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vonnor

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Posts posted by vonnor

    Kurzweil Forte won't boot - any suggestions?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    Had this happen to my Forte7 only once. At band rehearsal, not at a gig. The screen got all the way through startup til it hit the OS Version screen, then went dark and powered off. I had all the midi, audio, and foot pedals plugged in the back panel before I turned on the power, and had the MIDI-In and MIDI-Out reversed by accident (not saying this was the cause, just for situational awareness). I unplugged everything except the foot pedals and it started right up no issues.

     

    ~ vonnor

     

     

     

     

    Sustain Pedal Hacks

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    Haven't had this problem since the mid 80's. That's when I started bolting the pedals down to a unified pedalboard of some kind, running the pedal's cables under the board to a junction box, and fanning out each conductor to its own solder pin in a multi-channel circular twist-lock connector. A snake connects to the junction box and runs up the side of the keyboard stand to pig-tail out to the correct rear-panel jack of the correct keyboard. Easy setup and tear-down, and zero wear-and-tear on the pedal cables.

     

    Oh and it solves the other mentioned issue as well.

     

    ~ vonnor

     

    • Like 3

    Portable Digital Recorder for Live Ambient FOH?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    Hey all, I saw this but not exactly the same desired application. I tried LMGTFY as well, but wanted to see if any of y'all have something you swear by.

     

    Basically I want to set the thing out beyond the dance floor and record the full night's show with the built-in mics, to hear the relative levels for the different keyboard 'patches.' Some tunes (Rebel Yell, Feels Like the First Time, etc) have a lot of different sounds in different parts of the song. The sound tech tries to make notes on any glaring issues, but since I know what I'm playing at any point I could do a better job of reviewing and tweaking levels as needed.

     

    Thanks guys!

     

    ~ Bill C. (vonnor)

    Panda wireless midi suddenly now hangs notes

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    Hey Mark. Good to see you over on this forum. I don't have specific experience with Panda MIDI, but like Chris said I would double-check the bass player's new wireless. Sometimes those guitar systems have multiple freq bands to pick from and the default factory band may not be the same as the freq his old one operated on - even if it's the same brand/model.

     

    ~ vonnor (Bill Costigan)

    Novation Hybrid Synth - Summit @ Superbooth

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    ZOMBIE THREAD ALERT:

     

    For you folks that own a Summit, this may not be a big deal for most of you. I discovered shortly after receiving mine that the Global Setting for Midi LOCAL CONTROL does not persist over a power cycle. You can set LOCAL=OFF for a given session but if you turn the synth off then back on it returns to LOCAL=ON.

     

    Again that may not be any big deal in most cases, however for my live rig, everything is controlled via Cantabile3 on the laptop, and I prefer to run LOCAL=OFF all the time. I let Cantabile route all the midi events to where they need to go - even if that's back to the same instrument.

     

    Recently I submitted a support ticket to Novation and got a response this morning. While they have no plans to make LOCAL CONTROL setting persist, there is an Easter Egg in the OS that lets you set LOCAL via MIDI CC#122. The weird part is it only responds to value=33 and value=99 (OFF and ON respectively). I have not verified that this works yet, since I'm at work, but will check it later today. This would solve my problem since Cantabile can send any number of MIDI events to any number of outputs on startup.

     

    Weird that this feature (if it does indeed work) is un-documented.

     

    ~ vonnor

    • Like 1

    Thoughts on Prophet X/XL?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    20 hours ago, allan_evett said:

     

     Brother Moonglow and I got a very thorough tour of the Prophet X at 2019's Gearfest, courtesy of Gerry Bassermann from Sequential. I was then turned loose on the above XL model. Tried a little programming, and came up with this sound.  Very inspiring synth to play, and enjoyed having the 76 action for 'stretching out'.  Still tempted by the Prophet X, at times.  Having an analog poly again, plus access to a flexible built-in sample-based engine  is intriguing.  Too bad about 8dio only having a T8 sample set on their site; appears that partnership did indeed come to a halt. Jim, I look forward to hearing what you come up with sample-wise for the Prophet X.

     

    I was standing right behind you there... 😎 Actually I think you showed me this patch later in the day.

     

    ~ vonnor

     

    p.s. you still owe me this sound for the Kronos... 😉

    Dig My Rig--Let's see your setup!

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    1. Figure out exactly where (in three dimensions) you want the instruments to sit during performance.

    2. Build a stand to hold them securely in their exact place.

    3. Decide what foot controllers (pedals and switches) you want, where you want them to sit, and how to keep them in place.

    4. Figure out how you want to wire it all up for fast setup and tear-down.

     

    I just added a Summit to my live rig, and managed to arrange three keyboards in a space that's only 3" deeper and 2.5" taller than before. Profiled the boards in a 2D CAD program for placement, then raided the back of the closet for what's left of my USS T-Connectors, tubes and cross-supports. Cut tubes to length and squared it all up. I realized that during live performance I literally never use the display on either the Forte or the Kronos, nor do I touch the panel buttons. That's all done ahead of time while programming the sounds, splits, layers, footswitch/foot-controller MIDI mapping, etc. for each song. So I moved the boards much closer together, leaving a bare minimum of clearance for PB/MOD wheels on the Kurz and sliders on the Korg. Had to use 5 cross-bars under the Kronos and 4 under the Novation to insure rock-solid stability with zero bounce. And before someone asks, no it's not easy to break down. I will take off the main tubes under the Kronos and Summit and transport them in a bag. The bulk of the stand fits nicely on it's back in my SUV, with keyboard cases stacked inside it.

     

    Here is a quick & ugly pic I took for a fB friend of the new rig so far. Next up is the pedalboard and quick-connect multi-channel snakes. More photos to come.

     

    ~ vonnor

    308486700_638458737871353_1779958206094680125_n.jpg

    • Like 5

    OT - Online gaming...

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    In the last 20 years or so I have played and/or beta-tested the following PC games:

     

    WOW

    Everquest

    Everquest2

    Vanguard

    SWtoR

    Elder Scrolls Online

    Anarchy Online

    Asheron's Call

    Final Fantasy XIV

     

    and probably 3-4 I have forgotten about.

     

    Do I play now? At best, 2hrs a week. Who has the time?

     

    ~ vonnor

    Your Latest Purchase (music related)

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    22 hours ago, Al Coda said:

     

    Balancing virtual instruments´ and hardware instruments´ levels in a combined software/hardware rig is one of the hardest tasks IMO.

    Most hardware (except Kurzweil when playing back factory patches) has hotter output levels, more punch and fatter raw tone than most virtual instruments.

    Kurzweil offers hot outputs too, but the factory patches are intentionally very quiet not to overdrive the SPDIF output.

     

    ☺️

     

    A.C.

     

     

    Yeah I noticed that. For the 5-6 Forte factory's I use I had to bump the output gain in the general patch settings so they could compete with the Kronos.

     

    ~ vonnor

     

    Your Latest Purchase (music related)

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    20 hours ago, Al Coda said:

     

    Happy birthday and congrats (on) your new toy !

     

    I watched and listened to this demo and IMO,- it sounds awesome.

    I appreciate it comes w/ playable patches out of the box and delivers a s#tload of programming options.

     

    ☺️

     

    A.C.

    Yeah easy for an old-school Moog/Roland analog guy to make patches with. My sound tech was complaining that the Diva and Jup-8v patches I had in my FOH send were too quiet, and I couldn't turn them up without them clipping. So I'm adding this guy to the rig.

     

    ~ vonnor

    5 pin din midi, what are you using it for?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    I use a combination of the two. Out on the keyboard rig it's always 5-pin (well, 3-pin tbh) din. The physical connection is 10 times more secure. All those midi in's and out's run thru a multi-channel snake to the rack. Inside the rack they pig-tail to a MOTU midi patch bay. That's where it switches to USB -> to a 7-port hub (got a couple VST dongles and audio interface plugged in there as well) -> then on to the laptop.

     

    Since the innards of the rack are less likely to get bumped or fiddled with during a show, and always get double-checked for tightness during setup, I'm not that worried about a failure or loose connection there. I've only ever had midi fail once during a show, and that was the USB-C-to-B cable from the laptop to the hub but I had a spare so a quick swap fixed the issue.

     

    That hub linked above is not cheap, but it's by far the best I've found - super tight USB-A sockets/jacks.

     

    ~ vonnor

    Did you have piano lessons as a child?

    in The Keyboard Corner

    Posted

    I was forced to take piano lessons when I was 8, and only because my older brother took piano before me. I quit under adamant protest when I was 12. At 16 I got involved with theatre in high-school and when I saw that the guys who could play instruments got all the chicks at cast parties, I picked it up on my own again. I joined my church "folk" group and got the best tutorage from the bass player (who had done a stint with Glenn Miller). He showed me how to improv off the guitar charts and to do it tastefully. Six years after that I joined my 1st cover-band and the rest is history.

     

    ~ vonnor

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