SamuelBLupowitz

Nailed it!!! Yeah, Bob's my guy! I know he can be a little challenging to work with for some folks, but he decided early on that he liked me, so he does quick work for me (once turned around my Wurlitzer really fast when I had an issue with it in the middle of a big run of gigs). And yes, I can't get in or out of his place without him showing me some fun new toys, even if we're stopping on the way to visit my parents in Pennsylvania and my wife is waiting in the car. He has some stories to tell... especially about the Deep Purple crew. Volume won't be too much of an issue given the size of the studio room it will be living in. I am a little stressed about the stairs, haha.

Y'all, this is very helpful, thank you. I've been a little more cautious since we moved our upright piano with friends and a Uhaul -- nothing went wrong but it was a little bit of Russian Roulette; I swore to stick to pro movers after that. But an A100 is not a piano, so it sounds like as long as I can figure out transportation it will be manageable. I'll measure the size of our vehicles before I rent a U-Haul.

Well I'll be darned. Since OB-Xd was my favorite free desktop app find of quarantine (and suddenly meant I had a synth on my MacBook I liked as much as the Moog on my iPad), it didn't even occur to me to look for a mobile version. Since I've received such joy out of it for no money thus far, might as well spend the $7 to add it to my mobile arsenal. Now if only I could get Model D on my MacBook for a comparable price... GYAAAH! Best $5.99 spent in App Store in recent memory! Must see if they get MIDI control right in AUM ... but a great value for way way less than Streetlytron Pro! Yup, pretty sure the price differential between that and Streetlytron is how I wound up with that app in the first place. When I went on an App Spree back in March or April, I was considering replacing it with Streetlytron, but as soon as I realized I could use AUM to manage the Mellowsound presets using MIDI, I was like "how often do I really need anything other than strings, flutes, and choirs?"

Yeah, all the time I've spent trying to Learn About Music gets really frustrated when I investigate Cory's playing and every analyst/transcriber basically comes to the conclusion "yeah, he's improvising the entire harmony, and there's no real rhyme or reason to what he's doing other other than that it sounds cool and he knows it." When I throw down arbitrary quartal clusters and play lines over them, it doesn't sound like THAT.

I'm sure there have been a few threads about this over the years, but given the specific situation I'm looking at, I thought I'd start a new thread. My guitarist's father, an old-school keyboard player I know well and used to take lessons from, and already the Founder of the Feast as far as the Clavinet I've had on permanent loan for the last five or six years, messaged me yesterday that if I wanted to grab his M3, A100, and/or Leslie 122, I should feel free to do so because they're just sitting there. "There" is his old family house, which had already been going to seed while he was living there by himself in the early-to-mid 2010s, but since he moved in with his new wife a couple of years ago, the place has just been left to the elements. So in addition to looking at old organ gear that, while it had once been well-maintained, hasn't been started up in at least five years, I am concerned there may be some Critter Tenants to contend with as well. Also (of course) they are up a narrow flight of stairs on a landing. Now, rescuing these instruments is a no brainer, since I finally have a dedicated music space and it's a crime to let good vintage shit go unplayed. Where I'm at right now as far as getting my new house and studio together, though, I'm actually not in a big hurry on the organs. We're planning to redo the studio floors in a year or two and I won't want to move an A100 a second time if I can avoid it. Plus, it will cause some reimagining of how we distribute the space, and right now I'm good with the Mojo taking up the central position in Keyboard Land, since it's also my most frequently-used gigging board. The organs haven't gone anywhere for years; if I wait another year or two before I try to move them, it won't make a difference, so while I plan on taking them, I might wait until my life and Covid settle a little bit. But that Leslie I would very happily move in ASAP, so I can relegate my Motion Sound to gigs only. My guitarist has a bigass pickup truck, and I have a reasonably-sized SUV, so I'm pretty sure we can transport the 122. Not so sure about the organs -- the M3 maybe, but an A100 sounds like a U-Haul situation, and I know there are Specific Things you need to know about moving Hammonds (locking down certain components and such) that I might want to pay someone more experienced to deal with, especially since I am paying the Ultimate Price (free) for this treasure. On that front, I do have a tech about 45 minutes from me who I know would happily do maintenance on the Hammonds or the Leslie if necessary. But if I'm trying to limit transporting them, it might be good to know a few things to keep an eye out for so I don't just assume "gotta take it out to Whitney Point and get Bobby to fix 'em up" without giving it a once-over. Again, it could be anything from "just needs a little oil" to "raccoons have turned it into a nursery." I won't know until I'm in there. Also, I know if I'm planning to use a 122 with my Mojo (or, inevitably, guitars, piano mics, synths, the output of the drum bus in my DAW...), I'm going to need a Trek II or some other preamp (I'm pretty sure Neal just hooked his A100 up to it directly, so I'm not expecting he'll have one). There was just a thread about this that I'm going to peruse again, but if anyone has thoughts that come to mind about making this happen that weren't covered there, I'm all ears. I have the Mojo XT with the 11-pin out, but if I'm not mistaken that's only for the modern Leslies and won't match up with a vintage one. TL;DR: Need to lift and transport a Leslie 122 and (eventually) a Hammond A100. There are stairs involved. There may be maintenance needed. Want to know what to plan and watch out for ahead of time so I don't get myself into trouble.

My first thought was: "You can check out any time you like but you can never leave" I got one -- you understand it's a classic and some people really enjoy it, but you personally could go the rest of your life without it.

You know, the Covid era has given us a lot of outlandish events that make reality seem like fiction, but this is still wild. Cracked me up. Glad somebody caught this little candid moment.

My wife's explanation for everything is "Dave Grohl is a witch." I'm not sure exactly what she means by that, but she's very adamant. Me, I'm more of a Them Crooked Vultures guy myself... but at this point it's been over ten years since their album came out, so I don't know if I should hold my breath for John Paul Jones coming back into the fold.

I've stumbled on videos of this group a few times. I really, really enjoy them (love that Move On Up arrangement). I enjoy a good jazz organ trio, but it always speaks to my heart a little more when it leans a little more towards soul and R&B.

Slightly OT as it"s more geared toward live performance, but there"s a thread about iPad live rigs over on KC and I thought it would also be useful to share my recent post here, since there may be an alternate perspective: Decided to use an iPad synth rig for an upcoming gig I"m playing. I"m sitting in with a local band I had a brief stint as a full time keyboardist for about five years ago. The married singer and guitarist are holding an invite-only outdoor event on their property, with lots of wide open outdoor space so everyone can maintain social distancing and such. This will be my first actual gig using Keystage as a set list/midi management app, so it"s good that I"m going simple: just my Seaboard to control Moog Model D (mostly) and occasionally Roli Noise and Mellowsound Mellotron samples hosted in AUM (since those apps are weak on MIDI and preset management when standalone). Mostly working well, with the occasional stuck note (the Moog app couldn"t handle me using the seaboard like a set of congas). Also having some major zippering issues when I try to use Keystage"s XY pad for filter and resonance sweeps in Model D, but I"m not sure if that"s a memory limitation on my 2017 iPad Mini or just conflict with my Seaboard also sending information to the cc resonance is mapped to.But I love Model D and setting the iPad on top of the Wurlitzer is much less stressful than setting my MacBook up. I"m running from the headphone out in mono to my talkbox with an 1/8th inch TRS to quarter inch cable, then out to the amp from the talkbox output. Something I didn"t mention over on KC: I"d run the iPad audio in stereo if I could. But since the talkbox is mono I/O, dealing with the additional breakout cables and panning I"d have to program into my patches to make it happen doesn"t seem worth it. Besides, I"m mostly playing Minimoog sounds, and they ain"t stereo. But there are definitely moments when I miss my MacBook, OB-Xd, a separate audio out for the talkbox, and a glorious stereo spread on my sawtooth pads... Since I"ll have a Wurlitzer and a clonewheel for the rest of the sounds, this is a great way to travel light with some powerful synth patches I can easily adjust song by song. Still skeptical I could make this work if I were trying to run the electric piano sounds off of the iPad simultaneously, though, at least not without a higher-powered tablet. Maybe in a year or two I"ll see what the non-Intel models have to offer...

Decided to us an iPad synth rig for an upcoming gig I"m playing. I"m sitting in with a local band I had a brief stint as a full time keyboardist for about five years ago. The married singer and guitarist are holding an invite-only outdoor event on their property, with lots of wide open outdoor space so everyone can maintain social distancing and such. This will be my first actual gig using Keystage as a set list/midi management app, so it"s good that I"m going simple: just my Seaboard to control Moog Model D (mostly) and occasionally Roli Noise and Mellowsound Mellotron samples hosted in AUM (since those apps are weak on MIDI and preset management when standalone). Mostly working well, with the occasional stuck note (the Moog app couldn"t handle me using the seaboard like a set of congas). Also having some major zippering issues when I try to use Keystage"s XY pad for filter and resonance sweeps in Model D, but I"m not sure if that"s a memory limitation on my 2017 iPad Mini or just conflict with my Seaboard also sending information to the cc resonance is mapped to.But I love Model D and setting the iPad on top of the Wurlitzer is much less stressful than setting my MacBook up. I"m running from the headphone out in mono to my talkbox with an 1/8th inch TRS to quarter inch cable, then out to the amp from the talkbox output. Since I"ll have a Wurlitzer and a clonewheel for the rest of the sounds, this is a great way to travel light with some powerful synth patches I can easily adjust song by song. Still skeptical I could make this work if I were trying to run the electric piano sounds off of the iPad simultaneously, though, at least not without a higher-powered tablet. Maybe I"ll see what the non-Intel models have to offer...

SoundJack just came into our field of view via some vocal pedagogy courses my wife is taking online this summer. Since her voice studio brings in a lot more money than our gigs, I"m choosing to stay optimistic!

Know that Joe"s appreciation is twofold: of course, he"s happy for the work you"re doing for our community, but also, glad he won"t have to respond to any more Facebook messages from people who shall remain nameless asking him if he broke the forum again. :wink:

Yeah, a little heavier than my Casio or the newer slabs, but it's the streamlined profile I want out of a digital piano, I've started using Pianoteq instead of my Privia's built-in sounds anyway, it's got a progressive, three-pedal unit, and lots of space on top to set stuff (USB MIDI controllers, my Seaboard, iPad, whatever). I don't imagine the current version of Pianoteq would run on the embedded XP (and my license is for the Mac version anyway), but as long as the Fatar hammer action was acceptable, I would consider getting a used one if it popped up somewhere.

...I kind of want this? Is that silly?

Yes, but those people don't have the right to make that determination for the people around them. I'm in central New York State, where we've kept the numbers relatively low for the US; I'm starting to gradually have outdoor get-togethers and even a few outdoor gigs on the radar. I'm being very choosy about them, but I'm happy to see the scientists honing in on the transmission factors, particularly that outdoor transmission is very difficult and that most transmission is airborne/respiratory particles rather than touching surfaces. After a few months of going very few places and seeing very few people, it's made me comfortable sitting around the fire in a friend's backyard, even with him pouring me a glass of Lagavulin (god, that was good). But if we have to go into a store, or navigate through a public place near people, we keep our distance and we put the mask on. As far as the mentioned demographics, I'm younger than the average here. 30, married, no kids, IT job at a university. And yeah, I'm not the most high-risk person. But my wife has respiratory concerns, as does one of my bandmates' wives, and they have two little kids. Lots of my friends have little kids. My preference would be to keep playing music with these people for the long haul, and create art well into our old age, and see their kids grow up in a world full of opportunity, community, and plenty. We had a cancer loss in our little music circle just last year; life is tough when there's not a global pandemic to contend with. So yeah, the "caution be damned" attitude doesn't sit well with me when there are simple steps we can all take to keep one another safer.

I'm of course a big fan of recordings that are built around a band performance, but I'm also fascinated by the small subset of one-man-band records that exist. The nice thing with the Stevie material is if you want to hear what it sounds like interpreted by a full band, you can just watch any live performance of the material. I definitely prefer Maybe I'm Amazed as interpreted by Macca's touring band, but I love the homemade quality of that album experience. It's sort of a party trick, which can be good or bad depending on how you feel about the results. And if you're on the level of a Stevie or a Macca or a Prince (not to say they all have the best chops, just that they have extremely active musical minds and unique musical fingerprints), I like seeing what it's like to filter the entire arrangement through their brains and bodies, rather than, you know, Paul nitpicking George Harrison until he walks out. I certainly would fire myself if any other drummer I work with could walk through the door and sit behind the kit, but it's not really an option right now, so I might as well use it as an excuse to get better at the drums...

Rod, any chance you're willing to share that clip? One of my favorite stories from Keith Richards's memoir was from the period in the 70s when Billy Preston was touring with the Stones. Apparently Keith was so annoyed with the volume screaming out of Billy's Leslie during the shows, that he held a knife up to Billy backstage and asked "dear William" to turn his organ down, or else. But I'm not sure I'd trust Keith Richards with what the appropriate keyboard-to-guitar balance is in a mix!

A few years back, I had a short-lived collaboration with a male pop songwriter (and aspiring artist in the vein of Josh Groban and other adult-contemporary male vocalists). Nice guy, but weren't a great fit, since even at my most chill and refined I still kind of sound like Leon Russell... That said, our greatest success was our idea for a country song, "Broke My Heart (With a Frying Pan)." I'm convinced that if we had ever written more than a chorus melody and the hook, we would have had a smash on our hands. If anyone else wants to take up the cause, be my guest. Just give me and Tyler Done a cut of the royalties. :wink:

I thought the way they meticulously translated the original -- particularly Elton's piano work, the solo especially -- for this instrumentation was brilliant. I hope Elton sees it. He's spending a lot more time at home with his family these days, as we all are...

We were two thirds of the way through the first song when my wife started laughing and pointed out that he had adorned the blue Wurlitzer (which I noticed right away) with his four Grammys (which I had totally missed). I've been thinking about taking "advantage" of all this quarantine time by cranking out a solo record where I play all the instruments, a la McCartney or the early Stevie Wonder classic period albums. This both inspires and discourages me...

I don't mind one set per manual. I'm sure if I had a Legend or a vintage Hammond I would find a way to use the four sets and switch between them, but as Viv Savage put it, "I have two hands, don't I?" YMMV, and some other folks may feel differently depending on their styles (I don't play much Jimmy Smith-style jazz, though I do occasionally play left hand/pedal bass), but as long as I can shape the tone of each manual in real time, I'm happy.

I think the rise in musical instrument sales is similar in its motivation to the reason we're seeing so much more protest right now, and why so many of the people I've spoken to have been reconnecting with old friends: our routines, and the exhausting treadmill many people in our society are forced to run on just to survive, have been disrupted by the virus. So we have not only the time, but the energy for the things we might want to do or need to do but have very little left over to give ourselves to. A lot of the folks who are really pushing for a return to "normal" are the ones who benefited the most from people being tired and unable to think and act outside the box. We are the music makers, dreamers of dreams... hooray!

It's interesting, I feel like a lot of the extra work we often wind up doing is self-inflicted, too. I know my experience is a little different from a lot of you who play in top 40/dance band situations, where your band members are requesting you to play things More Like the Record, but even in my original bands, I find myself going "I miss that string arrangement I did for the recording, so maybe a Mellotron with my right hand and keep comping piano with the left... man, I really like those synth overdubs I did doubling the guitar riff, I could do that on the organ pedals... I wounder if I can cover the glock AND the chimes on that outro when I'm already covering the piano and organ parts..." And even when I'm not being asked to cover "keyboards and anything else," I *do* like to be like my bandmates and Just Play My Instrument. That means I prefer to have A Piano Board and An Organ and A Synth and sometimes A Clav and before you know it I'm getting to gigs an hour earlier than anyone else and still packing up when the drummer is getting in his car. Even when the guitarist started bringing an electric 12 string to gigs, and the drummer started bringing a sample pad, it didn't add nearly as much time or weight to their setup process. I'm realizing through covid how exhausted I really was from gigging like that every weekend, and how much more energy I have for things now, and how I'll be handling things a little differently when things return to something resembling normal (though I'll still want to bring the Wurli and the clav out sometimes...).