Docbop

Some small stuff for a portable Ableton setup, a Shure SM57 the do anything workhorse, mic & boom stand, and for a small portable audio interface a SSL 2. That should be me started on this new path I on.

I've been shopping to setup a audio desk in another room of my apartment so been checking out desk. If you want a keyboard tray under the desk your options are limited. Also need to check if the tray will fit your keyboard some the opening isn't that tall so many boards won't fit and finding ones for 88 key controller are even harder. For myself I'm thinking of just getting a keyboard stand and just put it next to the desk and have a small MIDI controller to won't take much deskspace. Some are making their own setup with two drawer units like the Ikea Alex drawers and then buy just a desktop or just a sheet of plywood cut to size you want. Then some places sell keyboard tray you can attach to a desktop. A lot of way to go buying drawers and a finish desktop. Link to Ikea Alex: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/cat/alex-series-47147/

From what I've learned from a site on Apple silicon for audio Logic and Ableton both only use the performance cores of the CPU. So the Apple silicon chips that have more performance cores really lend themselves to doing audio. I recently got back into audio, but learning Ableton Live for something different. I bought a used Macbook Pro M1 Max before the M3's came out because of the number of performance cores. Since the M3's are aren't that big a step up from the M1 and M2 used MacBooks Pros are disappearing fast.

Barry was very opinionated and in general didn't like Jazz after 1960. Also I won't say the names but he didn't have good things to say about some legendary Jazz pianists. So Barry mainly is Bebop and Great American Songbook, but his concepts are the fundamentals for Jazz musicians not just pianists to learn. As for modern players David Berkman and others I've heard teach Barry's concepts and get into how others use Barry's Borrowing technique and sounds in their music. The thing about Barry's concepts is how many great musician have attended Barry's workshops and don't mention it, it kind of slips out in interviews and in conversations. Barry is someone who has influenced a lot of musicians.

Part of trying to get into Barry's concepts is knowing the basics of his scales. David Baker who first called them Bebop scales, but Barry hated that name and he calls them Major 6 Diminished, Minor 6 Diminished and so on. The basic scale i.e. Maj6Dim is the four notes of the Ma6 chords combined with its Diminished chord. So in C C E G A and D F Ab B so something like a CMa7 Barry would say your playing the CMaj but borrowing the B from the diminished scale. That's quick and dirty explanation for a big topic to understand before moving forward. Also and it can be confusing watching Barry videos he talks about the scale and harmony use and linear as separate subject, but all those videos of him you don't always know which way he's talking about the Barry concepts. Then if around the Barry world for awhile you see that most of the things he's talks about and is about looking at tiny little movements within a song not the whole song. As some call it "Isolate and explore". I would say the best two people's Youtubes to watch who spend a lot of time in the Barry workshop are Issac Raz and Chris Parks. Chis Parks YouTube channel is called "Things I learned from Barry Harris". Chris has many videos and still making them. Issac Raz start making videos about Barry during the pandemic, but hasn't made much since then. So I would recommend checking their videos out.

I never heard of this guy before but this interview and studio tour was really interesting to me. I was really blown away at the end when he gets into his new DAW he's using for his HUGE 900 track film project. Then at the very end of the video Christian Henson pops in and say all this is being run on a M2 Macbook Pro.

The Kronos now Nautilus is only one that calls itself a workstation, or as I've heard people comment...it's a complete recording studio inside of a keyboard. Yamaha Montage and Roland Fantom both call themselves synthesizers not workstations.

I was around Steely Dan's sessions back then and remember when they got asked to leave The Village and they ended up going to Cherokee studios. Cherokee was new then and needed a big artist to use the studio to help attract business. Dan took advantage of that and had a new very expensive monitor system put in that after a couple days said they didn't like and to have it removed. Then Cherokee had just bought a new white Steinway grand piano. Fagen start putting his cigarettes out on the lid of the piano. So Dan was looking for another studio to work in

I remember seeing The Who in concert back in the days they tore up their gear. I twas interesting that the roadies came out and sweep the stage for parts so they reused to build another guitar. What I heard is Pete Townsend the guitars he destroys the bodies made of plywood so they weren't good guitars. Now that night when Keith Moon kicked his drums appart and his bass drum pedal flew up and then bounced on his floor tom out into the audience. The pedal landed in front of the couple next to me and the boyfriend grabbed the pedal, then he told his girlfriend to shove it up her dress. Then Keith Moon's drum roadie came out walking in front of us looking for the pedal. No one said a thing, so that couple ended up with a expensive souvenir of seeing The Who. The weird one was when The Who was on the Smothers Brothers TV show and they were to tear up their gear. Keith Moon was on a high riser so the road crew decided to rig an explosive devices and smoke bomb. So when The Who played on the TV show you see the explosion and Keith Moon flies off backwards from the drum riser. The audience loved it. Ends up Keith Moon actually did get blown off the riser it was only suppose to be a bang and smoke. It did screw up Keith back and the roadie that used too much explosive was fired. Now myself the first band I was in we used to end our shows playing The End by the Doors and knocki our gear around and making as much noise as we could. Somehow we got to play the AfterHours show at the Hullabaloo club in Hollywood. The Hullabaloo had a big revolving stage so one band could be playing while other sets up. We we do our show include tearing our gear up. Our drummer figured it was big gig for us really when crazy and somehow he kicked his drums and they went flying like they exploded. They start to revolve the stage and our mic cords were tangled up in drums and they had to stop rotating the stage and our poor singer had to untangle the mic cables in front of the audience. We look over to the side and see the Stage Manager and he looks really ticked off. Finally stage rotates and the stage manager comes running over we thought we'll never play here again. The stage just yells why the hell did you tell me you were going to do that, it was great!!!! So your not mad. no I want to guys to play again in a couple weeks.

A newer approach is the Akai MPC Key 61 which is like a Ableton, Maschine or Push but has a keyboard too so you have both worlds at your disposal. The video below Derrick runs the band for a church doing similar approach with his Kronos, Montage, and Roland sequencing on those. He does it the all the parts so if a bass player or other musician doesn't show up he can then just punch up that part and keep the music going. He seems to really like the Akai MPC Key 61 from other videos he's done on it.

I had to go to hospital last week for a procedure and they started requiring masks again as soon as you come through the door. Talking to the nurse in recovery she said the number of Covid cases is starting to rise again so that's why the masks.

Well I'd say Vintage Vibe, but they only make kind of keyboard. So to be three I'll go Yamaha and request a YC88, I think it's a U1 their full size upright, and one of their mixers.

They are a modern version of The Section from the 70's which was Russ Kunkel, Lee Sklar, Danny Kortchmar, and Craig Doerge on keyboards.

One of the artists I did sound for a while the singer sang for one of the later versions of Nugents original band the Amboy Dukes. I couldn't believe all the crap he said that band did bouncing around the country in a van. So I have zero respect for Nugent and all his "hey man he plays fast" type fans. After working with the singer I have no doubt his Nugent stories were true.

In the Tech Industry trade shows are shrinking and some even gone. That manufactures are moving to just doing their own events versus competing for attention in a trade show. Now what I'd like to know is the number of small music stores versus the major chains and online. Maybe Covid showed online rollout from companies can reach a bigger audience for less money. I'm just observing how I see the business changing in the internet world.

What I'd do in situations like that was mute the strings and play rhythmic patterns like a percussionist. In fact now playing piano it's something I miss being able to mute notes and play rhythmic patterns. The Jazz guitar legend Herb Elis used to do that, he had a way of slapping his guitar making and playing bongo sounds and rhythms.

Do like the horn players and sneak off the stage and grab another beer.

I played guitar and bass for over 60 years. I worked in a music school for about 10 year. I attended MI which it's main program is guitar. I was recording engineer and most my friends then and now are musicians and a mix of instruments including keyboard players. I never heard of all this crap you guy are talking about with anti keyboard or similar stuff. So this thread is really weird to me make me wonder how much is real and how much is just trying to read something into situations that doesn't exist.

NAMM 2024 is twenty days away and it been crickets from the instrument world and rumour mill. Seems likes that's a bad sign for NAMM and considering trade shows in general have been shrinking or dying off.

One of my favorite movies was Barfly with Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. I'll alter one of the scenes to fit this situation. Dunaway... I hate keyboards players. Rourke... You shouldn't hate anyone it not good. Dunaway... Ok. Keyboard players, I feel so much better when they aren't around.

You only feel bad when your trying to be a real hip cutting edge player and some reviewer calls you a excellent Smooth Jazz artist. <grin>

I never heard it as Smooth Jazz especially then it was just Funky Jazz. Now a days with aging and need to pay bills it's getting to be more Smooth Jazz. But I really hate that term Smooth Jazz.

Heard him many time back then. The music school I worked at was a few mile down the street from the Baked Potato and Tuesday nights had become guitar night in clubs in the Valley so I'd head to the Baked Potato to see Lee Ritenour or Larry Carlton. Lee was there most Tuesdays and always had a great band with Patrice Rushen on keys, Anthony Jackson or Abe Laboriel bass, Harvey Mason drums, Ernie Watts sax and others when in town. Later on Dave or Don Grusin would be playing keys. Also the other way down the street from the school was a restaurant/bar that had another studio guitar ace Pat Kelly and he always had great up and coming studio guys in his band. Then that was a bar I think it was in a bowling alley that one of the guy from Rufus ran a weekly jam at that attracted a lot of hot players. Great time to be a young musician.

Sounds to me like you guys are mixing your use of level and impedance. Most mic's these days are low impedance and low output but a high impedance mic's are still low output like guitar pickups and most musical instruments. High level in general means something is putting out Line Level output like a preamp.