Lyon

This is great! Thanks for posting! It's really interesting to compare his voicings to Wynton Kelly's and Bill Evans (at least from the same period). They certainly had their own approaches, but there was also a lot of common ground. And there was something about both Red's voicings and lines--maybe a relatively high tolerance for crunchiness/dissonance, and a thing for wide intervals and suprising leaps?--that really catches your ear and your brain at the same time.

I'm gonna have fun listening to all this stuff! Right now I'm compiling a Spotify organ playlist: Shirley Scott, Don Patterson, Groove Holmes, Jimmy Smith, Pat Bianchi, Brian Charette, Joey DeFrancesco, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Melvin Rhyne, Charles Earland, Reuben Wilson... I can't pretend to even approximate what any of them do, but I'm having a lot of fun getting ideas!

I recently walked into a Guitar Center in Queens, NY and stumbled across a Dexibell Combo J7, which was maybe the last thing I was expecting to find. I had never seen one before, and had a whole lot of fun watching the drawbars rearrange themselves! In general, though, selection at even the largest stores in NYC regardless of borough is not great. When I was shopping for a keyboard earlier in the pandemic, I simply could not find all the models I wanted to try in one place. But I had a wonderful experience at Alto Music in Middletown, NY, which is maybe 1.5 hours away. A really nice young salesman named Mike set up a keyboard comparison for me with 6 boards: Nord Electro 6D 73, YC61 and YC88, Crumar Mojo 61, Roland VR730, and Vox Continental. He had to order the Vox and the Roland, but had all the others (including the Crumar) in stock. I put down a 10% deposit for the special orders and to hold everything for several weeks until I could get up there, and when I did he let me play for as long as I wanted--which turned out to be a couple of hours. No pressure at all from Mike, who was extremely helpful and didn't tell me which board *he* had pegged me for until I'd already made my choice. It was the Nord, which was also the last thing I was expecting. But I guess that's what can happen when someone actually gives you the opportunity to compare a whole bunch side by side! Anytime I can throw them some business, I will.

You know, I did kick the legs out, and still found it slightly wobbly; maybe it has something to do with my the carpeting in my studio? Otherwise really liked it, though. I did find the footprint of the On-Stage z-stand to be significantly larger than a platform stand, and that gave me pause as well (space is really at a premium). All in all, I think a platform or table stand would best suit my needs, so I think I'm going to give one of these K&M's a try and call it a day.

No, it was the single-tier KS7350. Different locking mechanism perhaps? I'm now looking at the K&M 18953 or 18820. Ordered through Thomann, they aren't much more expensive than the other options.

Yes, that's it--the spring-loaded buttons. I wonder if I just got a defective unit, or if it was damaged during shipping. It could also have been a used/returned item, even though I purchased it new. (There were a few scratches on the unit.) Anyhow, the play was immediately noticeable as soon as I assembled the stand: the buttons snapped into place, but the arms jiggled in their brackets. That continued once the Electro was in place. No pics, I'm afraid; I've already returned it.

Hey folks, The On-Stage arrived last week. It was a breeze to set up, looked great...and it wobbled. Not as much as the X-stand. Maybe even a smidgen less than the platform stand--though that would have been a close match. But enough for the Nord music stand to shake. The problem seemed to be the 2 top "arms," which had noticeable play even after snapping into place with those little spring-loaded doohickeys. If I played very gently, no problem. If I got even a little aggressive, wobble wobble. Maybe I got a defective unit. Maybe I had unrealistic expectations. I really thought the stand was well-designed and engineered, except for the play in those arms. In any case, I'm going back to the platform style. If the thing's gonna shake a bit anyhow (and I can live with that), might as well get something that's wide-open underneath for legs and pedals. Thanks again for all the input--this was a very worthwhile experiment!

Thanks for the tip! Even though portability isn't my main concern, I'd still like the option of breaking it down/moving it relatively easily, either for storage or the occasional performance; so I'm still looking forward to trying the On-Stage.

Looks great! That red would really suit my Nord. 🙂

Glad I ordered it! Stability and leg/pedal room are really what I'm aiming for. Can't wait to try this thing out; I've gone back to my X-stand while I wait...

Good to know about the Roland! If I have any trouble with the On-Stage, I can try that next. 🙂 Thanks for the tip about marking the heights and angles, too.

Hahaha! Yeah, that's pretty interesting. Years ago, my wife decided to play a piece for marimba that looked like the craziest thing I'd ever seen; just a thicket of notes that grew more and more complex page after page, with time signature changes every few bars. She spent hours working it up, .and when she finally played through it at tempo, it turned out that the composer had notated a ritardando. What a sadist!

That's very funny! I seem to be resistant; so far, having an Electro 6D 73 has not made me jones for anything else, even a Stage. But that may be because, to paraphrase AnotherScott, the only board I tried that did everything the Electro 6D could do was ...the Electro 6D. I made an appointment at a music store to try 6 different keyboards, and the Electro was probably the one I *least* expected to walk out with. But I did, and I love it. 🙂

OK, just ordered the On-Stage; will post again when I have it all set up. Thanks again, everyone!

Wow, that's a serious price hike! Of the single-tier ones mentioned in this thread, the prices seem to be roughly as follows: Roland KS-10Z $140 On-Stage KS7350 $156 Hercules KS400B $165 Based on what everyone has said, I think I'm going to go for the On-Stage.

I'll really only be using it in sitting position with a single tier, so that all sounds good!

Awesome! I harbor hopes of eventually getting bass pedals, but it's not gonna happen anytime soon--and might involve changing my whole rig. 🙂 Good to know about the Hercules, too! I've seen pics of it, and should have asked about it in my original post.

Oh, that's really good to hear! Yeah, heavy is OK since I don't plan on moving it that often; I'm mostly concerned with eliminating the wobble, and making sure that I can comfortably fit and play my pedals underneath the thing. (I'm 5'7", so no problem there with being long and lanky, either. :-)) Just to make sure, this would be the On-Stage KS7350, yes?

Hello everyone, Back for more advice... I recently decided to ditch my x-stand because of legroom/pedal issues (i.e., there was no room for my knees underneath the thing, much less my sustain and swell pedals.) I picked up a nice Gator Frameworks heavy duty table/platform style stand which has loads of room for both pedals and legs, but it wobbles a bit. Previously, this wouldn't have bothered me much; but since I also recently picked up a Nord music stand v2 for my Electro, it's become annoying: The music stand attaches directly to the Nord, so when the Nord shakes, so does the stand (and so does my music). I am considering returning the table/platform style stand and trying a Z-style stand in hopes of solving both the legroom/pedal problem and the wobble problem. I only have one keyboard, so no need for a second tier; and I won't be gigging much, so portability isn't a major concern. My budget is around $150. A salesperon recommended the Roland KS-10Z, and I wondered if anyone has tried it and could comment on stability and leg/pedal room. (It appears to have a large and possibly low cross-brace, and wondered if that might be problematic for a swell pedal.) I've also seen a similar On-Stage stand, and wondered if anyone could comment on that as well. Many thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

Gotcha--many thanks for the help, Delaware Dave!

Ah, that makes sense. The volume slider has been showing signs of failure as well, so maybe the whole thing is just past its expiration date. Any recommendations for a light, compact MIDI keyboard replacement that someone could carry with them in a bicycle pannier? 🙂 We have my Nord Electro at home, so this is really for relatively simple in-class demonstration purposes. My wife, for example, is wondering if one of the new roll-up models might be worth trying.

Hello everyone! Hoping you can help me out here. My wife uses an old M-Audio KeyRig 49 USB Midi keyboard to play examples in a music class she teaches. Yesterday she tried to get it to play through GarageBand on her iPad as usual, but this time it wouldn't work. I tried to use it with GarageBand on my Macbook, where it has always worked just fine as well; but again, this time GarageBand couldn't detect it. I went into the Audio Midi Setup app, and it did not show up there either. I tested the USB cable, and it is fine. Does this mean the keyboard is dead? Or are there other settings we can fiddle with/tests we can run? Many thanks in advance for any advice!

+1 for that. I did the same with some ribbon when trying to decide on 73 vs 61 keys (probably at your suggestion, AnotherScott!), and it made the decision easy. Trying out a bunch of both at a music store also helped, of course. :-) +1 on the ES110 too, for a light and relatively inexpensive option. When I was looking at keyboards a couple of years ago, I stumbled across the ES110 pretty much by accident, and was amazed at how little it gave up to more expensive keyboards in terms of touch and basic sounds. You get more when you pay more, but the relationship in this case is not linear.

I know Petra! She's terrific. My own background is in ethnomusicology; I did my dissertation fieldwork in Ghana, where my wife and I played in the royal drumming ensemble of an indigenous chief. As MathOfInsects points out, polyrhythms and complex meters are pretty common outside of Western music, and many are notated in 12 because they are rhythmically ambiguous to Western ears: often, they seem to be both duple and triple. This was true of the music we studied, which is a talking drum tradition of the Akan people. It is called fontomfrom, and when I first began playing it as a student in Toronto, it could be profoundly disorienting: If you sat in the "rhythm section" (the group of smaller drums that supports the larger ones), you might at first be certain that your part was in 3; but if you listened to your neighbor, you might start wondering whether it was in 4. That was part of what made it so much fun: it was like sitting in a rhythmic kaleidoscope, and your perspective kept shifting depending upon whom you listened to. Interestingly, some suggest that at least some African musicians are not oriented towards downbeats or indeed metric frameworks of strong vs week beats at all, but instead find their place strictly in relation to other parts within an ensemble. In music that is metrically ambiguous, this makes sense; you might not be able to rely on a downbeat, but you can always recognize where your patters starts/ends in relation to at least one other part. (In West African drum ensemble music, this is often the bell pattern.) Oh, and did someone already mention Chano Dominguez? Great flamenco/jazz pianist! Lots of Youtube videos; this one is nice:

Who's derailing?! I'm pretty sure I went off the rails in my original post. :-) I actually think this could be really useful for someone. The pushback phenomenon anotherscott described obviously bothers you, and it really troubled me when I first noticed it. Good for people to know, I think. But this also just goes to show how subjective the whole keyboard-feel thing is: I got used to it pretty quick, and now it doesn't bother me at all. Some people apparently are never bothered by it in the first place. For others, it's a deal-breaker. Makes me even more glad I tried all these keyboards in person; there's no substitute for getting your hands on them.