nadroj
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Posts posted by nadroj
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PorkPie - Excuses, Excuses
New EP from my band!
https://open.spotify.com/album/30vaTPmUnAf1LwmxeBfAwh
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I have decided that I've been overthinking my organ tone too much.
In particularly I've been getting pissed off with my live organ tone on the SKX. I had been using a 3rd party tonewheel set that I found online, and while it had a lot more balls, the high end was too much and I wasn't getting the tone I wanted, no matter how much I tweaked the drawbars. It was especially noticable when I heard back live recordings, or when the venue had shitty floor wedges.
To make matters worse, our singer sent me a demo he and his uncle had put together of a new song he's written. The song is great, and the organ tone was so ballsy compared to what I use. The uncle is a great producer, but not a keys player, and it wounded my pride that his simple part fit better in a mix than what I would have done!
So this week I sat down and went back to square one. I stopped using the custom tonewheel set, found a stock set I liked and tweaked a little bit, and with the custom leslie settings I use, the SKX now sounds much closer to what I want. I've also simplified the drawbars for most tunes to a more basic setting and it's night and day. We're doing a festival tomorrow, so I'll test run it then. Maybe I'll be back to the drawing board next week at this time!
When I was on the wedding circuit customising synth sounds, overthinking the synth settings got me a lot of work because my borderline obsessiveness made it so that I was able to replicate anything better than some other guys, but I've found that overthinking drawbar settings just isn't the same.
Unfortunately, my less-than-satisfactory-organ-tones are forever imprinted into our latest EP. There's even one tune where the producer used a take when I was experimenting. The one he picked sounds nothing like what I wanted, and totally inauthentic to what the style should be. It is what it is, but we live and learn. Next album will be better 😁
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9 hours ago, CEB said:
Thanks. I've bought a lot of K&M stuff from Thomann and never paid any tariffs. I didn't know about the $800 threshold. I learned something today! Thanks again!
My company ships to the US every week. Every sale is usually £200-700, and DHL (the courier we use) always warn us about the duty fee that may be incurred, and that we should warn US customers about it, but so far not a single US customer has had to pay it. European customers, on the other hand…ouch. If a US and an EU customer want to buy a £500 product from us, the US customer usually ends up paying less. It’s nuts. Thanks, Brexit.Thomann are a German company though, and things work slightly different there. But if you can get accessories cheap at Thomann, do it. They’re an excellent company.
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I’ve been having this discussion with my wife. I’m away a lot (3 days a week when gigs start, which they did last month) and my wife finds it incredibly hard. But the extra income is significant, and hard to pass up.
At the start of the year I couldn’t wait til gigs started again. I was at work counting down the days. Even at home with the kids, I found myself yearning for being away again. I’ve decided that the latter isn’t a healthy place to be in.
When I’m away with the guys I absolutely love it. From the 8 hour drives in the van, the flights, the crappy service station food, the green room beers, the actual playing, the hotel room/bar beers, the groggy mornings back in the van…I just love everything about it. We’re an 8 piece, but we get on so well together. When we’re away it’s like being on a paid guys away trip. I just love it.
But with two kids, it’s hard. Sometimes I’ll be away and think “I’d rather be home with the kids than in this shitty hotel/green room.” Other times I’ll get back home to “normal” life and feel depressed that it’s
over after 30 minutes. It feels like a lose/lose situation sometimes. I find contentment very hard to grasp.
Knowing I’ve got a run of gigs coming up makes getting through work easier, but I’ve had to learn recently to enjoy and be content with my family life too. Gigs are great, but the grass is always greener.
We’ve a run of gigs in Autumn where I’m away 3 days in a row for 6 weeks straight. It doesn’t seem like much on paper, but with my 2 kids, 3 days of being a single parent from
Friday-Monday is freaking tough. My wife is a champ, but I joked to the guys that I hope the marriage counselling is included in the gig fee, lol.
We’ve been offered week long stints before, and there have been vague talks of what it would look like if we were offered gigs with actual several week+ tours - support slots, etc. I’d have to think very carefully about it, because it’s already on a knife edge, and my kids won’t be young forever.
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Our singer asked me to help with the admin for our rehearsals earlier this year.
I put all of the songs together in…a Spotify playlist. And a YouTube one, with some live versions for reference. It’s just the easiest thing to do, by far.
No one owns music any more. Hell, hardly any one buys music any more, and making a Spotify playlist is 100 x quicker and safer than downloading from some YouTube to mp3 site.
if I need to slow down a piece and listen slowly (which I do regularly for solos) there are ways to do that myself.
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Nord Electro 4.
Stupidly limited, but the most enjoyable keyboard I ever had. Took it to literally every gig I played when I owned it.
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Another SKX owner here. As others have said, the handle on the back of the SK models make them a breeze to lift. Only thing I'd say is that dual manuals are generally taller than regular keyboards, so they can be a bit awkward at times.
Length has always been the big thing for me - I hate long keyboards, and will never gig with an 88 key board again if I can help it. Dual manuals are chunky, but short. That does the job for me 😅
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I can see why many bands split up soon after releasing their own material.
My covers band released our debut original album last year and it was ok. We're all experienced musicians but we learned a lot doing it - particularly about what not to do in our context. We're a live band mostly, and the album had some decent songs on it, but the writing and recording process was up in the air for every different song, and it didn't end up sounding that much like us, or actually how we wanted the songs to sound. We've redone them live and they now sound like how they should, but they sound nothing like the album version when we play them live.
We're releasing a new EP this Friday, and it actually sounds like us. The songs are a million times better than the album, too. Unfortunately since we all like it, we care a lot more about it than we did the album. We're picky about parts, and the singer (who does the lions share of the management and behind the scenes work) has vetoed an instrumental ending to one song that the entire rhythm section love. It's been cut from the EP, but we'll keep the ending in live. I was pretty pissed, and vocalised my disappointment, but it wasn't worth making a big fuss over.
At this stage we'll be glad to get it released and start playing it live, but when 8 people each have an opinion about what to do/not to do, it's a fun test of the band's resolve. Thankfully everyone in the band is older and mature, so problems are talked about on the spot, rather than bitched about behind closed doors, which makes for a generally very healthy atmosphere, especially when it comes to disagreements!
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Knew that would happen. I'd already assumed it out be out of sight, out of mind for me when I first saw this thread.
"Affordable" only to a certain class of people. Though tbh I'm not sure in this current economical climate that they could make ANY genuine electro-mechanical instrument "affordable".
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13 minutes ago, Paul Woodward said:
Im surprised the audio interface is not locked behind a lifetime key......or is it? Modulation is only possible via aftertouch which is an additional cost..... 😉
Activate the black keys for only an extra £30 a month!
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2 hours ago, Paul Woodward said:
I’d like to think Roland know their customers (ok, maybe not with the RD08), or maybe they just don’t want to go up against Nord, but I wonder why there is no VR-10 that has some decent pianos from the RD, decent VA synths from the newer boards and upgraded organs and Leslie with drawbars. They have all the tech, but the VR09 is over a decade old now with the B refresh doing nothing to address the quality of ‘stage’ sounds.
Seems only Yamaha have tried this with the YC which, in some respects, betters the Nords…they just missed the net with the YC61 with its poor quality keybed crippling an otherwise decent machine.
I can see a “VR-X” (VR-0X?) somewhere in the future. In typical Roland fashion, I can also see it falling under the “so close, but not quite” category.
An organ based, performance focused keyboard with the V-Piano and an actual editable SN (or zen core) synth engine would indeed be killer. Maybe. They’d find a way to mess something up.
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Super cool looking at that piano and thinking about the history behind it. All those songs we’ve spent years of our lives listening to (and playing) came from that.
Bet if that Steinway could talk it would have some stories to tell…
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33 minutes ago, The Piano Man said:
Next up the Roland RD008
A further £100 cheaperNow including 8 top sounds from our popular vintage RD100 model.
But also including the D Beam!!!
(line outs not included)
*D-beam available for an extra £999. -
Locking features behind a paywall is absolute BS imo, and is a scary prospect for the future of instruments. What’s next? Paying extra for MIDI, layers, splits?
In one sense I can see it eventually working this way: buy a Nord Electro 9, pay £500 to turn it into a Nord Stage 6!
But the cynic in me sees this being being more likely: buy the workstation for full price at £4000, then spend another £1000 to unlock everything. You’re tricked into thinking you’re spending the same when you’re actually spending more.
In either case I don’t like it. It’s a sad state of affairs. Cars, TVs, printers, even home appliances are going the same way - hardware locked behind subscriptions and fees, that are bricked if you stop paying.Prioritising shareholders over consumers is a one way ticket to administration.
Sorry for the off topic rant.
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Wil Blades (killer Hammond organist) said in his patreon that he does scales/warm up stuff three times a week. He doesn’t do them every day.
I’ve taken that approach and I must say it’s been revolutionary. I used to feel I couldn’t practice until I’d “warmed up”, but then 30 precious minutes would have passed and I wouldn’t have actually played any music.
So if I’m not on a scales/technique day, I’ll just start with whatever’s in my head, get it out of my system (or build on it) then start working on whatever I want to work on.
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Cory Henry has a new album, CHURCH, out. 23 songs. It’s like his gospel organ albums made love to his funk apostles records and created this. An amalgamation of everything he’s done so far imo.
I’m a few songs in and so far there hasn’t been a dull moment. So much going on in the background, it’s a gospel fan’s wet dream.
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I'm sure we all remember the "Jordan Rudess hears Alicia Keys for the First Time" thread. Well, they're back with a new one. This time it's Justin Stanton (of Snarky Puppy) hears Dua Lipa for the first time.
As you might expect, it's...very different to the Rudess one. In fact, if you know Justin and Snarky Puppy, it's about exactly what you'd expect.In order to foster a broader discussion, I'll refrain from posting my opinion for now.
Suffice to say I think it's super interesting hearing first hand what both musicians hear in their heads, and seeing how they put it into practice (and in both cases, how similar the end result is to their wider work).
Let me know your thoughts!
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4 hours ago, AnotherScott said:
I'd say CK61 feels better.
Isn’t it apple and oranges? The CK61 has diving board keys and the Numa has piano style keys, no? -
Forte7 was the perfect balance between size and power. I’d love if there was a 7 model with the same action.
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If it hits the same price point I’d be tempted.
Good bread and butter board, and the audio/USB interface is just the icing on the cake. It makes such a difference when playing at home.
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I generally like the “virtuoso hears *popular song* for the first time” videos. Larnell Lewis’s ones are outstanding, for example. This one just felt unnecessary to me.
He played a thousand more notes, and it was a thousand times less musical than the original. They should have chosen a track by a songwriter who isn’t actually good at piano - unfortunately for Rudess in this video, Alicia Keys is actually good. The “pop music bad” jokes at the beginning were edgy internet teen levels of cringe.
This could (or should) have been done with anyone else, and it would have been better. Someone who would play something with purpose, rather than someone who’s there to wank over a keyboard to make the girl behind the glass blush.
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1 hour ago, Cliffk said:
How the heck can this be so funky??
Yeah, it literally slaps.
Best Hammond clone dry into a Ventilator?
in The Keyboard Corner
Posted
I watched a video of Lachy Doley sitting in with someone at a festival. I didn’t notice until the end that he was using an SK2/X through a leslie. To my ears, even the old VASE-III sound was literally indistinguishable from the real thing in the mix.