psionic11

Thanks for posting that. The only jazz song I know is Autumn Leaves, which walks the circle a lot. In another life I would have liked to have mastered jazz. For now, noodling over those plagal cadences is challellenging enough. A bit restless to my ears. (Was supposed to quote Mike'splagal post above)

The A turns the last chord into a dominant 7th (not sure of the exact technical term). You can repeat the progression, but try going to a Dmaj7(add 2) to end it. I don't want to call the Em7/A an A11 sharp 4, because to me that implies there's a 3rd in there, which there isn't. Still, it functions like an A7, wanting to resolve to D.

Awesome that you're on the other side of the globe and yet we're both sharing the inspiration at the same time. Obvious, but still amazing.

That's a great rainy Sunday morning progression. Adding the 2nd (9th) to every chord gives more of the same. I like this bass line for it: G F# F E G D F A

I noticed harmonica wasn't in your list either. One of the best players in our local scene, Carol, brings hers along to jam nights where she'll astound the audience with her solos then go right back to lead vocals. We've also got a hippy, tiedye wearing, trombonist on the scene who channels Jim Morrison while blatting out a rock solo. Super entertaining guest musician, but yucky part is he drains his spit valve often, right on stage, during his overly long and showy solos. It takes all kinds.

It takes all kinds. There are some awesome fiddle, banjo, and pedal steel players. Bluegrass banjo is especially impressive to me. Human arpeggiators. Good to hear you like bagpipes. My drummer's main gig is with bagpipe band Off Kilter. Their kitsch is Celtic flavored rock covers and originals. They do several annual outdoor gatherings here in Central Florida. It takes all kinds.

J Dan, your unnecesarily recent sexy avatar change makes me strongly doubt your intellectual and artistic credibility. How dare you blah blah blah... Not really, but it felt neat to type that out. What makes it worse is that my estranged brother's name is Dan... Why, oh why? PS: I agree with your premise. Some ppl are clueless yet prolifiC...

Weird coincidence here, but I'm half Filipino and half Scotch-Irish. And I have a Kronos with a full implementation of KARMA, altho I don't use it as much as I should. And super articulation is the main reason I got an Integra to supplement my Kronos. Am I being stereotyped here? j/k Disclaimer: I'm not serious about the stereotype joke. I'm still from that pre-PC generation when Richard Pryor was funny.

Back in the day, I used to rewind rewind rewind a cassette tape to learn lick by lick. Nowadays on YouTube at 75% or even 50% speed learning is super easy. For Save a Horse, Solo Violin 2 on the Kronos stacked with itself, but with the 2nd voice pitch locked at E with an envelope to simulate a fiddle drone E. Hitting SW2 momentarily drops the drone E to A for the 2nd part of the first phrase. I've worked out the fiddle solo note by note if anyone's interested. Pitch bend is key to realism here. When I was a kid, we learned to square dance. I'm also familiar with bagpipe mentality. Somehow both of those came to play in the fiddle solo. E drone with pitch bends mostly at the top of the phrase and all of a sudden you've got a convincing fiddle solo. The banjotar parts are not traditional, like CEB mentioned. But they still cop that banjo feel. Trickiest part is playing the bass line at the same time as the banjotar.

I apologize bachsteady, somehow in my mind I thought you were going thru a Leslie sim, not using actual mics on an actual Leslie speaker. As others have pointed out, the Key Largo does not have mic preamps. To get your Leslie mics up to a decent level, you will need some type of preamp before you hit the Key Largo. I imagine by now you've already figured out what needs to be done...

Appreciate the advice. I've seen a couple videos of Tony Monaco, and he's obviously got chops as well as personality. I'm more of a Gen X bassist (80s 90s 00s) picking up keys as a dual class thing (tho we do do a few 60s 70s standouts for our biker crowd). The heaviest organ song we're doing is Fly Like an Eagle, and one day I will master both the organs and the synth parts along with bass duties. Since this thread started, I've resorted to balancing everything without using my bass head. I've gotten an ART TPS II to run my Key Largo thru, and found that tweaking combis at high volume is a different experience than at lower volumes. Bass sound is improving.

Mic drop. I'm only a network engineer, but if I could start all over, I would go software. Acoustics and DSP and AI are my main interests. But synths and music have been pretty rewarding. Perspective's a bitch.

This Phitz Stage Duffel Bag has served well for 2 years now. My guitarist also has one. It's rugged, everything is quick access. And since everything has its place, it's a no-brainer during breakdown and setup knowing where everything is.

I, for one, would be totally interested in your software suggestions and opinions Steve if the OP wouldn't mind the slight derail. No problems here, one day I plan to go the software route as well.

Thanks all, some great info here. Country Girl, Save a Horse, Wagon Wheel, and Here for the Party are the songs with the parts I need to work on. Wagon Wheel's fiddle has that drone, maybe I can set something up on another channel that doesn't change notes, just volume. Solo violin with aggressive attack and convincing legato are what I focused on first. Some banjo rolls are wider than an octave and hard to do one-handed. The samples usually are shallow and don't have as muc of the resonance from the banjo body. I guess I could arpeggiate or just get close enough and trust it to hide in the mix. I haven't looked at my new Nord Stage 2 samples yet, I'll see what's in there. I didn't know a pedal steel had all those pedals and knee levers. Like the fiddle, it's all that bending that gives that signature sound away. I think I can set something up in the Kronos with whole and half note bends. Thanks again, I'll be coming back to this thread for the tips.

I guess I should add that I've learned and practiced a little about banjo rolls. I've got some solo violins I use to try to fake the fiddles, but without realistic bends and double stops it sounds, well, fake. I did hear decent steel guitars coming from a fellow Kronos owner, so at least that's a possibility if I can just figure out how he did it.

So I like to try to get my combis sounding as accurate as possible to the original recordings. Not because I have to, because the drunks and dancers in the crowd are going to notice, but because that's what I aspire to as an artist. So how do you pro's play the country sounds in recent country hits?

Thats exactly what I noticed. BX Digital Mono Maker works really well by closing the gap between a sub and 2 satellites. Crossover and 100hz roll off kind of leaves a big hole with smaller cabinets so Mono Maker takes Stereo channels and turns frequencies below whatever you select, I choose 220hz and its hard to explain but the 2.1 system just glues itself to the sub instead of sounding so separated. On the 12.2s I dont need the plug in. But my point is on my Blue Sky 2.1 system plugs in work really well, every little detail can be heard, on Powered stage Monitors its never quite that noticeable but on all my QSC 8.2s plug ins keep me from buying another sub, or external tubes, etc. Thanks much for these tips. I don't use plug ins, and I plan soon to get at least a single 10.2 to augment my current v1 QSC K8 for monitoring. I've been noticing a lot of subtle interactions on the bass end and overall presence with different combinations of tubes, EQ, DSP, modelling, compression, and speaker/cabinet size. Your post somehow validates as well as encourages me to listen to my ears (and gut) to try to really hone in on a more punchy and responsive system for my bass guitar and bass synth and general synth sound. I'll pay more attention now to crossover characteristics thanks to your post.

I'm not at the extreme end of either OCD organized or sloppy lazy breakdown. I learned long ago it's super important to wrap up your cables properly after a gig. Period. Unraveling tangles is not only unfun, but unprofessional to the audience half watching you set up. Plus it takes like 4 times as long to unravel compared to just plug and play.

The PX-5S makes an excellent controller with its 4 zones. The sliders and knobs are handy too, great for assigning to different zones, like volume. The action is very playable, and its lightweight and shallow form factor are bonuses too. Loved mine, although its up against a wall since I got Nord Stage 2 HA76 to replace it. The touchscreen on the Montage/MODX sure does help on decrypting the Yamaha workspace if that's something you're not used to. I think the soundset is fine for live work, although I was expecting my MODX7 to add more capability to my Kronos + Integra setup. Inflated expectations can skew things sometimes. Best thing for you is both PX-5s + MODX are very lightweight and capable. And since you augment with software anyway, you've probably got one of the better lightweight, versatile rigs out there for gigging rock musicians nowadays.

That was my emo/rock trio from 2000-2004, hehe. Didn't think anyone would notice, tossed it in for fun.

Key Largo has 3 stereo inputs, plus stereo Send/Return. Keys 1, send to Leslie. Keys 2 Keys 3 Return from Leslie. All out to FOH using XLR. Use 1/4" monitor out to your keyboard amp.

I guess I'm more of direct rock kind of guy. Rush ZZ Top Police Triumph ELP Mercury Frost I'm sure there are many other greats, esp jazz, it's just I haven't been properly exposed to them. Most singer/guitarist acts fall here, but those are mostly glorified one man shows. Power trio is my favorite band structure. I'm a bassist/keyboardist who does occasional vocals and other instruments. Three is the magic number for artistic, personality, and functionality balance, provided each brings game without overwhelming ego. So much room and responsibility...

Two mixer channels panned hard left and right. Simple enough. So easy nowadays to get a nice full stereo sound. Standard configuration around my area in Central Florida is two tops on poles on top of subs, each straddled stage left and right. Not acoustically perfect but plenty good. Why not? When competing with that Marshall stack, you don't need excessive volume. Leslie stereo, auto pan synth voices, stereo chorus and reverb, and you're automatically "present" without much effort...

Here's a cheap Pyle DI I've used to do this. Yamaha speaker's XLR out into Pyle XLR in. You will also need an XLR adapter. The pad has -20 or -40 dB cut. The output will be 1/4" going into FOH. Nice thing about this cheap workhorse is that it's 2 DIs in one, and with each side having a 1/4" in as well as out 1/4" out, there's all kinds of use case situations this will be handy in, such as splitting signals. Of course there are other ways to do this as well, such as using an inline attenuator. But a dual DI with XLR adapters can be a quick fix.