hardware

Thanks.

Had to get this. A total MIDI Controlled Dual Phaser from Strymon. USB MIDI from the Physis K4. So now I run a USB powered AOC 12' monitor, my iPad and the Strymon. The sound is fantastic. Omnisphere MXR Phaser sounds great but having 2 x phasers, left and right are most desirable. https://www.strymon.net/product/zelzah/

Corporate types fear being cancelled. Take to LaLa Land on Twitter. Evil capitalists bow quickly to the WOKELings who surely will jump in. Even AnQueefa anarchists might side with you. You"re in Oregon. Good Luck

They should be painful actually as they stretch the ear hole, as that guarantees a tight fit after a while. I"ve used the same molds since the guy who created IEMs (Shure"s partner @NAMM '95/Ultimate Ears/JHAudio) sent me to the audiologist in LA. They hurt like hell for a while but now I send them in for driver replacements, sometimes a crazy new design, etc. I"m so deep with these I went from 3 way, to 6 and now 12 way stereo. Basically clusters for lows midi and highs w/ a sub boost knob. Even have the Jodi Vac to clean the insides of the shell. Best thing since sliced bread.

They nailed the resonance of the filter. I judge digital filters by the resonance tracking more so than cutoff frequency sweeps as that"s the easy part. Good find Al.

I got lucky because my Physis K4 had a great warranty so they would provide local techs, and while most were old school organ/electro-mechanical types with garages full of antique boards, I wanted someone who dealt with Wheel Assembly"s and more modern boards. Got the best tech I ever ran across who was the guy that replaced the original lead singer for Sly & The Family Stone. We used a triple wheel assembly replacement, as well as the knob/fader/button board. Opened it up while I was there, showed me how well designed it was since it was plug and play mostly, but did require diagnostics, even showed me the Mains Power Supply would be next unless he re soldered it, etc. I knew he was on top of things as he had a Yamaha CS-80 torn apart and was excited about the challenge of fixing it. Anyone traveling through Vegas needing help with old & new gear, even Leslie cabs here"s the guy. 911 Keys & Sound, Inc. Las Vegas, Nevada 89120-1213 http://www.911KeysAndSound.com (702) 369-9694 Mon-Fri. 1pm-8pm

I use the ancient PCM200 for my own gigs. I can"t even imagine what mono would be like. IEM"s Layla"s and Roxanne"s from JHAudio. Gigs of yore we were usually supplied with PCM1000 dual antenna body packs. And an actual Monitor Man for custom mixes. These days I make sure I can hear everyone while keeping my sounds low but above the stage volume. 12 way drivers and custom silicon will change your life.

Bought the Italian made Physis K4 Master MIDI Controller years ago and was pissed when 4 of the 8 pedal jacks wouldn"t work. Bought the last dozen Ashby had and actually like the way it adds more length to the FC7"s. Lucky for me I was making great bread and didn"t mind the 45 dollar costs. Turns out the K4 and FC7X-II"s while being expensive were a fantastic hassle free investment. These would have been easier on the pocket book though.

A decent re release of the MicroWave XT. I actually like the sound of the filters, but from an innovation standpoint this is a way for people to see what they missed 25 years ago. Let"s see, a new Waldorf or a Hydrasynth Deluxeâ¦..ASM hands down.

Nothing is more fun than playing Southern Rock B3/Piano parts. I do enjoy doing R & B + Hip Hop as it"s challenging using a multi zone controller and hitting Horn Sections + synths. Vegas could really use a good Southern Rock Tribute. I"d do it for peanuts just to have fun returning to my roots. When I did it we had big anvil cases, CP80, Pianet M and B3/147s. My entire rig now is a single Physis K4 and a 3U rack with a 2.1 RCF TT08A tree. I set up and tear down in minutes and after 30+ years the sounds are close enough for a nod and smile. So many good old Allman Brothers snd Skynard Tunes, it would take years to get bored. Then I can rotate to a Disco tribute againâ¦

I"ve got all 3 mixers including the high end 8 channel Tube Mixer. I thought it would be great for VST"s but is better as a Guitar/hardware synth mixer. KL8 is really a great mixer, gives you more channels than the Largo and really shines in its role as a send to FOH. I actually turned off my stage monitors because I preferred the sound from FOH over a mix of stage monitors/FOH. I think you"ll like the ugly bugger. If you don"t need the channels though the Largo has the same excellent tone.

RAID will not help out unless you want redundancy, which is RAID Level 1, and also unnecessary because you"ll notice a bad storage device within days of installing it. NVMe devices won"t help out either, but I use them to keep my builds smaller at a Dual SSD + NVMe (Omni Steam Folder). I spent a fortune on a Supermicro RAID 5 build since I was always a SCSI Cheetah guy, fearful of SATA HDDs. I didn"t notice any difference in speed/loads using Kontakt or Gigastudio, so figured we"ll I have RAID 5 redundancy, so all is good. Unfortunately the rebuild process cannot keep up with the streaming needs of audio. So sure your drives will retain data and stream during a rebuild of the Array (when it fails in a live venue) but the missing notes, and pops clicks showed me the uselessness of RAID. I actually read an article by a lying scoundrel who used a DAW/soft synth PC who claimed to use a cheap High Point RAID Card where as I used the Adaptec 8 port. I immediately called him out. Our machines be it Mac or PC won"t benefit from super high speed devices due to ASIO Limitations. Which I believe tops out at 6-800 MBs per second. I had fun trying NVMe and even an Intel with the fastest Random reads. We"re just fine using SSDs. Company"s like Samsung have their own in house controllers and a 5 year warranty. Their Pro models are very good and worth the extra coin.

Most of the new digital synths are just softies like my WaveState and they"re just not very inspirational to be creative. But Hydra due to PolyAT, Ribbon and complex routing schemes, most hardware can"t perform make this synth a real treat if you"re looking for a new way to do things. I hacked the keys off of my WaveState, no way would I do that on a Hydra. Even if the action sucks, anyone who ever owned an old hardware spring keybed never lets 'action' get in the way.

Kontakt has a really decent Disco Strings, pretty sure it"s Session Strings (Pro)? I use a few so never needed it, but remember the demo was Disco era.

Hundreds of thousands of people don"t think CES is a nightmare. The only complaints I ever hear are people don"t have enough time to see all of the attractions and really need to learn how to organize their schedules the next time. I just think NAMM needs some new skin. Plenty of innovation to go around, the presentation and experience is lacking, and I agree CES is evolving into so many areas like Cars, Drones, etc. But they"re evolving. As you say they were in the basement, now they"re the biggest draw. More people, more exposure, more money, more innovation. NAMM needs Vegas.

Too bad they never look up to CES in Vegas as a way to grow their interests. NAMM in Anaheim just doesn"t appeal to people as much as it use to. Booth babes are frowned upon, prices even at the Jolly Roger are insane. They should merge with CES and rake in extra sales as electronics/gaming and music go together well. It would be such an epic event. I have so many great memories of NAMM, each time I go now it just makes me miss it when it was the greatest show on Earth. Too expensive and not enough fun. Use to be a 500 dollar ride for the time of your life. 1500 minimum now. These guys get it, as does NAB too. https://aesshow.com/vegas2021/

Custom 1U PC w/ AMD 5700G SurgeX SX1115 Scope XITE-1 DSP Rack HX-3.5 Organ Module Changes size and gear according to job. Kontakt, ZebraHZ, PTeq, Keyscape and Omnisphere.

I always liked Herbie Hancock"s Thrust Album, great Synths, Clavinet and Rhodes work. But the song I always remember for Clavinets was Alan Parsons I Robot.

Audio Interface mixers make life easy for live work, especially if MIDI PrgmChng messages with snapshots are allowed. Whenever I change one of the 4 scenes per performance I have on my controller (intro, verse, chorus, bridge) it provides snapshots made while programming/editing, so Live I don"t need to do anything other than play. I have a Radial rack mixer too, the 8 channel Tube variant, but I never use it anymore unless I score a house gig where a larger set up stays for weeks on end. One thing I make sure of is I can enjoy playing w/o using a QWERTY/Mouse, or fiddling with mixing. After handcuffing myself with so many gadgets and synths, I just went to a simple automated set up so I can enjoy listening and playing with the least amount of gear/set up time.

New MacMini"s look very capable. If you are wondering about PC strengths a simple fast Quad Core CPU is more than enough for live work. My i7 4790k"s were great for the last 7 years, but my needs grew with Omnisphere 2.6 and Keyscape. Just fired up my new AMD 5600G 6 core CPU and it"s incredibly powerful for audio. Cinebench R20 single thread benchmarks show a huge increase in IPC but with my VST Host/Bidule it"s twice the power I"ve been accustomed to for the last decade. AMD CPUs are faster, run cooler and better than my beloved Intel"s. Even if Intel or M1/Apple CPUs score higher they run hotter than the latest 5000G APU"s. And I just built a new rig on the cheapest 250 dollar CPU. Great times for us guys.

I use an AOC 12' USB Powered LCD, only need to boot up though, never need a QWERTY/Mouse once running. For a rack case I prefer open frame aluminum for outdoor/indoor events. My 1U PC, Audio/MIDI Interface and HX-3.5 module. Building an AMD 5000 series PC as we speak, big step up from my i7 4790k"s. Lots of friends using MacMini"s on stage with MainStage or Bidule. You can use really powerful synths that sometimes choke a laptop CPU. You"ll definitely have more choices. https://starcase.com/product/rack-frames-10-32-tapped-steel/ Here"s my easy/fast set up running multiple instances of Kontakt, PTEQ, ZebraHZ, Keyscape and Omnisphere.

Someday I"ll buy one if they ever get Horn Sections and String Sections w/ assignable articulations. The various synth engines can do some nice bread & butter sounds too. Guess I"ve been covering Sections too much but if you have great B3/147 sounds and sections you beg for time off.. Actually I"m begging for time on lately, but things will eventually change back. Saw Herbie using a Kronos Clavinet D6 wah wah and a Rhodes Panned, with Solina style strings doing the old hits from the Thrust LP and sounded great.

+1 another shout-out for the impressive RCF EVOX J8. In addition to @hardware, we've used them outdoors at bigger gigs 200+ w/sub. I agree with your comment on DJs vs band. If you can tame the sound, that is. Getting the drummer on IEMs or headphones makes it easier for them to switch to digital drums. Had the pleasure only once with a modern electric drummer. It was a great 2 years to be able to play any gig without crying front persons drowned by cymbals behind their head. Really makes a difference having modern sounds for each song instead of grandpas kit every Damn time.

I"ve been doing exactly that for 25 years. I use a Physis K4 Master and use soft synths & samplers even more than hardware lately. But mostly because the controller was made for VSTi"s, which usually have better editing than hardware. I do use analog still like a Peak module and SE-02, as well as the HX-3.5 Hammond clone. The rest are Strings, Horn Sections, EPianos, Acoustic Pianos, etc. I prefer their sound over hardware version ROMPlers. It"s nice having a controller and all of the sounds you need quickly accessible. Easier to set up than multiple keyboards too. You should start with a cheap controller, which are numerous, then pick one later you really enjoy using for the easiest workflow. Enjoy

Haven"t heard Bose but RCF Evox pair for an entire band, electric drums, and it was perfect for 50-75 seat room. Club owners/bartenders/waitresses love it. DJs were once the masters of small sized rooms but the game seems to change if an electric drummer can good sound person are used with well tuned arrays.