Nathanael_I

A professional film composer can write this off against a single film. Use it for whatever they or their assistants come up with and it's paid its keep. It's not anyone's first or only synth, I wouldn't think. It's a tool. If I had one, I'd spend several weeks using only it, sort out what direction it seems to want to go, and then mentally think of it as the go-to place for that "thing". I'm sure it, like my other synths, is capable of much more, but it's useful to me to say, "It's cool - it does x that my other synths don't do as well." I'm sure someone could make an album with that one synth and some effects. It's very, very capable. But I'll bet those with it don't have to. I have a Schmidt 8-voice. It's in the same zip code cost-wise, and this is what I've done with it. Spend many dozen hours sorting out its uniqueness, not what it can do that the others can. But where it goes that my others don't, and that's where I made a bank of sounds for it. So that's what I'd do with a Colossus if I decided to part with that much on a hardware synth again. I'd probably buy a Waldorf Quantum MkII, though. I have enough modular for now and room to grow it if I want.

I kinda don’t get this one either. It’s big. It’s super unique. But it’s also super basic. I get that much FM stuff is possible with the vernier knobs and very precise tuning. I’ve got more than the cost of one of these 1/4 sized units in my modular. But I still don’t get the big version. I am also not a modular/no-MIDI setup.

Another fascinating latency thing…. Synth attack time settings and when you have to play to have it “in time”. Compared to a piano, the feel is different. Co,posers similarly have to adjust the start time of samples to get the attacks right on string samples. it’s all simple… until it’s not.

This is why Avid can still sell HDX systems for tracking. The new hybrid mode is brilliant. Tracking @96Khz gives .7ms of latency. Done and sorted. Once you take the tracks out of record mode, you can go back to native and typical buffers, where latency no longer matters. My previous Dante/digital mixer setup was 1.7ms from mic to IEM. concert organists play in huge churches with 9 sec reverb tails and up to 2sec of latency…. You play and keep playing and eventually others hear it. Humans are very adaptable. But 96khz and DSP mixers get you there.

Not even close to first. This started in the professional field recorders used by the movie industry. And the purpose is eliminating “overs” in dialog or field audio. It came down into the $1000 recorders a year or two ago. There’s no reason it won’t go everywhere. 24bit doesn’t take up 32 or 64 bits that modern CPUs use, so it’s not really any more burden to process and storage is cheap. All the dynamic range stuff can be ignored. But, this is also how some of the new digital mics without gain control work ….. slap an ADC on with greater range than the capsule - now you can capture anything the mic can do without distortion. Recording and DAWs will get simpler for most users. There’s no reason for everyone to struggle with products designed for niche, albeit professional and profitable, uses. The average musician has little need for the advanced features used on dubbing stages for 800 track movie scores.

Very impressive. Can’t imagine much that would demand more out of a portable piano. The triple sensor clearly has note repetition handled.

I've often been the engineer for option #1 in the original post. In the studio, I provide IEM mixes through the Focusrite AM2 boxes straight out of ProTools. Very clean. I've been #2 exclusively on Aviom or Behringer boxes when I play. This also works great. I vastly prefer IEM to wedges.

I will follow it. It’s on the list for later this year or next for sure.

It’s probably easy to get one’s money out of this and similar things if his playing interests beyond the enjoyment factor. I’ve paid more than $150 for an hour lesson. Surely there’s a few notable things that hit home and help one as much as an hour lesson? I don’t think the bar needs to be super high here. He’s not a conservatory teacher. He’s a master player. There’s food for the hungry, but it’ll be real work to get the wisdom into one’s own playing.

There’s TEC. there’s the Hornberg Research HB1 at a multiple of the TEC cost. I own both. both work to create breath controller data on any CC you like. They send MIDI data over USB -or at least that’s the only thing I’ve ever done. The TEC is on a USB key. The HB1 has a standard port on the back of the brain unit. The HB1 is an instrument grade controller with sophisticated controls for adjusting the sensitivity, response and MIDI stream. All the hardware is high quality wood and metal. It can control 4 CCs at once. There is nothing like it on the market. It is a premium product. It is worth the money - you get a quality unit. The utility software is functional, but not Apple awesome. The actual breath control is what you pay for and what you get. The TEC hose between breath control and mouthpiece is definitely removable. It’s just tubing. They may not sell it, but I’m sure a replacement could be sourced. It’s very “non-magical”. The answer to the question, “Is the Hornberg worth it” is simple: is breath control a serious tool in your workflow? If yes, it’s just nicer and better in every way. They are on a lot of composer desktops for a reason. But you can make great music with the TEC.

It seems that it is made by PhD's for PhD's. The power is unmistakable. It's probably the most capable digital synth engine I own and more powerful than most softsynths too. I also have not made a real exploration of it - certainly not from an "init" patch. I did watch one of the tutorials, and it just can't be a priority right now to spend the time. But It's clear that it is an exceptionally capable engine tied to an exceptionally rich data stream from the keyboard. I also suspect that dumbing down the engine will seriously limit the expressive tweaking to get sounds to sit right on the keyboard. I suspect it is ideal if you have a Kyma system or program from scratch in MAX/MSP for sound design. The way the functions work is a lot like how modular stuff works for multiplying and dividing CV data; it's just that it's not hidden behind simple knobs. You actually have to put in the math and figure out what scaling works. It's the opposite of a Dave Smith instrument where the control parameters are all optimized such that you almost can't make it sound bad, and "good to great" is almost everywhere. But it may also be that 20-40 hours in, it just "snaps into focus". I had that experience with the Schmidt 8 voice. It's a very different beast, but keep at and then an incredibly rich and powerful experience unfolds, and dozens of new, excellent sounds come pouring out.

The other thing you could do is get enough USB ports that all the adaptors are always connected. I have a 16 port rack mount USB3 hub on the main DAW. The card reader for my DSLR is permanently attached along with everything else. Would it matter if you never had to plug or unplug card readers?

Orchestral template is in Nuendo. ProTools Ultimate/HDX for audio production. Ableton for live shows. Dorico for notation.

Trade shows are declining in every industry. The people who AREN’T there have more purchasing power than those there. Modern marketing budgets reflect this. The value for money is often declining every year. And there’s no downside for not going. Oberheim will do probably the exact same business. I get the social hang. But it’s subsidized by companies that need a return. its likely to always be some date before pandemic.

The interesting thing for this discussion is when software is part of what you depend on. In that instance, the increased durability of a physical thing is no longer relevant. Software must be had. Its limitations accepted. in this world, the software that truly falls into the “must have” category for me, I am perfectly fine with subscription. I want to be on the most supported, most relevant version. This is the safest place to be once you know how software is developed. Current HW, current OS, current SW (though I usually wait until first bug fix version after major releases). archiving digital content is a separate issue. I don’t expect the software to last forever. Anything important needs to be in notation (PDF and paper), or WAV files. DAW files are not archival quality. Softsynths come and go. WAV files are stable. Storage is cheap and the cloud is easy. Archival is possible via the now very flexible output/bounce facilities in any DAW. Vehicles depreciate. So does software, effectively. But both are long term valuable. There’s no software equivalent of your sax, but there’s also no hardware equivalent of a modern DAW. Music production involves software to a degree that live performance in many genres does not. But anybody running tracks or interactive Ableton sets probably thinks of that software as being as important as any of our physical instruments. when I realized I use a computer more hours than I sleep, I also realized that having the best one was an easy investment in my productivity. One of the best uses of money I could make. My computers have made much money. But they are all 5-7 year devices. Permanence is not always the main determinant of value for me.

No. They are unweighted. There’s no piano action feel or weight. The aftertouch is very deep, as has been mentioned. One “pushes” into it, but that’s after the standard “key dip” that is a pretty synth like feel.

Plugin subscription? No, not presently. Did the Slate one for a while, but I only consistently used a few that I already owned. So I let the subscription go - it hasn't been missed. DAW? Yes. I subscribe to ProTools. Nuendo has an annual update that I buy every year (so it's practically a subscription). Every Dorico release is purchased immediately. These three are the most critical software in the studio. I want these functions to be stable, fast, multi-core optimized, and running on the latest OS. The truth is that modern SW on modern OS on modern HW is a wonderful experience. These have excellent stock plugins that get better regularly. They are the core. I've posed elsewhere on the few other things I use. The real issue is limiting choice to what can be mastered. I don't want a zillion plugins in my folders. Also, I don't find that the additions I might want to make all come from the same place. In fact, it is very unlikely that would be the case. That said, I have several things from Flux and Tone Projects - but they are all owned. Ultimately, software has to be used regularly to be worth anything at all. Digital rot is real. Obsolescence is real. Digital tools expire in a way that a physical instrument just doesn't. Digital hardware like a digital mixer is less like software - but still, all electronics age differently than a piano....

As fun as new instruments are, there is little to compare with the joy obtained from a better monitoring experience. Being able to hear oneself and others clearly is just so important. Too loud, too shrill, bad balance, frequency masking - all can really put a damper on enjoyment. Solving monitor issues is probably the only "tech" thing that can compete with the musical issues you listed in the original post. When the IEMs are right and the band is in the groove - man... so much fun - and no ringing ears, no threshold shift.

That and in many industries marketing departments are realizing that they can have clear air for their announcement weeks before or after a show. Word spreads to the interested almost instantly….

Makes a lot of sense inside Yamaha’s product line. They have stage boxes already. They have PA speakers that have Dante inputs. Someone could use this and have a fully digital PA running at 96K (the benefit is low latency, not higher Nyquist cutoff). For “nice band equipment” money. UI looks nice. Basics are simple, which is good. They clearly see it going into install spaces - that is a huge market. Way bigger than musician market. I suspect they will do well with it, though few will be in bars and clubs. The x32 has the benefit that every live sound mixer has used it. Totally the McDonalds of digital mix. But you have to spend double to get better workflow, and more capability. And few NEED that capability. The Allen& Heat SQ series is a great example of what’s right above the x32, but it is 2x price. The x32, despite its many limitations is very hard to beat. And used market exists to further drop price.

I just use the presentation application built into Macs: Keynote. I use the basic shapes: circles, squares, triangles, stars, etc to indicate different types of connections. This has all the necessary detail for a setup crew. I'm sure you can make it fancier, but this gets the job done. You could use any presentation software: google, MSFT, Apple to get this done.

Pre-order for Sept-Oct delivery is open for new orders. See the Expressive-E site.

MSFT Sufaces are great. Solid hardware. Mac level nice. And quite nice for real audio apps. Remember - laptops worked great for live performance 10 years ago! The current gen ones do it in their spare time! It’s 2023. My iPad has the same M1 chip and RAM as a laptop. These hardware platforms crush a workstations little Atom or Raspberry processors. Any current “nice” laptop from MSFT or Apple, or the current iPad’s are great platforms for audio. Not okay platforms. Great platforms. My M1 Max laptop is as powerful as my i9-9900k overclocked video edit box! This laptop can crush what was a top of the line DAW four years ago! Audio is practically free on these new platforms. The Apple Silicon and new Intel 13xxx chips are spectacularly capable for audio. The old Windows issues are long, long gone for latency. Win 10 and 11 are very stable. producers are making top40 music on iPads and headphones. To the OPs point, these are serious music tools. I would add that the iPad can also run Avid’s utility that turns the iPad into a ProTools control surface. Super useful in my studio. Gig Performer is great for this if not needing Ableton.

Audeeze, sennheiser hd600, 650, 800, high-end Focal stuff. There’s several boutique companies that regularly score better than audeeze on the headphone review sites. We live in a golden era for headphones. And the best news is that the best models are in the $4-6k range. These rival speakers north of $50k apiece. The value is unreal. This is one place that truly world-class excellence can be obtained by many. Spend above $1100 bucks or so and it will likely be the best sound you’ve owned unless you have high end speakers and a treated room.

+1 to @uhoh7’s take. It doesn’t replace anything I own. It’s a massively excellent addition. If all I use it for is leads, it’s worth it. But nuanced pad swells without pedals? Yes please, and thank you - fully playable from the keys.