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Scazbot

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Everything posted by Scazbot

  1. Perhaps another option, one I wouldn't have thought of unless I stumbled upon it a month ago, is a GEWA. Their website is here. They make a number of pianos, including a very affordable one (PP-3), though I wouldn't call it attractive, that can be combined with a proper stand. It has just a few buttons but namely it has no screen. None. Not even a digital number display. There are 4 favorite buttons which can have different sounds assigned ready to go whenever you boot it up. It does, however, have Bluetooth, to allow you deeper customizing of the sounds but you don't have to use this. Cheap, no screen, cabinet, decent piano sound. They make others with much nicer cabinets, keys, sounds, etc. but they all have some sort of screen.
  2. The Vox Continental has now been listed as a product no longer available at Sweetwater and its listing left up purely for reference. I bring this up because we’ve seen a number of Korg products on-sale lately and this is cementing my opinion that something new is coming. Some new stage piano (organ) that begins to fill the hole they left by stopping production on the Grandstage and the Vox Continental. They have the Nautilus so I guess I’m assuming new or re-skinned Nautilus’ will most likely be the product that continues covering the Kronos end of their market but what about a new stage piano. SV-2 is a great board but Korg isn’t going to have just one decent stage piano after having so many before and the sudden sales seem like everyone is clearing out stock for something new. Perhaps many “new” things.
  3. My main excitement with this post was the price finally coming stateside as Europeans had access to this price point at various times over the last 3 years. I purchased my first VC from Andertons in 2020 and what attracted me to it was the unbelievable price ($1,016 all in shipped to the USA). Places like Thomann have sold this in Europe for a very similar price and I think people in the US (maybe Australia because it seems like y'all can never catch a break with imported goods) never saw the value in this board but Fleer has the right of it. Sweetwater being a reputable company with quality service makes this very enticing and I think I'll be picking up another one. Though, a small part of me does hope that perhaps they are getting ready for an updated re-issue of this product. Either way, there are a lot of cats on here who are looking for a solid, well-built, light-weight board to play in a band and for the price I wouldn't recommend much else unless you strictly wanted weighted keys.
  4. I was going through and checking the specifications on some different boards and I noticed this: Vox Continental . Not very relevant to those of you who aren't stateside but I must admit the Vox Continental at a price point of $999 is definitely worth drawing some attention to. I have one of the 73 key models and its a great little board. I just wanted to make sure if someone was in need of some of the varied things this board does well they knew about this bargain. Note: it is "on order" at Sweetwater, so you'll have to wait a spell. But that's a heck of a deal no matter how you cut it.
  5. The board was $1,100 and then a touch under $100 for shipping (I believe it was $95) and $76 in customs. Customs doesn't just charge whatever, they rarely charge up to 15% of the value of the good. So you can expect it to be less than that usually. I live in Minnesota and the board shipped from Germany (country of origin is not always the location of the shop sometimes it is sent directly from where it is manufactured) and it came into port around Philadelphia (yes I know that's not on the ocean but it is where many goods directly off loaded in New York wind up). They dinged me for the money on Friday and I had the board on Wednesday morning.
  6. That's a good question. The conversion rate or value differnce between currencies isn't the issue so much as the mark up in the States on certain electronic gear. Thomann has a US site which simply puts things in US dollars and is geared toward the American market. You can buy a new Seventeen for around $1,100 dollars there. Generally speaking I've found customs charges to be a a bit mysterious but certain countries have very beneficial trade relationships with the US but to name two, try the UK or Germany.
  7. That flat plane at the back of the keyboard is 5” deep and runs just about the full width of 43 1/2”. It is flat but I’m sure you would need something clever to support an additional board. Perhaps Crumar will make something like they did with the Seven that allows for an additional, lightweight, keyboard to be placed securely on top of it. Now, if you’re asking the more straight forward, “does that knob on the front stick out so high that it breaks the aforementioned plane”? The answer is yes. I’m afraid that selection know is a smidge higher than the flat topped plane at the back. But only just a little. Placing a small spacer on top of the board would fix that.
  8. I appreciate seeing that list of possible keyboard contenders but as I looked it over I realized there was something I may not have mentioned. I paid $1300 all in for this board (keyboard price + shipping + customs). That makes it cheaper than all the boards on your list when you consider they all need (tax/shipping). No reason to discount any of them but a good case could be made that the Crumar is a deal.
  9. I purchased a Crumar Seventeen a couple of weeks ago and I thought I’d share my thoughts on this newest board from Crumar in case anyone else was intrigued. Background Why I bought this board: I needed a piano. Straight up. I have other boards that can do many things but I wanted one that would serve mainly as a piano and have some excellent vintage key sounds. This board is for those straight up piano gigs like jazz combo/big band, country, blues/rock shows. In the past I’ve always enjoyed using something cheap, think Casio, that had a decent piano sound but I wouldn’t be fussed if some drunk knocked it off the stage right before baptizing it with beer. Light, easy to use, not to picky with the action, but responsive, decent piano sounds. Say what you will about the piano sound but those boards delivered something a damn sight better than what we had in the 90’s or the 80’s; and all in a cheap, $500, plastic shell, that weighed no more than 25 or 26 pounds. These final details are the reason I have always had at least one board of this nature in my rotation. Enter the Crumar Seventeen. I look at this as my new grab-n-go gig board. The selling points for me were its improvement over all those old Casios: it was reasonably priced and definitely nicer and in a different league than my old gigging pianos; it had a stepped up exterior with better build quality (its no tank but she’s sturdy); and low and behold she weighs about 26 pounds and as a bonus all you need is a few pounds of legs and she has her own stand. But most of all the sounds are a damn sight better than many of the rom-pler boards of recent years. With a fair amount of flexibility built in to help you dial in each sound. The action is heavy. I knew this going in and was totally fine with that. I’ve been using a Korg Vox Continental quite frequently for about a year and a half and this was going to be an adjustment. After playing the Seventeen for a few hours each day I warmed up to the action in about 3 days. The more important factor was using some of those editing features to increase the sample volume or change the velocity of a given sample so I didn’t have to mess with changing the touch setting on the keyboard. I’ve always found that the original “Normal” touch setting is the one keyboard manufacturers seem to dial in during the design stages and other settings leave me wanting. I will say this, the keys are sturdy. They give the impression they will last for many years to come. Those newly recorded piano sounds are excellent. They sound great out of my studio monitors with their flat stereo response and they sound excellent summing to mono out of my QSC K10.2 (which is precisely how I will gig with this board). The D-274 Grand is colorful and really a pleasure to play and the C5 is vibrant and cuts through the mix. The Rhodes Electric Tine sound is lovely. There are multiple adjustments that can be made to help you create the Electric Tine sound you want to hear. Also, a couple of those expansion pianos are pretty cool too. If you like old electric grands those are excellent as well. Clavs are solid and sound great. Honestly there isn’t a sound I am disappointed in because it either sounds great out of the gate or I can punch it up a little to my liking via the editor. Speaking of adjustments here is the various options, in order as they appear on the screen, that you can change to dial in sounds. Select Sound (contains all the sounds but starts with the currently selected one); FX1 on/off; FX1 Mode (Mono Trem, Auto Panner, LFO Wha, Auto Wha); FX1 Depth, Speed; FX2 (same) with different Mode (Chorus, Flanger, Phaser1, Phaser2) Amp Switch on/off; Amp Drive; Amp Model (Twin, AC, JCM, RJC, Bass) DLY level, time, f. back, type (Mono or Ping-pong); Reverb Level, Decay, Type (Default, Hall 1, Hall 2, Studio, Room, Stadium, Tunnel, Church, Cathedral) EQ Bass, Treble, Middle, Mid. Freq EP Type (Default epiano, Mellow Tone, Hard Tine, Wanna-be-dyno, So Dark, Prepared, Sweet, Piano Bass, Wurlish); EP Wood Level, Felt Level, Hammer Tips, Bite-n-Bark, Metallic, Resonances, Pickup Offset, Hi-pass, Pedal Noise SMP Level, Attack, Release, Filter, Velocity, Piano Resonances, Rel. Level, Pedal Level Save Preset (Bank/Slot); Import/Export Preset (via USB drive) Midi Ch Rx/Tx, Ch. Local Off, CC Send/Receive, PC Send/Receive, Soft Thru Velocity Curve: Lighter, Light, Normal, Hard, Harder Global Tuning (440Hz); Screen Light Intensity (Dark, Soft, Med, Normal, Bright) Exp. Install/Uninstall; Free Memory (5.2 GB); Firmware Update; Factory Reset Most of these have adjustments 0-127 but a few are obviously adjusted in Hz or milliseconds. Sounds are laid out across 8 banks. Only 6 of which have sounds in them when you buy the board. Banks 7 and 8 can be used for saving your own sounds. Though, you can save a sound to any bank/slot. I like the look of her and I understand if there is a contingent of folks here who will never much care to be reminded of the crap they hauled around in the 70’s and 80’s. Though compared to a real Rhodes this thing is a streamlined butterfly. The tolex is tastefully done and there were no blemishes or defects of any kind on the board that I bought. The legs are a bit tricky to get started but I don’t foresee any problems with accidentally stripping the screws. It’s really just a matter of getting them started which, again, takes a minute. Once the legs are on the board feels very sturdy and well supported as I play. If you are looking for a piano/vintage keyboard (sans organ) this is the one for you. I still do a fair amount of straight up piano/electric piano gigs. So this fits the bill for a nice grab-n-go board for me. Post script: In a strange way I feel manuals sell keyboards now more than anything else because most local music stores are gone. A good manual will lay out everything the board has to offer and often lay out the basics of dialing in cool sounds or effects you may not have realized it was capable of doing/creating/combining. I’m sure Crumar will make one at some point for this board but I just wanted to put something up for reference in case the above info is of any interest to anyone here.
  10. Hey All, I just happened to be comparing specs between different boards and I realized that the Korg Grandstage Stage Piano is no longer listed on Sweetwater, Andertons, or Thomann. There is 1 left on Kraft Music. I also noticed Korg still lists the Grandstage on their website. Mostly I was just curious if anyone had any inklings about whether or not this board was being retired or refreshed. Thoughts, opinions, and wild speculation are all welcome here.
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