Coker

My long-time bass player in my sax-keys-drums-bass quartet had to cancel out just before a gig recently. He’s not as good as we’d like, so we decided to play the gig with (my) left-hand bass instead of dredging up a replacement. What a blast! We were able to play, on the fly, intricate and interesting interludes, backgrounds, etc., that sounded orchestrated and rehearsed, mainly because I could coordinate piano and bass lines and rhythms. While I missed the interaction with the live bass player, I thought we brought a different dimension to the group. Does anyone else typically play without a bass player (organists - no need to respond about your prehensile feet!)

My long-time bass player in my sax-keys-drums-bass quartet had to cancel out just before a gig recently. He’s not as good as we’d like, so we decided to play the gig with (my) left-hand bass instead of dredging up a replacement. What a blast! We were able to play, on the fly, intricate and interesting interludes, backgrounds, etc., that sounded orchestrated and rehearsed, mainly because I could coordinate piano and bass lines and rhythms. While I missed the interaction with the live bass player, I thought we brought a different dimension to the group. Does anyone else typically play without a bass player (organists - no need to respond about your prehensile feet!)

At the time the new amplifiers didn’t cost as much, and others didn’t seem to be having the problem I was having. In the end, I ended up selling them anyway, because I wanted amps with more power. I did sell them for roughly what I paid for the replacement amplifiers, though. It might have made sense not to repair them and keep the, for studio monitors.

When he was young, an old time drummer friend of mine told his soon-to-be wife, “don’t ever make me choose between you and music.”

I’m pretty sure it was Taylor Electronic Services. I just called them up and talked about what I needed.

I have bought two replacement amplifiers when my ZXA1s started cutting out after warming up. They were rebuilt units from a Canadian company and worked fine. Very easy to replace.

I’m also using 2 K8s. Lately I have found that placing the speakers with tweeters at ear level with centerlines even with each end of my keyboard, just 6 or so inches behind the keyboard, works for me in most situations. That allows me to turn the speakers toward or away from me to let me hear enough of myself while setting overall volume loud enough for the situation.

That is correct

I’m having some success with Apple Air Pod Pro 2 on “Transparency” mode. They bring down the overall level without rolling off the highs like some plugs and dampen sudden peaks. They may not work as well if you are singing, because, oddly, they seem to block most of my own voice when I’m talking.

I’ve been playing with the same saxophonist, drummer, and bassist since 1972 (52 years). When people ask me how we stayed together, my response is, “low standards.”

Slightly OT, but I use a foldable music desk that I clip to my music stand that can display six pages at once. It is made of paper-covered plastic foam and folds up to about 10x10x0.75 inches. It weighs almost nothing.

I used to use Scotch tape, but found that it would split over time. Recently I realized that Scotch tape has a grain to it that makes it easy to split lengthwise by practically impossible to break lengthwise. I now just tape in the back in three places, but using the tape counterintuitively across the page gap, not along the page gap, if that makes sense. i did try cloth medical tape for awhile, but found that the opposing pages glued themselves together over time.

I have kept the legs at the same length for many years, because I always play sitting down and shortening the legs wouldn’t help in transport. If your case, if the tape idea doesn’t work, you might try drilling a hole through the inner and outer legs and inserting a bolt with nut.

Can you further explain what the wobble is? Is it side-to-side or front-to-back?

Garantovic, I think turning the volume to 0 for the local keyboard sound in your saved performance was how I used to do this. My error for thinking it was zone off that could do this.

I used to use a Hammond emulator on my phone with my CP4. There was, indeed, a way to deactivate triggering internal sounds and save that setting with a performance. I have neither the keyboard nor the manual anymore. Keep looking! It’s in there somewhere. looking in the CP4 Reference Manual online, I think you disable the zone using the ZoneSw setting in the Master Keyboard Area. I think this disables internal sounds for that zone - maybe.

I bought a bag of six one-foot extension cords for very little to plug into the strip as needed. Every wall wart turns into an in-line wart with these, so they use only one space in the strip.

Well, it seems like the sax and guitar players got all the dates!

There’s a simple formula: subtract your age from 100 pounds!

In this case, I would organize each patch to cover four sounds and use four scenes to unmute individual sounds. You could use all 8 scenes, but switching scene banks is an extra step.

Does the Knox stand sway side to side at all?

Regarding playing in the wind, I have found that a short length of AWG 14 insulated wire permanently wrapped around the middle of my keyboard stand can be wrapped around the middle of the music stand, in effect wiring the two together. This has been a lifesaver for me.

I’m so sorry. I said SP88 when I meant PC88. My comments refered to the PC88.

I did try different velocity settings. In fairness, I have fairly heavy hands, and I’m not sure how that might have affected the playing. I have no such issue on the two Yamaha boards I own. This was not the Kurzweil grand, it was the sp88 stage piano. I guess the other reason I did not prefer the Kurzweil was that there was two much mysterious “programming” involved. I like to just sit down, select a patch, maybe tweak a parameter or two, and play. It may be that with time I could have set up the Kurzweil to my liking. That being said, I did like the organization of patches on the Kurzweil. If you tweak the parameters of one of the sounds in a patch, then all occurrences of that sound in other patches will also be revised.

I owned an SP88 for awhile and really enjoyed the sounds and most of the keybed. At issue for me was that I couldn’t get beyond a certain attack velocity sound from the APs, if that makes sense. It seemed like the pianos played fine until I tried to get some fff out of them, and then it just seemed like the keys bottomed out when I played hard, with no additional piano attack or volume. My local GC had a MODX8, which to me played beautifully and had great other sounds beyond APs. Organs for me are a little lacking as a lead instrument but work fine for layering. I’m very happy I spent the extra $ for features I never thought I would use, because I have actually found good practical use for several of them. Plus, it’s a fun to use instrument. Good luck on your quest.