DenCV

They are a killer band, definitely worth checking out if you haven't

Our band leader always liked real horns. Unfortunately, the clubs we played didn't support them, unless we wanted to be playing for 40 a night. So it rell on me, the keyboardist to do the horn parts decently enough to keep the leader happy (which wasn't too hard, he always got guys from the blues jams to be the horn section, they were anything but a section. I tried everything I could under 1000, settled for an MX61, which actually sounded pretty close. But as everybody already said, it's how you play them. My first instrument, and one I still play quite a bit is trumpet, so I could already think like a brass player, you have to find a way of doing that. Second, you have to be willing to use some unorthodox keyboard techniques, even if all the keyboard guys in the audience will make fun of you! Two that come to mind were "love and happiness", there's a double tongued line in there that I had to do a version of one fingered hunt and peck typing on the keys.Teddy Pendergrass's "Get Up Get Down Get Funky Get Loose" was tough too. SOme are just fun, like Brick House, and superstition. But there were a few that no matter how I tried I wasn't hitting, I remember a live version of a Frankie Beverly and maze song, the studio version was some kind of synth I think, live I'm still not sure wasn't synth, but the leader insisted he heard them and it was real horns. Unfortunately it also had real important EP in it, I was short 2 hands!As a trumpet player I can snobbishly say there is absolutely nothing like real horns. As a hungry musician I can say there's nothing like making enough per night to cover more than the gas.

A sound deadened box to put a leslie in sounds like a cool idea, however you lose the doppler chorus effect we all love because of the same reason lightbg likes to record his in a bathroom. Bouncing that moving sound around a reflective room just makes them sound that much better. In my studio mine are Iso'd in a reflective room, yea, you hear some of the "room", but it sounds way better than a totally dead room. Speaking of leslies just for looks, we played a festival, and I was using an old tube leslie (50c) hooked up to a CX3. Well, it was thunderstorming, and the place's policy was if there was any thunder all power had to be off. We had to be ready for a quick soundcheck and hit the ground running as soon as the storm stopped. So I set up, had everything ready to go but couldn't power up. I knew the sound guy good (always stay on their good side), and I was first to get soundchecked. No sound from the leslie. I told him I'm gonna plug a direct box with the vent into the high mic, trust me it'll be fine. He did everyone else, then came back to me. Vent worked fine. I played the whole slot, but forgot to turn off the leslie in the rush, so it was spinning on fast (turned out a wire broke, old solder joint) the whole time. After us was a 70's band, old tube amps, real old school guys. When we packed up they all thanked me for using a real leslie because (you don't see them much anymore, and they really sound better. I didn't have the heart to tell them they heard the vent all night!

XR18 here, preset for my keys setup so I don't even have to fire the laptop up on the gig, I just set it the night before the gig to whatever preset is setup for the rig I'm using that gig. Nobody can bump knobs and mess it up, and if I need to get into it for an emergency, I can by phone, or laptop into the ethernet if connection is bad. It handles a three keyboard rig, or two plus seperate vent if a small gig, plus a mic for my trumpet. I have it all prewired in a black box that hangs on the back of my z stand, along with the vent, and all the connections to all the different keyboards with labeled wires. I can get going in 10 minutes. And if need be, it'll handle the whole band if we need it to.

I have a real deal console down in my studio. I've also gigged with a ton of clones, trading them in for better all the time. I have the console and the XK5 in the studio, each ready to play at all times. All I can say is every other clone I had, I couldn't play the console for a couple days before the clone gig or I'd be spoiled, and not enjoy the clone. With the XK5 (I'm using internal sim, tweaked) it really is rare that I turn on the console. Other clones sounded close, but the feel just wasn't there, and after playing them, then going to the real deal, I'd be like no way is this close. The XK5, it's there. If the console crapped out, I doubt I'd replace it. If I had to pick one or the other, it'd be the XK5. The console'll stay just because it'd be a royal pain to haul up out of the basement studio. And it is fun to play every once and a while. But I honestly enjoy the XK5 more. I have a few leslies tweaked out in it, and a few different organs, including something real similar sounding to my console. Keep in mind I've never recorded on anything except the real thing through a real leslie, with the exception of a couple tracks I used SK2 on only because I knew I wasn't gonna get a better solo than the first take, which was on the SK because of bleed through problems on the session. I have about 5 vintage tube guitar amps, a ton of vintage keys, and three tube leslies down here. I am as old school as you can get. I've been messing around with old tracks, replacing the real organ tracks with the XK5/internal sim, and the sound is there. I'm totally happy with mine. A word of warning though, if you go two manual XK5/XLK5 like I did, it's pretty heavy and big for gigging, not the type of thing you toss in the back of the car for a jam. And they don't separate as easily as you think.

Warning:Stereo vent is very addictive. You'll not go back!

I recieved this thesis from Darren a while ago, take him up on his offer if you haven't already! Good stuff!

I enjoy Lachey's playing a lot. He's got an emotional connection to his music that I haven't seem many people accomplish. Harmonically, his stuff ain't that deep at all. But then neither was Hendrix's. I'd say if Lachey can teach some of that "soul" in his course, and you have the money, and you like his style go for it. If you're looking for ways to stretch your playing harmonically, I'd grab snippets from as many of the jazz guys as you can. Brian Charette's stuff is great for that, and I'd imagine so is Joey D's.Tony seems like you're gonna get an all around organ education from him. But a word of warning, a good player isn't necessarily a good teacher. There's probably a real good reason Tony Monaco is as popular as he is. A side note, my favorite organ guy is Medeski. A while back he offered a deal where you could go hear him record a CD in the studio with Fuzinski, get a master class with both of them, and get copies of the CD. I went specifically to learn his drawbar technique, and also to see if I could catch a glimpse into how his mind worked. He showed me his technique, and I was shocked. He knows what note each drawbar is playing on each key while he's doing it. It's not just a random technique, he's in complete control! I didn't know it before going, but the whole CD was using a 24 tone scale. I got to watch him work, ask questions, etc. and that glimpse into his mind I wanted turned out to be a lot more complicated than I could imagine. I learned one important thing that day, and that was I could relax, I will never be a John Medeski. I enjoy listening to him a lot better since then because I realize some things you can learn, some things are just pure genius and aren't to be imitated. I kind of doubt Lachey can teach that pure emotion that comes out of his playing, it's a part of him. But if he could it'd be worth the 500.

Muskrat Love.......Sorry

I am currently using a pair of HS8's and love them. I have a passive set of monitor 1 mk 2's over on the other organ for when I do something over there, and whenever I'm on them I miss the yamaha's. But to be honest the 8's are a little big, should have went with 7's if I had it to do over again

Bill, it's on the way, just sent it. As far as saving patches, I'm not sure what all saves as a patch. I have a feeling if you change leslie values, or TG values it would confuse things. And again, if libraries change it could mess you up.

Bill, I'd be happy to send mine, but they're a bit weird. The organs are modeled after my Hammond CV, and there's a few odd patches in there, such as my Medeski Mellotron patch. I use it as a sole keyboard in an R&B band when we have our horns (WHen the horns aren't in the budget, I throw a yamaha MX61 for brass on top) and a sole keyboard minus one (I use the chicago harp patch in my VR09, but other than that it's all SK2). I do use it exclusively for EP's, clavs, AP's, but I think the trick is in the velocity settings, and also turning the volume up so you can't play it hard, since it is an unweighted keyboard and it'll bottom out way too quick if you play it with a piano touch. Now Pads, and synth strings, that's something it doesn't do well. We have some freedom in the R&B band, we're doing our own versions, so I usually use the mellotron strings when I need some kind of string sound. Get me an Email addy if you want my setup, weird as it is

Rustar, I had the same problem with an under warranty sk1, which hammond fixed no problems, then just recently my SK2 did something similar (note didn't sound at all which means the same thing, dirty contact, only the other contact in the little rubber bump of two. This wasn't under warranty, so I would have to pay a warranty center to fix it, but after talking to people, it seemed doable. I regularly fix my older actual tonewheel hammonds, so I have some ability in this area, but still, a brand new digital keyboard scared me. I finally got the guts to jump in and do it, I was surprised how easy it was, took maybe an hour, and most of that time was figuring out which screws needed to be pulled. You need a screwdriver, a couple Q tips, and some denatured alchohol and you're set. The SK1 is significantly easier to fix, getting to my bottom manual in the SK was half the battle. The SK1 is quite a bit more accessible. IF you're under warranty let them do it, if not and you're at all handy go for it. And as Jim said, it's not a hammond USA problem, it's a fatar problem. There's a good video on youtube about someone doing a kurtzweil here, getting the keyboard apart is obviously different but contacts are the same.

That's a bummer there's no velocity sent, so much for it beinmg a midi controller. And Adan,. they were weighted, not sure if as much as a real piano but definitely more than semi.

So way back in the early eighties I had a yamaha CP25 as my piano in my rig. Loved the thing! It had a rhodes type sound that really cut through on a lot of the fusiony stuff we were doing. But it had the coolest action out of anything I've ever tried to this day (I'm a bit odd though, I love a rhodes action). Well, I got totally out of music for maybe 15 years, and sold everything I had except a clav and an ms20. With ebay and craigslist I've managed to buy back and retry everything I used back in the day, except the cp25, they just never showed up. Well finally maybe 2 years ago one did, for around a buck and a half, so I grabbed it. Got it home, sure enough the action was as great as I remembered it. But the sound sure wasn't. Things have come a long way. I took it to a blues jam, and we all had a lot of fun with it, but there was no room in the studio for it, and it was a lot heavier than I remembered it, so it got a corner of the garage and sat there packed up until tonight. I decided it would make a good bedroom instrument to just go over scales before I went to bed. No distractions, only notes. But it does sound bad! I'm kind of wondering what the possibility of turning it into a midi controller is? It was definitely pre midi, but there has to be a way? ANybody have any experience under the hood of one?

Well, I have a vr09, as well as a bunch of stuff TG, Schultz, etc used to use. I was a huge tangerine dream fan back in the day. I got hooked on them through rubycon, and ended up buying everything I could get by them. If I'm remembering right you're talking rybicon/ricochet/phaedra stuff. One thing that made that period so cool was their use of very mechanical sounding sequenced (analog) bass lines, and like you said they "effected" everything. We actually had a band that did this stuff live. I had an ms20 with an sq10 for the bass lines, and was actually getting by for organ/ep sounds with a korg lambda through a lot of pedals. As I see it, the vr is gonna cover everything except the bass sequence stuff, the looper isn't going to get that mechanical feel as far as I know. I think korg has a little sequencer out now cheap, and might even do midi, maybe it could be creatively used with the vro9? One thing I do remember when we did that trio was I had a lot of sustain pedals so I could hold chords down and free up my hands. The VR09 could never cover all that, but it would be a good place to start, and add more later. You're bringing back some good memories, I can tell you back then I would have been in heaven with a vr added to my rig. Like someone else said you can find lots of keyboards that to some things better than the vr but none that do everything it does. But if I had to describe the vr with one word, it would be "fun"

Nice stuff, real clean sounding

thanks Lindaru

We opened for a band at an old theater sat. night that had the capability to give us separate tracks to take home. I think we had one of our better nights, if you like blues, enjoy https://soundcloud.com/den121961/sets/kim-brewer-band-live-at-sellersville/s-fbGWv

Brian Charrette has a good one I'd recommend, here: http://www.briancharette.com/new-products/101-hammond-b3-tips

Lightbg, that's scary! I've tried playing trumpet and organ at the same time, so I know how hard what you're doing is. You have a webpage with your schedule up? We ain't too far from each other, I play hacketstown regularly.

Yep, I have one missing on my SK1, not sure when I even lost it. I now check them regularly. ANother thing I've noticed, if you carry it in a gig bag, or lean on it while working drawbars, that metal bends down over time. If you notice some buttons, like the leslie switching for instance doesn't seem to work unless you really push it, then a note sounds, it's because the metal bent. Pull it up a bit and you're good to go for a while longer. This could be a potential problem though as the metal weakens.

Yep, got a farf in the studio with a bad oscillator card, after ABing the farf in the SK, I haven't even thought about opening it up.

under the drawbar section there's an organ volume setting, not sure if it was per patch or global

You're going to need an adaptor to use the fc7 with the vr. I got mine from ashby solutions, been working great.