Docbop

Don't most Alto's have a two channel mixer with combination XLR/1/4" jacks on the back.

Sullivan Fortner's new solo album came out yesterday, but there aren't any of it tracks on YouTube so here's some of his solo piano work from a couple years ago.

Personally I'd rather see a band especially a bar band just play the tune with the instrumentation they have, no keyboard so rework the song so the key hooks are still being played or sung, be creative. Bands don't need to sound like Xerox copy of a record, people want to hear the song, its beat, and lyrics. The only person saying they were missing the keyboard part is another keyboard player. Think like a arranger or MD, the instrumentation for this gig is X so how will I make it work, time to be creative.

Interesting made me check and I live in the 5th largest city in L.A. Country just we are about fifty-sixty miles out in the desert from most of L.A.. What is weird for a small city like we are how many gyms and one YMCA we have.

Working as a roadie for awhile I learned the value of a platform dolly. Easy to make some marine grade plywood cut to desired size and four large casters. So versatile.

I know how you feel both my keyboards are wood key hammer action and around 40 lbs each. Hard part I can't figure out one is MIDI controller and it weighs as much as my stage piano. I think back of my roadie days and all the gear I could lift and carry and now a 40lb keyboard is an hassle. Where I laugh my ass off is on computer sites and people whining about 2 lb laptops or 5 lb 16" Macbook, go to a gym if 5lb is an issue for you. Worse is the constant whining about fingerprints on thing designed to be carried in your hand.

I think it relates to this thread on the new QuestLove series of interviews he talks with Fab Morvan of Milli Vanilli all about how they came about, but also how what they did thirty-five years ago is how records are made today. It is a long interview a hour and twenty minute but really informative of Milli Vanilli and later Rob Morvan as a solo artist. At one point Questlove says he just saw Duran Duran in concert and he backstage was eight MacBooks with terabytes of background tracks that were played. How they were in forefront of sampling other records to create their own and live were using Fairlight and Oberheim. They said a lot of this is discussed in a new documentary on Milli Vanilli that is just coming out. So if you got the time or like me used to listening to speed up Youtube to cut the time it worth a listen.

Boy I alway wanted something so I could write my own Elevator Music with, oh could you push the button for the top floor I want to hear this whole tune.

Made remember early days of Rock TV shows and the artists all faked played to the playback of their records. The drummers were told you can lightly hit the drums but NEVER hit a cymbal. So funny seeing drummers play but stopping a couple inch above a cymbal or drum. Guitar players with no guitar cords and amps not even turned on. Fun to watch.

Taking a trip back to the 70's after a friends post on FB pointed out Idris is still going strong down in New Orleans where he's from. Hell of a lineup on his first album on Kudo records .

That's why a lot classical guys don't get studio work they are too dependent on the conductor being their beat source, they have trouble in a studio playing to a click

I know the feeling. When I was getting back into recording I picked up a gig in a ProTools shop, so I took a ProTools class at a local studio. First thing in the class we had to introduce ourselves and say what we do. One of the guys in the class said his job was Elton John's Time Keeper, needless to say everyone said what is that??? He said he sets up and runs all the sync clocks for lights, audio, video, click, and other devices that need to be insync. Big shows today are pretty much all computer driven and humans are just Meat Puppets on stage.

To me having a keyboard player playing sample of brass and strings is no different that playing tracks. In fast the tracks are most like real strings and brass and recorded properly, versus a keyboard with samples. The only difference is the gig went to (a new term in touring crews to me) a Playback Engineer instead of a keyboard player.

Could use the Stefon Harris vibest/piano and instructor view and call it a Triad Plus One. A triad and a color tone so in this case a F# minor triad and B color tone. Always lots of ways to view collections of notes.

Most of you guy grew up playing classical music, but me growing up going to Venice High School I grew up on different Classics, Motown. As I've heard people say studying Motown records is a Master Class in Rhythm section playing. So here one of my all time favorite Motown tunes done by Joan Osborne with the remaining Funk Brothers from the movie Standing in the Shadows of Motown. Of course I took the electives classes in Stax Records too. I remember I think it was John Lennon saying they were fans of Motown and that he was blown away with the snare drum sound. He said the snare was so powerful it sounded like they were hitting it with a tree trunk.

When I worked for the church the house band had pros with great ears. Sometimes the guest singer was big name artists that would perform during service and they would bring a backing track. If the guest artist was really getting the congregation going the house band would start playing along with the backing track. So if the artist started adding a verse or band soloing we could continue even though backing track had finished. So having real pros in the band with great ears really helped keep the excitement going when the backing track ran out. So having a pro level band is worth the money or like for our church some great players who liked the church and enjoyed picking up a few bucks on a Sunday.

The room itself is a big part of the factors in how loud something is, even where it is placed in the space. I was mixing for Jesse Ed Davis at the Santa Monica Civic auditorium a great place for concerts I had worked before. As usual we took a direct of the bass since he just had a regular bass amp he used in clubs. Sound check went fine, but show time the bass was blasting and we kept trying to get the level down. We finally dropped the bass out of the FOH and the sound from the stage was filling the room and then some. Amazing one bass amp filling a 3000 seat concert hall, but still too loud. So I was roadie/sound man and would of taken me too long to run back to the stage to tell the bass player to turn down. So we plugged a mic directly into the mixer and set it to only come thru the monitors I yelled at the bass player to turn his amp down. First it scared the crap out of him, then pissed him off because he thought it was going out to the FOH. But he turned down and rest of the set went fine. Somehow his amp was in a sweet spot coupling with the stage and was filling the house. There is no one size fits all answer to doing sound. Also those sound meter can be pretty BS some tiny mic checking one little point in a room. It's like doing sound you need to walk the room to get an idea was things sound like overall.

I've said it before I miss going to concerts in the 60's and 70's. Band would just stack gear on stage, dress as casual as they wanted, use just the house lights and spot light nothing fancy. They would of made live arrangement of tunes so if a ton of overdubs on the albums no one would play them. They played and people listened and dug the music. Thing started going bad when it started growing into productions and touring got so expensive bands had to get an advertisers to underwrite the tour and plaster their name around the stage. Things kept growing to bigger an bigger productions and audience came to expect it and things hit the point of no return. Shows got so dam big the big acts would need more than a day to setup so the large acts had two complete sets of gear on the road so one set would be doing a show and they other be in another city setting up. The bigger yet Las Vegas residencies became a thing and even bigger shows. As I said the artist and musicians became actors doing their own music. You all asked for it now you don't know how to get back to just being about some musicians playing on a stage doing live arrangement of their tunes.

People want live Music Videos a whole production of staging, lighting, props, dancers, and special effects and the artist is just an actor in their own music. That's modern music biz. What the thing is you need to convince an audience there's a difference and add it will increase the ticket prices to pay for extra musicians. Not going to work because all they want is a beat, the lyrics to sing along with, just something to remind them of when they first heard the tune and liked it. Even bar gigs they just want to dance they could care less how much it's like the record as long as it's a beat they can dance to.

When you want to work on being creative you limit the tools you work with. Some do it in practice calling it restrictive practice. Great painters when feeling creativity not there would paint with just one color. Many song writers write on what is not there main instrument, so they avoid the common lines and subconscious limitations they would do on their main instrument. When you limit what you work with you expand your creativity.

What one person thinks is loud many more think is normal so you're never going to please everyone. If it's too loud for you you need to move away from the sound source, but don't dictate to everyone else if they are enjoying things. All people are different and we all experience hearing loss as we get older to different degrees. You have to do what's right for you. Growing up playing in bands and working in audio I like things at what I think is a "comfortablely loud" level, but I have been in about three situation where I thought the level was way too loud. Everyone around me seems to me enjoying it so I just moved to the back of the room or one case just left, but I didn't try to say "turn it down for me".

To me it's the same as bands that have additional musician off stage or behind the curtain. I remember the first time I heard of it when I met the guy who played bass with one of the big folk acts, but the folk act was a trio with no bass. He played behind the stage curtain with a microphone in his upright bass. Then I worked the Yes tour back in the 70's we toured with their studio console and multiple tape deck to play string and other parts. Yes was amazing doing that way before there was computers it was all guys punching play when the tape the parts were needed. Then working in the rehearsal studio and seeing big bands come in with a handful of keyboard players, but see then live and maybe only one keyboardist on stage the rest off stage. As far as I'm concerned that's no different than pre-recorded tracks. Dam I know sound companies that pump audience clapping and etc into PA between songs. In the end a musician played the parts so a musician still played it. It's all just a show these days computer controlled lights, audio, background tracks, video. Everyone on stage is just a puppet now. Guess that's why I'm a Jazz fan still small groups playing live and responding to each other.

I've been using the Gator table stand for years. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PlatformStdF--gator-frameworks-gfw-utility-tbl-heavy-duty-keyboard-table

I think my RD-2000 (maybe my Kronos) did that. I'd be at my computer across the room working and hear a big click, it was the auto off turning off the keyboard. It did have option in the system setting for how long to wait to turn off so I just took the longest time available.

Most of the digital timers I've seen have a AA battery or a disc battery like in watches, those batteries are in all sorts of things that are on 24/7/365 and no problem. Only batteries I know that can be an issue are lithium batteries is smartphones and that is when they are being charged. If you worried about those thing there are a whole lot of things in your life you need to get rid of because they all have batteries in them.