paulnajar

I can speak for it. I was an Ivory 1 & 2 owner and when this one was released it was a no brainer for me. Ivory has always been my most preferred piano. I’ve never got on with their Bossenorfer but the Yamaha and mostly the Steinway have been fabulous pianos. I also own the American Grand and the Fazoli and both of these have been appropriate at times but less often. In Version 3 the German Grand is a clear step forward in playability and sound although it’s getting harder to separate these two areas since one speaks to the other. The nuance and detail in fine control is truly wonderful. My main controller being a Roland A88. Also noteworthy are the multiple mic positions now available in V3 - particularly if you’re mixing music in Atmos. I recently set up 2Ivory instruments in a Atmos mix - one with the side A Mic’s and the other with the MS mics and panned them to somewhat different places in the sound field and it felt like I had my head in the piano sort of. Really beautiful. Dare I say immersive. I know V3 supports MIDI 2.0 but I’m yet to have a controller that can do it. I hear it’s yet a further step up in playing detail. Might be an argument to upgrade my A88 to the Mk2 one of these days. Even playing the version 2 pianos inside the version 3 software interface seems to add a little to the playing experience but not close to the actual only new V3 piano - i3 German Grand. Also be warned this new piano inside the V3 software imposes a noticeably bigger CPU resource overhead. So much so that my old Mac Mini Mainstage rig can’t run it live with low latency. My Mac Studio Ultra M1 - my studio machine - has no issue with it even in a crowded session. I’ll give the final word of my impromptu review to a great musical colleague - a wonderful jazz pianist that I’ve just recently put the final touches on our 6th album together. Fusion style music. He’s done a further 10 albums before we met. All using good quality Yamaha grands at various studios and has a Kawai grand in his own studio. I turned him onto Ivory 2 back on the first record we did and it’s all we’ve used for every record since. It was a tough sell back then but he was immediately convinced once he heard the mixes. He feels that V3 Ivory is a huge advance. I have to agree.

About 3 years ago I had a Studiologic SL88 Studio which I believe has the same Fatar keybed as yours and I had exactly the same problem as you. In the end I took it back under warranty here in Australia. The distributor had it for over a month and was not able to fix it and had no stock to replace it so offered my money back which I gladly took. I was very happy with everything about this board except for this one issue. I even let Studiologic know about this issue and I suspect they know about it all too well but aren’t saying much. It got replaced by a second had Roland A88 which has been a rock solid performer with a very pleasant action. Only thing I dislike about it is the length of it. During the troubleshooting stage when I still had the SL88 Googling around found that this was a not infrequent issue with the TP100LR keybed. Sounds like yours is out of warranty so second hand sale might be best. For me the double midi note issue was completely unacceptable and not something I could live with.

The standard for me has always been the Novation SL Mk2 which I let go of some years ago for a Nektar Panorama P6 because of it’s deep MainStage integration. It’s action is close to excellent but slightly less preferable to me than the Novation as it’s keyfall is a little deeper. I can’t remember if the SL was TP8xx or TP9xx but I agree with AnotherScotts earlier comment that the same keybed does not equal the same feel necessarily because I recall my Prophet 12 keyboard was meant to have the same as the Novation and they did feel different somewhat.

For many years I used my RSS newsreader to keep up with Keyboard corner but mysteriously some months ago the link stopped working. Looking around the site I can't see any reference to it anymore thus the question. Is there still a way to use an RSS newsreader with the Keyboard corner forum? Kind regards

2012 Mac Mini Server here with 2 x 1TB internal SSD's. This machine has always been able to boot headless. For a screen I use an old iPad Air 1 which is my chart reader at the gig as well. I have Duet Display but chose to use Screens a VNC iPad App because you can actually zoom the screen. Duet may have this now. It's been some years since I used it. Back in the day Duet would not allow for this. If I know there will be lots of changes at rehearsals I just bring along a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and still use the iPad for screen otherwise for on the fly small changes and saving, the touch screen iPad is enough and you can double click the home button or 4 finger swipe to swap between my charts and the screen sharing. At the gig the only time I need to look at the Mac mini screen is when the gig is over to tell the Mac to shutdown. I've got everything else setup to boot automatically into my MS concert. One long lightening cable is all the iPad needs for power and screen sharing. In earlier years with this system you had to tether the Mac mini to the iPad 3G to get the network to operate for screen sharing but for some years now this is not necessary either. One of these days I will get a M1 Mac Mini but I will loose the ability to get that second internal drive which for me would then add up to one USB connection too many. I'm not afraid of running samples and OS from one bigger SSD but the advantage of 2 SSD's is that if one should fail the second drive is cloned for a quick change over and better overall redundancy.

Those speculating about class compliant audio drivers and hardware that can take advantage are perhaps overlooking (at least) one thing. The round trip latencies of CC devices is far worse than a well written proprietary driver. As an example I recently did a test with an RME interface that can use it's own driver or use a CC mode. RTL at 32 sample buffer @ 44.1Khz using RME driver was 3.1ms. The same device using CC mode the RTL was 5.4ms - almost double. Don't take my word for it. Do your own tests. For any serious recording work where low RTL is essential, class compliant drivers do not cut it. Even for just playing MainStage or similar from keyboards or VI's in your studio, the CC device puts output latency at over 2ms. Even my lowly Focusrite Scarlett Gen2 offers 1.4ms for output latency via it's own driver.

While I'm fairly critical of IOS as a live sound source solution it does actually make the best chart reader with a program like ForScore. Because my iPad is an older one - the first iPad air I believe, it's battery won't last a gig so it connects to my mac via straight lightening cable to keep it powering and to receive midi messages. There's a nifty little app called Music IO which when active on mac and iPad offers bi directional audio and midi. I only use Music IO to send ForScore a program change to select charts along with each MainStage patch but I mention all this to say that if you use IOS along with Mac OS there is little need for any additional hardware to integrate IOS into a bigger rig when one lightening cable can carry all of that.

So in a roundabout way this topic has been on my mind for some time. While I"ve been an iPad pro gen 2 user for a few years as a non music making general computer, and after this being my third 'non music making' iPad, I"m at the end of the road with IOS for anything other than my phone as an experiment to not use a mac laptop for those tasks. The reasons why are in the details. On the surface IOS appears to be a capable replacement for general computing duties but for me it"s not. You look at it and you go 'oh yes it has many of the same apps I use on OSX' but then as you use things like the mail app, microsoft suite, iWork suite general printing support etc you realise that many of the basic functions you often use in those apps on OSX are just plain missing from the IOS versions - or if not missing they require 2 - 4 different apps to do the same as what one app on os x can offer. I expect I would have a similar level of disappointment - or worse - if I could be bothered to try to use IOS for music making. I"m a very longtime Logic Pro user for my studio business and MainStage user for live keyboard gigs. I feel certain that if - as many have speculated - Apple may release something like MainStage or Logic for IOS those would be just as disappointing as the feelings I expressed further up in this post. My next non music making computer will most likely be the M1 MacBook air or similar. At least then I know what I"m buying rather than the lucky dip of app functionality across 2 different operating systems AND it will make an excellent back stop for my main MainStage performing computer. So, to sum up, in my view it doesn"t matter how powerful the IOS hardware becomes as the limitations will be in the broad feature support of the software and it will always be playing catchup in this area purely because it"s development is decades less evolved. Kind regards

While not completely on point you could get a lot of ribbon like behaviour out of one of these < https://www.keithmcmillen.com/products/quneo/> The biggest ribbon on there would be comparable or bigger in length than the oft referred to Kong Triton and the software programming possibilities are wonderful... Kind regards

Very aussie in the vein of Muriels Wedding & Strictly Ballroom. Nice to see the Hammond Elegante make an appearance as well. My Dad had one for 30 years before it passed to me. Ended up with a music teacher in Canberra

Great thread Guys. After reading through this I have a question about NINJAM for those who have used it. On their webpage they state that each band member is playing along one 'measure' behind the rest of the band. Is that right or has the tech progressed so you can all play on the same bar at the same time now?

You may be able to achieve your goal and more with one of the boxes made by audiofront.net

I happen to like the EP-3 bout the first one I had went bad within 18 months - started to spit out erratic values. Luckily got it replaced out of warranty and the replacement has been going well for 2-3 years now. It"s better than the Boss EV-5 I also use as it doesn"t have the same amount of dead travel at the top and bottom. You can get to to use all is physical range. One negative is the adjustable knob on the side of the pedal can get bumped easily. Good job for a piece of gaffa..

Elmer J, this is exactly what I have been doing for quite a few years. The Mac MINI is the last 2012 machine Quad Core i7 with 2 SSD"s inside. I don"t think you can fit more SSD"s inside the current crop but the new SSD"s are so small now that an external one hanging off one of the USB C ports is not inconvenient. I use an old iPad for my screen (the few times I need it) with 2 different apps - a VNC app called Screens and another called Duet Display. Driving the mac with a touch screen is not always ideal so sometimes I carry a bluetooth keyboard and mouse to make that easier during rehearsals when I"m still modifying things. My 20212 i7 quad core is still very fast for running MainStage and BIG concert setups with things Like Ivory, Keyscape, Arturia V collection etc. The current crop of mac MINI"s would be stupid fast but watch the cost ballon on the current models once you start to pay Apple for their ram and bigger internal SSD. If you team this power with a feedback capable top keyboard like a Nektar Panorama and the weighted action of your choice underneath it"s a dream machine.

I reckon you're on the right track here, but live and studio are not completely different. Live is a subset of recording when talking about triggering virtual instruments from a MIDI controller. To quote from my own earlier post I allude to what you're thinking. That triggering virtual instruments is not round trip, it is only the output side of that full RTL. it's not always half of it either. Sometimes it's a bit more that half the RTL sometimes a bit less. Your issues may simply be that you are asking too much of your system at the latency you wish to perform at. How much RAM? What CPU? What hard drive'/s have you got. What Audio buffer are you working at? OTOH the audio interface makers you mention are not known for their low latency, low CPU overhead performance. So there may be some wiggle room it it for you but more info please.

That was kind of the point I was making. That if you are going to try an external interface it has to be the right one or you'll have issues like you mention and/ or you might end up with less useable CPU cycles and worse latency. Or if you get it right you end end up with the opposite. More usable CPU cycles and lower usable latency.

EricBarker, it's only a guess on my part but I get a nagging feeling from your previous post that you took my previous post as a personal attack. If that's true I am sorry and it was not at all intended. I only intended to reference something you had said in one paragraph alone. I probably could have been clearer even though I referenced another user in the post as well. That said I disagree with your first three paragraphs of the post before this one almost 100% So for example read this article from Focusrite I'll quote one of the paragraphs you'll want to look at carefully. ____________________ "The driver and related software are critically important to achieving good low-latency performance. Well-written driver code manages the systems resources more efficiently, allowing the buffer size to be kept low without imposing a heavy load on the computers central processing unit. The importance of drivers means its not possible to simply say that one type of computer connection is always better than another for attaching audio interfaces. Any technical advantage that, say, Thunderbolt has over USB is only meaningful in practice if the manufacturer can exploit it in their driver code." _____________________ You'll also find similar more technically written articles at rme-audio.de. I would also hazard a guess and say that Apogee, Universal Audio, motu.com, Antelope Audio also has some informative reading in a similar vein. Finally in your last paragraph you say the size of the audio plug doesn't inherently effect the audio quality. In a physical sense that is correct, however given that a three point mini jack can't carry 2 channels of balanced audio and rarely if ever are 3.5mm audio outs referenced to a +4 level there are clear electrical restrictions that relate to sound quality when comparing the mini jack to something like 2 XLR connectors or 2 x6.25mm TRS connectors. Kind regards

Hi Everyone, Yes I get the idea of cords coming unplugged! This and other vulnerabilities of a laptop floating up around me on stage is what led to the idea of going with a powerful cheaper mac without a screen, tucked in a box with the audio interface. And if I could just be vein for a second I dont like the look of the laptop up there either. To EricBarker, your suggestion that Apple makes/ uses low latency and good sounding converters may be true compared to what other computer makers use but compared to even a small professional audio interface the theory falls over. And that goes for sound quality, round trip latency AND the CPU overhead Apples Core Audio driver imposes on any system. Of course theres always good enough and if theyre good enough then great. The thing that got me chiming in on this thread was the idea of getting all the desired CPU performance out of a MainStage Mac with as much CPU cycles in reserve as possible because the less hard the computer has to work the more stable the system will always be. So when mainstage is running at a show the CPU is used by all the stuff MS has to do quickly and then add the audio driver CPU overhead on top of that. If you want to work at the lowest possible latency then the less time the CPU gets to do all its processes. Eventually as we all know the CPU can run out of time to process the required number of tasks thrown at it, and then errors in the system start to occur. This is why CPU overhead of the audio driver matters. Less overhead effectively means the CPU can process more tasks before errors occur. This is true for every audio driver including Apples own core audio driver. If you want to gain a clue whether a given interface has a chance of bettering the the performance of Apples core audio drivers then check whether the interface installs its own drivers or uses Apples built in ones. Some non Apple audio drivers add less CPU overhead at small audio buffer settings than many others including Apples own. The gold standard are all the interfaces from RME. Some newcomers like the Presonus Quantum are making big claims but even though they claim very low latency at 44.1Khz - like 2.1 - 2.5ms without testing its not clear whether at that low audio buffer that theres much CPU cycles left over for general computing. Its also not clear without testing whether those figures include converter delays. I know with my own testing on multiple RME interfaces, and multiple different macs as far back as 2008 I can reliably get 3.0 - 3.3ms round trip including converter delays. This is as good as it gets at 44.1Khz. Youre getting even better performance if you dont plug a mic in for vocoder work etc and just play your MIDI controllers as its only the output latency that is in play. For RME thats below 1.5MS. Ive tested a few different mac models built in converters for RTL and the best I have ever seen (with a proper audio loop back test) is around 4.5MS with 2.X for output latency. Also, some audio drivers wont impose much CPU overhead but they also wont perform near industry standards for low latency. MainStage in its audio preferences reports on round trip latency figures. Here again this is not clear because as I have discovered those figures are up to the audio driver to report (interface maker) not MainStage itself. I have tested interfaces that claim very low latency but when I do a loop back test and physically see what the RTL is its more that whats reported. In other cases whats reported is verified by my ow RTL test. Other benefits of an external interface are +4dB balanced audio outputs. As ElmerJFudd points out one less box but then one more box to get that dodgy 3.5mm plug into the PA/ monitoring. My own system is 2012 Quad core 2.3Ghz Mac Mini Server with 2 1TB SSDs and 16GB ram running Mojave. The small audio interface I use most is a Zoom TAC-2 connected via thunderbolt which tests tell me its RTL is 3.3ms. I can also get similar performance out of a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 gen 2 for when I need more IO. These are not expensive interfaces. The entry level for RME is the Babyface Pro. Its 2-3 times the cost. I love RME and have used them in my studio for years. Maybe one day Ill treat myself and get one for the road. Because I get less glitches when playing through my RME interface and most glitches playing through the Zoom this tells me the Zoom has the highest CPU overhead of the three devices I mention. Kind regards

Guys, it surprises me no one has mentioned the audio IO they are using and the impact different IO drivers have on your overall CPU overheads. In a sense the ability any audio driver has to deliver low latency performance eventually comes down to the CPU overhead the driver imposes. Clicks and pops start when your CPU starts to not keep up. Secondary to this the converter latency all AD/ DA converters have. Newer ones add less latency that older ones. So guys please share which audio interface you are using with your MS rigs to add some context here. The other thing users might consider is dumping their laptops for a headless mac and use a controller that gets enough feedback from the software that you dont need a computer screen on stage. No graphics card issues then. Im happy to share what 5 years of headless MainStage work has taught me. Kind regards

Studiologic make one for some of their boards. Havent seen one in the flesh.

And here we are a whole 7.5 months later since the previous post and still noting on these models? Also wanted to add to this thread that the overall design is really still last generation as the physical faders and possibly all of the other buttons and knobs won't respond to MIDI Feedback. Very important for all of us computer based gigging musicians hoping to keep our computer screens off our keyboard stands. In this regard your preferred midi keyboard and something like a quneo is actually way more functionality.