen and some drunk's beer getting on it etc. I kind of have an "end rig" in sight now--and yes I've said that before as many have, but I think it's actually true this time. I'd like to pair a non-weighted Fantom with the NS3 compact and bam. I've kind of given up on wanting a weighted keyboard live. I just don't require it to play the few non-rock piano songs I do. The ultra-light Modx7 keys do make it difficult to play any kind of piano I must say. That's a big reason why I'm targeting the regular Fantom. Also nostalgia a bit, I did many gigs with a JX10 One thing I personally don't care that much about--knobbiness. Real-time controls used in performances, more important so there's a sweet spot. I do programming at home and in reality am much more of a preset tweaker than a synthesis. This is fine because the sounds I need are generally pretty simple. If a keyboard/module has an editor and/or a librarian that is a big plus.

Tuning is a pet peeve of mine, specifically guitars that go out. People may not know *what* is wrong, but I reckon many or most people will know *something* is wrong when a vocal or instrument is out of tune. Especially now that everyone has been conditioned to hear auto-tuned vocals. iirc, Adele of all people caught some flack for being "off pitch" because she didn't use auto-tune on some record. What a crock. It's right up there with not having a "full sound" because you aren't adding a bunch of tracks to your "live" performance. Unfortunately with all the outdoor shows we do especially it's a recurring theme.

I love synths, always have. Two problems--my band doesn't play enough synth tunes live...creeping more into the 80s but it's still not a synth-heavy setlist to say the least. Secondly, at home I love working "in the box" with no cabling or patch changes to worry about...but it makes it much harder to justify purchases of hardware when I'm only going to use it live! I have zero desire to take "the box" out live either. I set the Summit up and am going through the patches and trying to think how I can use it more. Damn it does sound good! Ultimately something like a Fantom makes more sense as it has a vocoder and can completely do the show if the Nord goes down. Would the Nord ever "go down"? Likely not, but weirder things have happened. The Jupiter X definitely has some appeal but the Fantom has just about the same synth capabilities and of course a lot more....but as the talking heads say, stop making sense! (I do have the Modx that can do a show with an ipad's help for organ, but am probably going to sell it, I just don't enjoy playing it that much.)

That vid is WAY, way out of my area (not an organist) but it was super entertaining. He's hilarious!

I have reached the point where I have to sell stuff before getting anything else. I hate hate hate hate hate (repeat for the next 17 minutes) the process of (trying to) sell gear. Making it worse, a couple items need repair before I can sell them if I decide to. Both my Kurzweils have bad pitch wheels, one has a flickering screen (that one likely isn't worth fixing, so sell for parts?). My wife meandered into my home office/studio where I had my live rig set up (normally since I'm software only at home you only see one keyboard used as a controller) and asked the dreaded question: "How many keyboards do you have, anyway?" O_o Her look after I answered has a point, I need to move at least one if not three.

I bought my Lester K specifically to improve the Forte's organ (which sounds about the same as the one on my pc3 I used to gig with). Lester K definitely was better for me than the stock leslie(s). However, once I went with a Nord Stage 3, I don't think they are so much better or worse than "different" so I'll be selling the Lester--maybe my trial run for Sweetwater Gear exchange will be that pedal

In my circle--the small-to-medium level weekend warrior cover band circle--I generally have a really dim view of the maturity level of the participants. I swear half of them just decided they want to relive all the angst and rock star dreams of their teenage years again. Stealing girlfriends, stealing band members from other bands, talking shit about other people on (anti)social media...it's gross. I count myself very fortunate to have stayed in one band for 12 years with core of great people. We've had a few yahoos come and go. Fortunately political ranting has NEVER come up once in the band that I can recall, which is actually pretty astounding considering we've had quite a range of political viewpoints. Patrons will sometimes get obnoxious with politics (this is Florida after all) and when they do I just get away from them. I can relate to the missing out on family stuff...I stepped away from many gigs for a few years when I was getting so tired on Saturday mornings that I was missing my kids' soccer games, and was generally a zombie on the weekends. They are no older and doing their thing so I'm back at it! The down side of this was cementing the band as more of a "guitar-oriented" band, they decided to gig without keys for the ones I missed--but it might be that this would have happened anyway. We are creeping more into the 80s now with some keys-heavy tunes which is more fun for me.

I think D. Deyoung may have used another type of amp/cab for organ. Regardless, my Blue Collar Man patch is my typical lazy type--leave it on slow leslie, crank the overdrive more for the intro and turnarounds, turn it down some for the verses If we start playing that song again I may spend more time on it but it honestly sounds pretty good to me. Anyway, didn't mean to derail. I do have a mini vent ii question--there's no overdrive control on it, I tend to use that from patch to patch. I realize there are two presets, so for those that have a range of needs from no crunch to distorted, do you just go with those two presets and maybe some kind of onboard preamp distortion (as the Nord has) to further tweak?

Hell, I've been quite happy with the NS3 organ by itself so I won't be coming after you! I did some tweaking based on some forum suggestions, including EQ, hi/lo balance and dialing in some compressor (which added a bit of thunk to the attack). Also adding a bit of drive from the EQ section to sorta act as "preamp" drive for my main rock patch. Now you have me curious about the vent though...the extra outputs would make it easy to do without having to bypass for other sounds. I've also been having tons of fun with running a rhodes through the leslie...the whole band who normally doesn't comment on my sounds that much gave a collective "yeah! more of that!" I've got a lester K (purchased to use with a Kurzweil) and A/Bed with the stock leslie from the NS3. I wouldn't say it was worse or better, just quite different. Didn't really sound like the vent from what I've heard either. I decided it wasn't worth the hassle of connecting it up, it would mean using my mixer as well. The vent might be a different story.

I bought a Stage 3 from fellow forumite cphollis last year and my biggest happy surprise is the synth engine on it. I knew it had one, I just didn't know I'd like it that much. It sounds better than the Modx synth by a ways (I own that as well), and certain things the Modx won't be able to do unless you just use a sample (like sync). More punch and weight to the sound for leads and poly synths (Styx, Loverboy) and for the Killers I think the Modx is going to struggle. I know "punch" and "weight" are not typically applied to Nord synths, hence my surprise I guess! I used to try Somebody Told Me on my Motif and that was...not great. Granted the Modx is newer than the Motif but other than Fm the synth sounds are not all that different. The Modx can definitely do the job--especially if you get away from the weedy-sounding stock patches--but IMO the Stage will do it better. Whether that is worth it or not is the question. I've been doing a lot of single-keyboard gigs with it and even don't mind playing piano on the waterfall action, which was an equally big surprise. So bottom line I'd agree with eric--if you envisioned single keyboard gigs, NS3 or 4 might be the ticket. Dark horse curveball--the Modx makes it quite easy to hook up an ipad or iphone; one cable is all that is needed for midi and audio and the Modx has a separate volume control for it. I gigged with B-3X as my organ for about a year, and also auditioned a few synths on ipad. Zeeon was my favorite poly synth at that time, and I loved the Moog apps as well. I remember playing Subdivisions at practice using Zeeon and our drummer--who plays in a Rush tribute band as well-- could not believe that the sound he was hearing came from a tablet I prefer not to gig with an ipad but it certainly can be done.

I thankfully stick to my same old band, with the VERY occasional fill-in gig. Even with the old band, we'll occasionally have some gig where they want us to learn some specific songs. Like last weekend, it was a Kentucky Derby theme so we had six "horse" songs to learn Keeping in mind we do simpler stuff mostly, my song learning workflow consists of the following: - find the song on Ultimate Guitar, hopefully it is there! - make sure if it's a capoed song you transpose it to the actual key - while looking at the resulting chords, play along with the song from regular old youtube For anything remotely complex where I won't have it stamped in memory right away, or that I need to make notes on, I'll copy the ultimate guitar text into google docs which is shared with the band. I've never even used spotify, these days I'm generally listening to audiobooks from audible or youtube if I'm listening to anything.

I don't really have much in the way of "feeds" anymore, but I don't think I've ever clicked an ad on any page. From emails, I do. If I see something promising, I'll go straight to that store. Guess I'm sorta ruining the cash flow of the internet but I can live with that!

Out of all those I own the Summit and really like it. It was a close thing between that and the Rev2, got a deal on the Summit to make it happen. Also, because it's for a live rig, I liked the versatility of the Summit (wavetables, some fm to go with the subtractive sounds). It's a bit more jack of all trades, master of none than the Prophet is one way to say it (IMO). The Rev2 is more spot on to the "sound of my childhood" (to join the Oberheims) but the Summit can get reasonably close to that vibe I think. It's known for having some of the best on-board fx if you think you might use them. You do already have the Hydrasynth though so that might be a factor in what you pick for a companion. Novation provides a really nice free librarian and that is a great feature when it comes to building banks, trying out patches etc. Lots of free banks available too. They have a wavetable editor as well but I haven't messed with that. Someone already mentioned the new (possible) Polybrute, perhaps even if it's too expensive it would bump the existing one's price down (?) My impression is that it would be hard to go too wrong with any of those based on demos I've heard Curveball--and I'm not recommending these as I don't know much about the company or how reliable these are--but I did watch a vid with one of these vs a Prophet 6 and was mightily impressed with the sound and some of the features. https://www.gsmusic.com/synth-store/p/gs-e7-analog-polyphonic-synthesizer-black-blue Not that vid, but Matt Johnson plays one:

Sometimes I never learn. Had a gig Saturday starting at 6pm...outdoors, covered stage area. Weather app said 0% chance of rain, 0 clouds and 74 degrees at show start. Glorious! We get ready to start and at 6pm the sun is now just under the roof at an angle directly at our faces and my weather app says 78. It felt like 98, it was a concrete stage area and I think there was a lot of reflected heat. One ipad used to mix shut down. My keyboard was hot to the touch. I myself almost shut down....I am sensitive to heat, been that way since I was a young tennis player teen in great shape so it's not just being old and heavier . I couldn't see my keyboard's screen at all without shading it, and then just barely. My sunglass were borderline hurting more than helping (non-polarized so I could see the screen better). Like an absolute fool I had left my trusty Lasko fan in the care, because 74 degrees supposedly. This is a lesson I apparently have to relearn every couple months or so. ALWAYS BRING THE FAN TO THE STAGE. Made a second mistake by not taking my cart out of the car when the park workers said I had to move my car away from the stage (where it was supposed to be able to stay) out to Bum **** Egypt. Because of this gig we just canceled a First Friday August gig...largely uncovered, also at 6pm. That is just asking for heatstroke and getting rained on, glad we ditched it. Not to mention I just had surgery to remove a melanoma, f being out in the sun.

Yeah I'd check it to see what pops out. Much as people did using small auratones or taking a mix out to a car system. Personally I think it's ludicrous that people would ever use such tiny crap speakers to actually listen to music on, but then I think using tracks live is ludicrous and everyone does it so my judgement is suspect ... our singer gave me some guff about one mix I did, and she said she was listening on her phone speaker "like most people do".... that seems dubious. I see everyone wearing earbuds, where at least you might have a chance at hearing some mids and bass...

I'm honestly feeling pretty good about what I'm using...not sure how I'd improve it. I'm all software at home and due to the lower cost of plugins I have WAY more than I really need... My biggest need is a better space to put my live stuff in, and a bigger better-sounding space to mix on speakers in Oh, and creativity and the urge to sit down and use them more.... As far as gear--I wish more synths had vocoders. That's quite a modest and very niche request I know! I'm eyeing up the Fantom as a 2nd keyboard, it has a vocoder but also all the sounds I'd need to cover a set if my Nord stage 3 had an issue (and then some). A friend says the modeled vpiano sounds great in mono, I'm still struggling with this at every damn gig I have to go mono.

Just my 2c, but as a keyboardist I generally don't worry too much about trying to match patches. Often, the bands themselves don't when they play live (if they are actually playing and not using tracks). Often I just come up with a plan during the song, both for sounds and the parts ....granted, songs with what I'll call a "signature part" I'll spend more time on. Superstition, I'll play a clav--though lately I've been using an organ instead of keyboard horn parts, which I dislike. Our guitarist doubles those horn lines so we already are going to sound different from the original. If I'm playing Styx' Blue Collar Man, I'll program a crunchy organ, if it's their song Foolin' Yourself I'll have a couple different solo patches (one for intro, one for the keyboard solos) where I'll do my best to sound similar. I use a "sync" lead sound for the Cars' Let's Go....and so on. Those are signature parts IMO. A song like "Manic Monday" I use a piano with some strings on top of it and am done programming in 10 seconds...it just isn't that important to work out the details on that song. (Most) others I reckon will strongly disagree, but it takes all sorts as the saying goes Heretical! I know some players are quite meticulous about getting the patches dead on...I just can't be "arsed" as the saying goes! Again, to a point...I do try to make sure the sound I use matches the song, and our version of that song (with possibly a different lineup from the original band). As far as synth sounds, most of us here have experience in recognizing these types of sounds and quickly finding something to get into the ballpark. "That's a synth brass type of thing probably made with sawtooth waves" etc. Much in the way a guitarist could maybe tell that's single coils played through a marshall

I think the tonewheel organ is better in the Fantom--this may not be an instrument of need. I was set to buy my buddy's FA07, thinking it had the same organ as my former VR700, but it wasn't in the ballpark for whatever reason and I decided not to buy. I don't think the regular fantom started out with the tonewheel engine, it was added later; not sure about the Fantom-0. There may also be a difference in synth tech but I though the FA synths sounded good when I tried it out.

Probably my current Nord stage 3 compact. It of course has limitations but my needs creep right up to them without crossing over I would have killed for this board back in the 80s. Speaking of the 80s, my JX-10 I had in the mid-late 80s was my first real nice synth and I loved it. I didn't treat it as well as I should have, it saw many gigs and I was young and stupid (old and stupid now, but I digress). It did have a recurrent issue with key contacts going out--which perhaps was dust that I could have avoided. I paired it up with an E-mu Proteus (with a 2nd keyboard at times) in the late 80s and that was quite the rig for its day.

I never heard that whitney rendition, but if it was pre-recorded then by (my) definition it wasn't any "great moment in music history." It is entertainment, sure, I personally wouldn't care if I was there to watch the sporting event. If I was there to see Whitney perform it would matter a lot to me. ymmv.

I do have a Summit, and ironically it boiled down to the Rev 2 vs the Summit, which pulled out a last-minute win when Sweetwater surprised me with $300 off the normal price. Usually they'll knock off 100 at most. My friend got the Rev2 about that same time, and the Summit has one surprisingly-big advantage: a free librarian. I quickly whipped up custom banks from the stock ones and a whole bunch of other users' banks that Novation made available, and of course my own patches once I started building them. I've always had a desire for a Prophet or Obie though and maybe someday I'll go for one! My best-sounding soft synth is Repro, with Repro5 being of course the Prophet 5. I use it constantly. The Nord Stage 3 compact has a better synth than I expected--better poly and mono classic sounds than the Modx (though the Modx has amazing pads) and it's super easy to program. In short though, yeah the Summit may well be making an appearance. I'm not going to sell it, I really like it. I'm torn between staying at one keyboard (which certainly works with a bit of patch dancing), adding my weighted board under the NS3c since I do play a fair bit of piano, or going with the Summit. My setup is incredibly easy to load, setup and get running with one keyboard as can be imagined and I'm getting mighty used to it! (I am going to bring the Modx as emergency in the car if I keep doing these single-board gigs). One little "show factor" is that I sing some lead, and it kinda looks better being up front with a minimal rig while singing, vs being behind a bit of a wall... I am missing a vocoder, as fluff as that sounds. We'll see what happens, we had to simplify our sets for now with a new drummer. Bandleader has said more 80s, and depending what those songs are will help determine what I do.

This one is a bit of a miss for me, but mainly because I'm set for hardware keyboards (and then some, trying to sell a couple of keyboards.) If I wasn't, and especially if I owned V collection, this would be way more tempting as a "disliker of live laptops". I went down a different avenue with softsynths, going with u-he and Komplete among a few others, so now I'm literally awash with the things and don't see v collection in my future... If this had Poly AT I could stretch the rationalization muscles to let this be my new home controller + live...but right now I have no compelling reason to get it. A bunch more controls and as noted more to the left would have been more enticing as well. I like the general idea though!