GRollins

With the caveat that he was a better keyboard player than I will ever be, I have to say that I was somewhat underwhelmed by that particular piece. Was there some sort of backstory that was not obvious from that excerpt? Was he just improv/noodling while techs attended to something that had failed elsewhere on stage? Grey

Fortunately, I don't really have to choose so much as find/make room for whatever my gear lust homes in on. I'm pretty tightly packed as it is. Finding room for another keyboard will be difficult. If it's rack/Eurorack I can shoehorn in a few more pieces before I start having to hang things from the ceiling. I draw the line at having things at floor level the way some people do. What do you do with those? Play them with your toes? Jeez. If you say "you MIDI them off keyboards that you can reach," I'm going to come back with, "Well, then why not just buy a rack mount piece and have done with it?" I mean, I got the Yamaha Motif XS rack rather than try to find room for the keyboard version of the XS. Got all the sounds in 1/10 the space and saved money, too. The ARP2600 will be pretty much the same story. Rack 'em and stack 'em, then MIDI the hell out of them. That said, I am sympathetic to the idea of polyphony. I find the polychain strategy frustrating. So near and yet so far. Harrumph! Grey

I was looking for something else and accidentally stumbled on some of the Behringer Moog modular clone items: CP3A-M mixer 14HP $79.99 923 filters and noise 8HP $79.99 961 interface 21HP $79.00 995 attenuators 8HP $59.99 911 envelope generator 8HP $59.99 962 sequential switch 8HP $59.99 902 VCA 8HP $59.99 They are currently available for pre-order. No word on delivery dates. There's no information on VCOs, etc. yet. For that matter, even the Behringer site seems loath to admit that their Moog clones exist. No, I didn't see anything about the Roland modules, nor did I see anything about the ARP2600 clone. Personally, I'm more focused on the 2600 at the moment, but am open to temptation on the modular units. (Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself...) Had these been available, say, two years ago, I'd have been all over them. Even as recently as one year ago, I'd have given them serious consideration, but now I've got other Eurorack units that fill those functions so I'm not in a big hurry to snap them up. NOTE: For anyone who's not been keeping track of this, these are Eurorack scale units, not Moog-sized. Don't buy one and expect it to be a drop-in replacement in your true-blue Moog rack (or synthesizers.com or...). Grey

Other than the mule, that's going to be a challenging casting call... Particularly in Hollywood, eh? Grey

Just think, ELP had the whole dystopian future thing down, forty years before Mockingjay, et. al. Now Hollywood has caught up, but the punchline is, "It's been done before..." HAR, HAR, HAR...that's a knee-slapper! I can't see Brain Salad Surgery as a movie, but if they can take an amusement park ride and make a hit movie out of it (Pirates of the Caribbean), then I guess anything's possible. I'll be curious to see how a '70s prog/Boomer generation album works for anyone other than the original audience. Some music, like the Beatles, seems to be able to make the fifty year leap. Other music, specifically including prog and fusion jazz, haven't fared as well, although as I've said elsewhere I think it's cyclical and that there will be a comeback for prog/fusion eventually. A movie, though? I'm not so sure about this. Grey (...and I believe the correct count is seven virgins and a mule...)

Grado SR325--the foam ear pads felt like shit from day-one, rough, sandpapery against my skin. Very uncomfortable. Then they self-destructed--turned into black dust. This was particularly vexing to me because I bought the headphones not long before my daughter was born and didn't get to wear them much before they spontaneously decomposed. I wrote to the company, complaining about the powdered pads. They pretty much blew me off--told me to buy a new set of the same pads for $20. Errr, no thanks. I didn't see any reason to throw good money after bad. They sounded good while they were operational. I keep meaning to whomp up some DIY ear pads but haven't gotten to it so they just sit, collecting dust. Open air style. Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro--ear pads feel good and have lasted, the headband, however, is literally painful after, say, twenty minutes. It's about an inch wide, which concentrates all the weight in a narrow area. Feels like you're carrying a rock on your head. I wrapped a washcloth around it to soften it up a bit. The sound is...nothing special. They don't do anything right, but they don't do anything wrong, either. Isolation style. Koss Pro 4aa--it's been a while, but I remember them as being heavy, sounded pretty good. Isolation style. There have been others, but most wouldn't work well for studio use. Disclaimer: I come from the land of high end audio and have different expectations for sound quality than most folks. The only headphones I've ever listened to that I truly enjoyed were made by Stax and cost a bloody fortune. They wouldn't be rugged enough for studio or stage use, but the sound was to-die-for. Grey

August Jam, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Charlotte, NC, 8/10/74 ELP, Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker Band, Black Oak Arkansas, and a small army of other bands. If you look up the most disastrous concerts, that one makes most of the lists. However, my impressions from the ground were nowhere near as negative as the later reports that made it sound like the end of the world. Yes, the fences went down. Yes, I saw a guy break the neck of a police dog. Yes, people were uncontrolled and rowdy for a few hours, but then...it all settled down, oddly enough. The concert itself went off pretty well. The bad behavior was outside the speedway, on the grounds, and only temporary, although it must have seemed like an eternity to those tasked with keeping the peace. I was in my right mind, having long since adopted a policy that I wasn't going to pay for a ticket to a concert that I couldn't remember. I mean, what's the point? You can get messed up at home, you know? A guy I went with didn't remember anything from that weekend--none of the bands, who he was with, what he ate, where he slept, nothing. Another remembered only, maybe, a third of the weekend. I just shake my head. What a waste. Much has been made of the stage show ELP put on during that era. For my part, I went for the music, not the theatrics, and would have been just as happy if they had dialed down the craziness by 5-10%. Playing while spinning in the air is dramatic, but takes me out of the moment--I lose my immersion in the music and start wondering about the structural factors and how Keith felt with all that blood rushing to his head, etc. Distracting. Stabbing a keyboard with a knife? I've never been one to trash equipment; never smashed a guitar. Gear's subject to enough wear and tear. I want my stuff to last. But that was Keith, bless 'im. Just his way of making sure the audience got a spectacle...and spectacle it was. That said, it was a good show, musically. Tight and clean. Grey

I bought a second Behringer Model D a couple of weeks ago as part of a package deal with a Synthesis Technology unit. The guy practically threw it at me, so I succumbed to temptation and gave it a good home. It's consistent in quality with the first one, which is to say, good...especially for the price (and that goes double for the price I paid for the used one...dirt cheap). And they sound damned good. If anyone wishes to pick nits about the sound, let them. I don't have a Moog unit on hand to compare them with and don't really see the point--at least for me--in splitting hairs as to whether the Behringer is faithful to the original. Their sound suits me and that's good enough to be getting on with. If the 2600 (and the Moog modular clones and...) sounds good to me and the price is appealing, then I'll buy my Model Ds some cousins. Grey

Sadly, I'm STILL embroiled in this PC thing and have not had time to mess with anything. I spent wasted over six hours today trying to unravel the mess that my wife has made of her PC. Pictures in document subdirectories. Financial statements in picture subdirectories. Files with no names (Untitled, Untitled(1), Untitled(2), Untitled(3), etc.) in random-assed places. You wouldn't believe it. Hell, I don't believe it. AAARGH! I want my life back! I'll get there. Someday. Grey

The Korg's $3900. Definitely out of any price range that I can justify, even to myself, much less to anyone else. Grey

Yeah, that was in ElmerJFudd's 3 Days till bomb drop thread a couple of days back. It looks to me like a very interesting piece. I'm still waiting for pricing info, though. Grey

Yeah, I'm going into an Allen & Heath ZED14. At some point during the night I thought that I remembered that my Lexicon (MX400) reverb could also do phase shift/flange/chorus things. Checked the manual. Yes, it can. The problem there is that I don't want phase on everything, just the Euro, so then it becomes a question of how many channels the MX400 can process simultaneously, yet with different effects. I think it can do four channels, but two of those are already taken by left and right channel reverb. The other two...? I dunno whether they're even there (I've not looked at the silly thing since I bought it--just got it hooked up, found a reverb setting I liked, ain't touched it since--control the level from the board) and even if they're there, they may be locked to the same thing as the other two channels. Time to read the manual in more detail. And then there's the fact that I might not even like the sound of the Lexicon's phase shifter, but I won't know until I try. For that matter, there may be some magic combination of settings on the Doepfer that does the trick, but I haven't found it yet. I wish I could keep all this stuff in my head at the same time, but I only have so many brain cells and at the moment a lot of them are filled with computer-related crap. Back in the '80s and '90s I relished messing with computers. These days, I just want 'em to work and stay out of the way. I don't want to have to solve the endless little fiddly problems that come up when you change things. Ugh. I'm not worried about Dave being in a phase, that would be hypocritical. I run through phases all the time, only they keep shifting... Grey

davedoerfler, $450 for a phase shifter? Oooof! I can buy four MXR Phase 100s for that. If I went with the Phase 90, I could buy even more. Still, the Pittsburgh is knobby, and that's a good thing. KuruPrionz, For the sound I hear in my head, I'll need clean. Grey

Okay, okay, okay...guys and gals, listen to this...this is hot off the press... I have mentioned in the past that if you read the fine print and the legalese of Avid's license for Pro Tools First (their free starter package, which I unwisely fell for), you have to...MUST...store your music on their servers. But wait, there's more! THEY OWN THE RIGHTS TO WHATEVER MUSIC IS STORED ON THEIR SERVERS! Think about the implications of that for a moment. But that's not the point I want to make. Tonight's point is that I've had to buy a new PC because Microsoft ended support for Windows 7 on January 14th and that led to...well, never mind...okay, so I'm transferring a butt-load of files between two of the five PCs that I've got to work with on this replacement project and the method I chose was to hook the two PCs directly together with an Ethernet cable. It involves a stupid amount of setup, but it's great once you've got all the front end nasties out of the way. With me so far? So, part of the setup for this Ethernet thing is that you are allowing one PC to "share" what's on the other one and to do that you have to go multiple layers deep into Windows to tell it that the other PC is a good guy and to let him in. Only...what's this? What's this??? There's me (admin/owner rights, etc.) and there's...this long alphanumeric string of characters who's been allowed access deep into my PC. WTF? Who IS this? It will come as no surprise to you, given my windup, to learn that it was Avid who had given themselves a backdoor into my PC. ALL OF MY DATA FILES! ALL OF THEM, NOT JUST THE MUSIC! My stories (I'm an author). My spreadsheet where I keep my personal finances. Every-damned-thing that was in that part of the hard drive was available for their inspection. What the everlivin' hell? Are you friggin' kidding me? Who do these guys think they are, the Russians? The Chinese? Some corporate raiders? I will think long and hard about allowing Avid software of any flavor on my PCs, ever again. Mind you, I don't think there's any legal recourse, because there's plenty of info in their Accept/Decline installation steps, and if you don't connect the dots, well, then that's on you. I saw part of the problem going in, but didn't realize all of the implications until after the installation was complete. Foolish me, I left the software in place, but didn't use it, thinking that was the end of the matter. I should have removed it right then. NOTE: That backdoor was still there after I removed their software. Which didn't want to be removed, mind you, but that's another story for another day. Who's buying the next round? Oh, and long live MuseScore... Grey

To add to this...there was a guy on my local Craig's List who was blatantly selling hacked copies of Pro Tools. You can't imagine the hoops I had to go through to tell them about it. They literally wanted me to go through their ticket system to tell them about black market copies of their software at $50 a pop. Screw 'em. Oh, and I need to tell you something about their free version but I'm being called to supper. Back shortly. (I like my supper still hot.) Grey

Markyboard, Guitar pickups' output varies widely according to: 1) Setup (how close they are to the strings--on most guitars this is a settable parameter, closer = more output) 2) Pickup design (single coil [e.g. Fender Telecaster & Stratocaster], humbucker [most Gibsons], how many turns of wire, magnetic flux, etc.) 3) Active or passive (passive pickups are just wire coiled around something magnetic, active pickups have electronic circuitry that can boost the output to frightening levels) 4) String gauge (all things being equal [they rarely are], the heavier the string, the more metal is in the magnetic field, hence higher output) 5) Other variables, like whether the guitarist has the volume rolled off (changes tone, in addition to lowering the volume), tone control settings, one or more pickups switched in, series or parallel, out of phase, age of the pickup, etc. etc. et-friggin'-cetera Not to mention how hard s/he's playing...when Pete Townshend is windmilling and thrashing his strings, it's a whole lot hotter signal than when, say, Joe Pass is playing, if you catch my drift. Uh...where was I? Oh. Right. Let's call electric guitar pickup output something on the order of half a volt, with the understanding that it can be next to nothing or as high as a volt or two. Or more. Basses? They're often active and can have much hotter signals (in addition to thicker strings, see #4 above). Oh, and the strings on a bass swing wider in the magnetic field, hence more amplitude. But nothing on the order of 10V (conveniently ignoring overdrive pedals for the moment), hence my original question. So, there are modules for this? My impetus for this is that I want a phase shifter. I've got an old MXR Phase 100 that I like the sound of, but it's, well, a guitar pedal, you know? Also accepting nominations for Eurorack phase shifters. I've got a Doepfer A-125, but have yet to find a setting that scratches my itch. I don't want subtle. I want lush, deep, and wide, then back that off about one or two notches. Grey

I'd like peoples' thoughts and experiences with using guitar pedals and Eurorack modules. Specifically, can an average pedal take signals as hot as 10V without overloading? Are there some pedals that work and others that don't? I've got pedals and I've got modules, but I'll have to solder up 1/8" to 1/4" adapters of some sort and I don't normally keep 1/8" jacks in stock, so I'm holding off on ordering some until I know what I'm up against. Grey

As fate would have it, I'm in the throes of setting up a Ubuntu system at the moment and have to point out that 18.04 will only load MuseScore 2.1.0...no later. Yes, loading 19.10 will help, but then you're no longer on as firm a ground, release-wise. There's a workaround, which I'll be glad to post if someone's needing it, but I won't needlessly bore others with computerese. Grey

As mentioned above, avoid acetone and lacquer thinner (which often contains acetone as part of the mix). Other than that, most anything is "safe" for this sort of situation. Personally, I tend to avoid some of the preservative sorts of things because they can indeed leave the surface feeling greasy/slimy/sticky. I've got some sort of Armorall product that makes whatever you put it on so sticky that dust adheres to it and will not come off, no matter what you do. Counterproductive for you, I think. (No, I don't remember which product it is--smallish [4 oz.?] pump-squirt bottle. If it matters I'll go hunt the bottle down and read the label.) Your choice. If you're worried, test in the proverbial "inconspicuous spot." Grey

There will be purists who decry the changes made to the original design. I'm not one of them. So far, all the changes I've seen are things I might have considered if I was going to start from the original schematics and whomp up a reissue. Any word on pricing yet? Grey

Question: Could it actually be dust that's just stuck to the case with who-knows-what kind of stickiness (say, cooking grease, for instance)? Possible solution: Naptha (aka lighter fluid/charcoal starter fluid) is an excellent solvent for that sort of problem. Buy a quart. It's cheap and you can also use it to remove the gummy residue left after removing labels and a thousand other things. It also works pretty well on that nasty brown slime that results from cigarettes. Anyone need incentive to quit smoking? Wipe down an old Hammon A-100 that belonged to a smoker. Consider that your lungs look like that on the inside. (ewwwww...) Grey

I don't know about "everyone." I thought I was the only one who saw an unfortunate pattern in some of the things that have been happening recently. If there are others, then...it's news to me. As to "why" I've said what I've said...I've detailed that in my Visit thread recently and in a few others, including this one. I thought I'd been pretty clear as to my chain of reasoning. That said, I can't see $5-6k for it, but I'm not their target customer for that particular device, either. I'm sure there are people who are hot for it--I'm just not one of them. If I was going to drop that sort of money on a Moog I'd find a Voyager XL and replace my regular Voyager. The leftover money (between a used XL and $5k, that is), I'd probably just save for a rainy day. For that matter, I've got a Kronos. Doesn't that have some sort of vocoder capability built in? Maybe my MOXF8, too? Shows how much I care about vocoder things that I don't even know if I've got one... They're just not relevant to the kind of music that interests me. Grey

Sweetwater says they'll sell you one for a mere $4999.00 Before you pass out, note that they say that's $1001.00 off the list price of $6k. Grey

Why would the death of a non-keyboard musician be off topic? Yes, keyboards--piano and organ in particular--can be played solo, but the world would be a much poorer place if we didn't have each other. I have been tempted to buy a pedal steel from time to time. For me, the influence would be Steve Howe of Yes. I would never, in my wildest dreams, have thought to incorporate steel into prog rock, but he makes it work. The only reason that I haven't followed through is that I've got enough instruments that I need to learn as it is...keyboards being my top priority, followed closely by hammered dulcimer, but there are others waiting in the wings. Grey

Not for the faint of heart. Grey