Mighty Motif Max

Have you thought about midi’ing the YC to the CK and comparing the pianos/ep’s that way? That would take the CK’s keybed out of the equation.

Given how successful things like Korg Collection are, I think there's definitely a use for it. Not every genre is looking for a pristine concert grand or huge orchestral articulation libraries. I'm considering picking up the Triton plugin myself for some of my RnB stuff. The other big advantage is that a person can record their synth's patches for songs without needing to deal with audio interface noise and such. I'd love to have some of the MOTIF pads in software (and HALion isn't it).

I'd worry about the drawbars on the CK. However, I'm also someone who refuses to stack soft cases unless the weight of the upper "item" is negligible (under 2kg or so), like a small mixer. I'll use hard cases if I need to stack things, or at bare minimum, those so-called "semi-rigid" cases that either have super dense layers of foam or a wood shell under the fabric.

I'm not sure I'd want to have the extra pressure on the control surface of the keyboard on the bottom, even if it's not a lot of weight. Also gives less compression room if something's dropped or something gets set on top of your case.

Yep, that's what I was thinking as well. 2-1 2-3-4 5-3-4 3-2-1

That's too bad. But also, that makes me think the feel may not be so different from the Montage 8 that preceded it. I was under the impression that its BHE action was essentially an ungraded version of the GH. I grew up with a Clavinova CVP-305 that had the GH3 action - to me it was (and is) much heavier and fatiguing than the BH/BHE action on the Motif/Montage 8's. I don't think it's just a difference in grading - the entire feel is different to me. If the new M8X really feels like the GH3, that is unfortunate.

I've never run this exact setup previously. I did swap out different balanced cables, some unbalanced cables as well, plus different outlets, and switching from the power strip I was using to the rackmount PSU I had in the rack but wasn't using. Running the Surface Pro on batteries alone did not get rid of the noise. I believe I covered the previous questions as well in my first post from tonight; if you want to read that one a second time in case it answers any other questions, that may help as I'm going to be logging off for the night (it's past 2am in my time zone and I have a funeral to plan). Thanks for the assistance thus far - much appreciated!

No USB hubs or other stuff or connectors - 5-pin MIDI from the drum set to the Focusrite interface, then the interface straight to the Surface Pro over USB-C. Audio out on balanced TRS cables from the Focusrite into a few DI boxes. This is likely the only venue I'll consistently be using this setup at vs an acoustic kit; I've not had issues before with electronics there but haven't used an laptop/interface rig there before either. I have occasionally had a noise issue like this when using a powered USB hub with too many things plugged in when I'm recording elsewhere, but that's about it, and that hub isn't in the equation this time. The Focusrite interface uses balanced 1/4" outputs according to their website, and I'm using TRS balanced cables for everything.

Price is up, at $1295 (USD) at Sweetwater. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MSoloBurg--hammond-m-solo-portable-organ-burgundy?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=coreadvantageplusperformancebau&utm_content=carouselnewarrivals&fbclid=IwAR0iE-j9qIGkxVmefaBIvg4jRFRxfCMOJD0zvdZGqqdrTfY-gbSuNc1qUJw

I need more outputs than a simple stereo line out will allow - kick, snare, toms, overheads, and hihat are the plan now, and a stereo L/R hard panned mix for my monitors.

I grew up with a dad who grew tons of hot peppers - want to eat a fresh habañero off the plant at 95 degrees F in the sun? Been there, done that! We usually grew serranos, habañeros, hot bananas, and some years hot cherry peppers. Great stuff. For me, there has to be a good flavor involved - I'm not one for eating super spicy food just for the sake of eating something spicy. A great example of this is ghost peppers. I'm not a fan of the taste as I find it weirdly fruity. However, I do love a good ghost pepper salsa where the peppers have been smoked a bit. In my experience, a great way to get the flavor from some of the super hot varieties of peppers without making people suffer is to add a bit to fresh salsas - Trinidad Scorpions in a fresh tomato salsa are delicious IMO, because you can enjoy the taste without the enjoyment-obliterating heat. More recently I've gotten into East African food - there's some seriously spicy stuff there as well. Bring it on.

Hey Dave, I believe I already have your soundset, unless you have made some updates since Spring 2021 when I purchased my PC4 through you! I found those pianos were a bit of an improvement for live band work, but didn't really do what I was looking for for my needs. Totally personal preference!

Had the gig tonight. To VST Live's credit, it wasn't the source of any issues - no crashes, ran smoothly enough. Note that it needs to be restarted to see any changes made in one instance of a plugin (like a custom midi map preset) if you're using different instances in the project - even if it's a global setting, it needs to register that that preset has been created before it will populate to other instances). However I had significant issues with noise in the signal that is present despite using balanced TRS cables to DI boxes, powering all from one power strip (that supposedly had RFI filtering), and didn't change whether the Surface Pro was running on battery or power. I'm thinking it's some sort of a ground loop issue, but it is interesting that it only occurred once a program that used the Focusrite 18i20 interface was opened, like Halion Sonic or VST Live. As soon as those programs were closed, it would go away. I troubleshooted cables and power sources after the gig but have not found a solution thus far. A nice tinnitus-like whine with what sounds like fax machine noises in the background - it gets louder with higher sample rates as well. Loud enough to compete with the drums themselves sadly. The noise is present even with the interface volume set to zero and outputs muted. Any thoughts? I didn't expect to have those issues given that I'm already doing some of the preventative measures with balanced lines and such.

I always was interested in the PLG boards, although I believe the last one was released when I would have been a toddler. Kind of like with some of the old Roland and Korg expansion boards, I'd have to invest in host hardware from the same era plus the cost of the boards, which doesn't seem worth it at the prices some of that host hardware is commanding (or the space footprint). I don't mind getting old expansions if I already have the host hardware (i.e. the old SO-PCM1 cards for the JV-1000). I remember reading about this thing, the Kenton Plugstation, though: https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/card-carrier

Sorry if I wasn’t clear, I meant that I went through the guide and changed as many of the settings as were applicable (ie the Surface Pro 8 doesn’t have some of the BIOS options that are listed). I meant that Windows isn’t exactly plug and play, not that GigPerformer wasn’t! I got the Cantabile, GigPerformer, and VST Live trials installed last night after doing all the tech modifications. I’ve set up a VST Live song with a variety of go-to drum kits mapped out to various outputs, so I plan on trying that out on Thursday. Routing wasn’t super intuitive at first since AD2 has multiple outs within the plugin itself and VST Live has the destination assignment settings in a different place than I expected, but once I figured it out it was just a few clicks.

Thanks all for your input so far! Just went through the GigPerformer folks' Windows audio optimization guide - wow, very much the opposite of plug and play lol. Not a fan of Cantabile's interface at all - it kind of reminds me of KeyStage, which I am fine with on an iOS platform but I don't care for as much when scaled up; GigPerformer's modular setup looks very flexible but also super convoluted (I've used Kushview Element in the past on macOS and while a node-based layout doesn't scare me, it's not my preference). However I think I will give the trial versions of both GigPerformer and VST Live a go and see what I like.

Hey all, I thought about posting this one in the drum forum except that there's very little activity there and I think that the needs I have are the same across any type of live usage of VST hosts and I know we have a number of folks rocking those here! So please bear with me... I have a Surface Pro 8 with an i7 and 16gb RAM running Windows 11 sitting around that I am no longer using. Besides keys/accordion I've recently began subbing on drums with a number of groups, and something that I would like to experiment with is using drum software live instead of the internal sounds in my Roland TD-17KVX kit - not that they're bad at all, but some of my bandmates have recently expressed interest in getting closer to an acoustic drum experience without the volume (and without shelling out the big bucks for low-volume hybrid cymbals, etc). My idea is to trigger the software from my electric kit and, in addition to sending channels to the board, send a few channels of overheads out to a monitor on stage for stage fill for the rest of the band (the primary group I'm playing with has a rather unusual monitoring setup and what they want is more of a room-filling sound without the volume of a full acoustic kit - I believe it's the cymbals they miss). I would like to use Addictive Drums 2 with an outboard audio interface (a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20) and have up to 8 channels available for outputs. I'm very familiar with AD2 but the standalone version doesn't allow advanced audio routing to different outputs - it must be loaded into a DAW or similar for that to happen. I'm very much a newbie to audio on Windows, as I have invested pretty heavily in the macOS side of things for many years now. So what I'm looking for is a rock-solid VST host that lets me route audio to multiple outputs and any tips on optimizing the Surface Pro for live use. I'm aware of some of the contenders in the VST host world like Cantabile, GigPerformer, Bidule, Camelot Pro, Steinberg VST Live, etc, but have not used any of them previously. I have MainStage on my Mac but have only sparingly experimented with it. My needs are as follows: - Free routing to multiple audio outputs/multi-channel support - Ability to save patches for quick loading between songs, in a set-list format (not sure if preloading samples is a thing in this world or not but that would be cool) - Minimal software-induced latency (independent from drivers and such) - Rock-solid stability - I don't want things crashing when I'm holding down the rhythm section. - Supports VST2 and VST3 - Plays nicely with Windows 11 - Ability to run a click track/metronome - Cross-platform would be a plus, but is not a requirement At the moment I am leaning towards Steinberg VST Live, as Cubase has been my primary DAW for many years and I'm pretty comfortable with their way of doing things. Wondering what the current recommendations are, especially with Windows 11. Any tips on optimizing the Windows system for audio are also much appreciated! I'm somewhat used to a plug-and-play routine like macOS allows (most of the time anyways). I'd like to get this system working by a week from today (Thursday) to test it out at a low-pressure gig next week if possible! Thanks all! Edit: I could see also using this system one day for a keys rig but that's quite a ways off, if ever.

No 5-pin connectors this time, unfortunately.

I gave up looking for a long-throw pedal because the Roland EV-7 was discontinued - I'm also a long-time FC-7 user and yes, you're correct that that pedal doesn't play nicely with Kurzweils. I now use a Moog EP-3 pedal, which is shorter but it has a longer throw and has a firmer resistance than many of the other expression pedals on the market. I've actually gotten used enough to it that I use that model with all my other keyboards other than Yamahas.

My main comments are that the Forte 7 will have much superior piano sounds (the sample compression/stretching on the PC4's pianos is one of the things I struggle with sometimes) and is going to be built a lot better (with a better action than the PC4 88). I wish I had bought a Forte 88 instead of my PC4-88 back a few years ago, but the Forte had just been discontinued and was over $5000 by that point, so it was way out of budget. The main thing you will lose is the knobs over the faders and some of the user interface for the sequencer. If you can afford either I would go with the Forte 7 hands down.

It's a light plastic build vs the solid metal build of the PC3 series. If you wanted that build quality, the K2700 still has it (but doesn't have a 76 version).

Exciting news from Roland. https://articles.roland.com/roland-engineering-designing-fantom/ "What can FANTOM users look forward to soon? The FANTOM Development Team has been working hard to unveil a massive breakthrough: bringing Analog Circuit Behavior (ACB) to FANTOM. We are excited to share this, plus other new expansions and features, with all FANTOM users very soon."

Listen to the Sweetwater demo video - it's the improved rotary effect from the YC 1.2 update.

This actually brings up a fascinating possibility - combine the Montage M E.S.P. plugin with the new Korg Keystage controllers with their built-in audio interface and poly after touch. Gets you reasonably close to a Montage M6/7 minus the faders and some of the hands-on control.

I second that ^^ - Dave is the man!