MathOfInsects
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Posts posted by MathOfInsects
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Besides, I don't like the implication that we're that easily amazWAIT HOW ARE THE VERY WORDS THAT I'M THINKING SHOWING UP ON THIS SCREEN????
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Indeed, and I use it. Though I will say, it's tight. Loosening slightly over time, but still almost inconveniently snug. Like a Beverly Hills facelift.
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This case isn't a perfect fit (19x12x14), but it rolls and the price is right. Plus the bit of extra space is good for pizza.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31lCCtjBi-L._SY355_.jpg
Here it is for $119 for two stackable cases; use the second one for beer, which you'll need because pizza:
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I hadn't reflected on that. I wonder where I first heard about it? At any rate, some of the first information I found about the SS3 after searching, was from this thread on this site (of which I wasn't a member yet, nor somehow had I ever heard of it, in spite of now seeing three or four people I share markets/groups/jobs with posting here, and one or two who play on stuff I've listened to for years). But I'm grateful, since now I guess I'm among the very first adopters of this cool box.
By the way, I don't charge any more for convoluted run-on sentences, they're yours for the very same price as the good ones.
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It's aluminum, light as can be. Setup and tear down are literally a second or two each, shorter than my "real" stands. All I do is pop the cross bar into (or out of) the quick-releases on the legs.
In terms of ease and adjustability/customizability, it's my favorite stand. But I only bring it to large-stage gigs, since the one factor I can't control on it is the footprint. Once there's any negotiation for space on a stage, it's a needless hog.
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I knew I had these somewhere. More of the drum-turned-keyboard stand:
http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab67/mathofinsects/photo%204_zpsodym8nlp.jpg
http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab67/mathofinsects/photo%201_zpsuqb4ppp8.jpg
http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab67/mathofinsects/photo%202_zpssdgjlk6w.jpg
http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab67/mathofinsects/photo%203_zpsncm9spzl.jpg
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I say this as someone who really likes his SS3: I don't think it's a great FOH rig. My experiment with this on Tuesday was mixed. It might be best to have a line ready to send to soundman just in case. YMMV etc., but that's my take on this otherwise stellar box.
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How big a house? What else is producing FOH sound? What else is producing stage sound?
It's a great stage monitor. I've been happy with it on large, loud stages, even when I'm parked in front of the bass cabinet. I would not use it for FOH there, though. In small venues (small enough that, say, FOH is really just two PA speakers, and just the singer is using them) I'd be more than comfortable using it as my rig (with a sub). Once a venue is large enough to warrant micing guitar cab, drum kit, etc., I'd want the FOH system to do most or all of my heavy lifting.
It's a very nice sounding stage monitor. If such a creature would work as FOH for the gigs you play, it's a sweet ride. If you're trying to fight back against a mic'd marshall stack without using FOH, you'd probably want a bigger boat.
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I use the case. It's fine. The retractable handle is handy but also flimsy seeming. It will surely snap one day. The fit is snug, though perhaps overly so--meaning it's tough to get the thing in and out. I leave the cloth cover on now to give me some leverage on the way out.
Tuesday will be my first job where the SS3 and a sub are also at least part of my FOH sound--a bar/restaurant rather than a stage/venue. Curious to see how it goes/how much support I'll need from PA, if any.
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They're going to have to start calling that section the winds.
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Thanks, Rick. Yeah, if you think about what a drummer needs--fast, light, sturdy, portable, customizable, adjustable on the fly--it makes sense there'd be some overlap.
Wanna really geek out on homemade equipment pr0n, though? For organ gigs (about half of what I do, maybe a bit more), I use a foot-switch for the Leslie (sim), like many of us here. Out of habit/necessity, I've always triggered it with my left heel. Whenever I've put it at my toe, even on the left, I've reflexively treated it as a sustain pedal at least a few times during the night. (Too many nights when I was younger sitting at the piano facing out to the audience and using my left foot for the sustain, I guess.)
So it sits facing backward, at roughly the distance my heel will be if my foot is on that stand leg (different stand).
But I have to admit that I miss it sometimes. Then I have to either stomp around a bit or look down to make sure I'm lined up right. I hate that.
So I came up with this. It's just a bit of electrical duct bracing.
I velcro the pedal to the bottom. It even has a little channel for the cord to keep it out of the way.
It straddles the leg of that stand (the one I use for most organ gigs), and stays in place solely because it's ever so slightly too small to fit around the stand.
Now, wherever I hit that bracket, even if I mostly miss or hit close to the stand leg or just get one of the two braces, the pedal engages. As long as there's pressure anywhere along the way, the rotor switches speeds.
And voila, problem solved.
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I think it might have been one of those guitar legend summit things, so everyone was waving their Marshalls around like genitals.
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I repurposed a Pearl drum rack, and it's become the ideal keyboard stand. I cut and added two aluminum electrical pipes to hold the lower board, and use cymbal booms/arms (coated in plastic) for the upper. I can add a third board above that by using two more cymbal booms.
I also inserted aluminum piping into the stand legs as a place to add gig-specific items--my ipad clamp, or a small personal monitor, or my stand light, or even the set list.
All the levels are fully height adjustable, and it breaks down in about a second and a half--just pop the quicklocks on the cross bar and it's in three easy pieces.
The nice thing is, more stuff you load onto the stand itself, the more stable it gets.
I'm going to try to embed a couple of photos, but it's my first time doing so on this forum, so we'll see.
This was my proof-of-concept photo when I was tinkering in the garage:
http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab67/mathofinsects/stand1.jpg
Here are some early photos of the thing in use; I switched the angle of the crossbar after this to line up with the back of the lower board:
http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab67/mathofinsects/IMG_2487_zpsu5vnpteg.jpg
http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab67/mathofinsects/IMG_2486_zps6ssinklp.jpg
http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab67/mathofinsects/IMG_2485_zpsgnql58mc.jpg
And here's an action shot taken my someone in the audience at some gig, I can't remember what or where (cropped by me to leave out my ugly mug):
http://i850.photobucket.com/albums/ab67/mathofinsects/stand2.jpg
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To be fair, that is one of the most acoustically favorable rooms in the world, SS or otherwise.
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I'm a new poster here, but lurked on this board before buying an SS3. I had the pleasure of meeting Aspen both at NAMM and at his kickass studio. I own an SS3.
I play a Nord Stage on the bottom and a couple of different "second board" options on top. Sometimes a third board--a Little Phatty or the like--for a funk gig. My jobs tend to be organ- and vintage-keys-centric, though they run the gamut.
I play almost exclusively gigs where my stage monitor is solely that--that is, where I and every band member run through FOH. So my interest in the SS3 was truly as a monitor.
Aspen's suggestion that the complaints about distortion and horsepower on the SS3 might be the result of scope-creep--people buying the amp for one purpose, and then promoting it to another--rings true for me. What I needed--what I bought--was a really good stage monitor. (A great one, IMO.) Something that would reduce the need for lots of keys in the venue monitors if anyone else on stage wanted to hear me. Since keys are more FOH-heavy (meaning, since the sound out of PA mains is way better than out of any single stage amp), I wanted a non-fussy, non-shrill, non-jittery monitor for reference on stage, for me and (ideally) other players to hear.
But the thing sounds so nice and is so faithful to and expansive of the boards' sounds, that I almost immediately started thinking of that as "my" sound. THAT'S the organ sound I want to hear, and want people to hear. THAT'S the spacial shimmer of the Wurli. THAT'S the air around the AP. Meaning, unintentionally (and impractically) I started thinking beyond the stage to the FOH. But I'm almost never going to use it that way, whether I want to or not.
For example, I was slightly concerned about the lo-end drop-off, and started, like many here, looking into subs. I really do like sounds to express the full range of harmonic possibility, even if my LH isn't trespassing into the bass-player's turf. I was a little worried about the horsepower too, since stage volume between on-stage amps and the venue's monitors can get jet-engine-ish pretty quick.
But then I remembered (i.e., talked myself back from the edge of getting to acquire some extra gear. Damn you, common sense, damn you to hell): this is a stage monitor. It sounds INCREDIBLE as a stage monitor, far outclassing anything I've used before. The sound is warm and pure. The footprint is physics-defying. If I want some extra juice, I can have it, just the way I always have: via the venue's monitors. I wasn't intending to replace that option, just enhance it. If I want some lo-end balls...well, chances are we're playing literally on top of the venue's sub array. I wasn't intending to compete with that. And anyway, lo-end heavy keyboard sounds are almost always a big bowl of mud onstage. It's exactly the range that the SS enhances that lets the keys ring there.
I may still add a sub for--of all things--rehearsals. In that context, I might want a better sense--and others to have it too--of how my parts are sitting. (Though laziness might win out there; who wants to bring a sub to a rehearsal.) But for my purposes (which I know are not everyone's), it's a BEAUTIFUL sounding stage monitor that brings some real life and presence to the boards, and the rest was always going to be (and always has been) in FOH guy's hands anyway.
It's a tribute to the amp that I stopped thinking of it that way almost immediately after getting it. And I think the idea that those reporting distortion may really be complimenting this stage monitor by trying to over-extend it, may hold water.
My first-post 2 cents, for whatever it's worth.
Proud to use the amp, Aspen. Thanks for making it.
Heads-up: SpaceStation keyboard amp is apparently back
in The Keyboard Corner
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This little Mackie has done me fine, though I never throw anything through the mic pre's, so I can't vouch for them.
Main mix straight out to FOH, never touch it, stage mix through the CR Out, change it all you want.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Mix8?adpos=1o1&creative=55678035601&device=c&matchtype=&network=g&gclid=CPP_ruLgpcQCFQqFaQodMJkAwg