Sean M. H.

I can't name one Taylor Swift song either (ok maybe one lol)...but one thing I've always said about artists like her, Beyonce, and the small list of artists that get to THAT level of fame & success...you can love or hate their music, but I really don't think you can question their work ethic. The travel alone would drive me crazy lol.

https://www.tmz.com/2024/09/11/frankie-beverly-soul-singer-dead/ Damn...Frankie Beverly (of Maze) dead at 77. Such an iconic voice in soul/r&b...and on a personal/lighter note, I'm not sure there's an artist more closely tied to the black cookout/family reunion experience than Frankie Beverly! The intro to "Before I Let Go" alone is pretty much prerequisite to these events in our community lol.

Ableton--IIRC--will execute the trigger at the start of the next bar...so you don't have to be crazy precise. As long as you trigger the next part somewhere within the preceding measure, you're good.

If nothing else, I hope this thread highlights the fact that the use of tracks is a contiuum--not a binary "uses tracks" or "doesn't use tracks"...in the gospel world where I spend a lot of my time, tracks are becoming almost ubiquitous for contemporary artists. But, in this context, they are often used for locking the band to tempo, adding precussion elements, and implementing cues/count-ins...NOT necessarily for adding instruments/vocals that the musicians could instead be playing themselves (many/most of the best musicians I know play gospel--trust me, they don't need to use tracks as a "crutch"). I thought Stokely's response above was particularly interesting. After coming across as rigidly anti-tracks for most of his post, he then ended it with: unless... ...and that's the whole deal. We all have our own personal "unless"...so it seems kinda silly and self-important of me to have a strong objection to where another musician chooses to draw that line!

Add me to the list of guys using one of the Liquid stand with wheels in lieue of a pullout keyboard tray (thanks to whoever it was on this forum where I first saw that idea)...Having just one stand for just a few months is obviously a small sample size...but I really like the price/quality ratio with these guys. And it's good to have a new player in the stand game anyway; as we've discussed before, it seems to be a stagnant little piece of the market, in need of some innovation!

I can't really tell if he's playing live or not...but in any case, it is definitely being supplemented by tracks and/or another player off-stage (more likely the former, given how close it sounds to the original studio clav work). I believe both Higher Ground and Superstition have at least a few clav tracks layered...so, even if Stevie's hands didn't match the most prominent clav part heard at a particular moment--still hard to say if he's actually playing live or not.

Pretty crazy the degree to which Stevie has held on to his range all these years. His voice is thinner and not as rich as it was in his prime (which is to be expected)...but he still does most of his songs in the original key during most of his performances from what I can tell...and those original keys were already high back 50 years ago!

Yep...as seen in Exhibit A and Exhibit B lol

For me, it's not even that they lack musicality--cause I actually like some of Molina's own material, as well as Rudess (Dream Theater)...so I don't want to attack their musicality/artistry as a whole...but yeah...in this context, these videos do nothing for me. I think some of it is the way these videos are done also. On the aforementioned Larnell Lewis drum video--the idea was that he listened to the Metallica track all the way through, and then attempted to recreate it (in his own way of course). These keyboard videos are done differently..."hey, let's give you a blank canvas so you can improvise over the track with all the keys removed"... doesn't really offer much of value for me personally.

Not surprised you're having fun with that sound set. For me the T.E. (along with maybe the Fantom X and Motif XS) were kinda the pinnacle of the workstation era. Killer sounds that work for just about any genre of music. I feel like after that era, things started to change (and not necessarily for the better). The Oasys/Kronos was out of reach for lot of us--and arguably have a different vibe altogether (one could argue they feel more like working on a computer, than a standalone instrument)...other boards after this era started stripping away various features, both hardware (aftertouch, keybed, etc) and software (onboard sequencing/sampling)... That early 2000s time was kinda a sweet spot for me (don't miss the weight of those boards though lol)

Well...in this case...Jesus was born 14 years after 1999 was released, and in another part of the world...so I don't think it's too farfetched that he hasn't heard of one particular Prince song (or more accurately, he's not "familiar" with the song...sure he could have heard it randomly at some point in his life) More generally, I guess it's a little different from other areas of study (like architecture for instance) where learning the history is part of the formal, required curriculum. Some of the best musicians I know, very rarely stray too far away from the types of music they were exposed to in their formative years (which may explain why they've become masters in the first place?). For Molina, that (obviously) included jazz, latin, gospel and fusion...probably wasn't into American pop-rock. My problem with these videos--especially the keyboard ones I've seen-- is that what these guys are playing has absolutely nothing to do with the original! I mean here, Molina may as well have been playing over any random groove/loop in the key of F. Great playing, as always...but...the only role Prince/1999 really play here is to allow them to put it in the title of the video and draw clicks.

+1 THIS! Obviously, there's absolutely nothing wrong with repeatedly trying to gain new appreciation for an artist/genre/song/style... broadening your palette, etc. ...but there's also absolutely nothing wrong with simply not connecting with an artist--even a legendary, universally appreciated one! For me that artist is none other than...🥁... Prince! Love a handful of his songs, but...in general, not someone I ever have the urge to listen to...😬 (and for context, I SHOULD be a huge Prince fan, based on demographic, other artists I like, etc...)

I assume Sweetwater...aka the company that used to (still?) send candy along with your gear shipments.

Damn...the hits keep coming. Somehow, I'd missed that Shaun was sick--and just found out about it in passing as I was scrolling through comments/tributes to Quennel Gaskin when he passed. Two gospel (and beyond) giants gone way too soon 😔 RIP ...believe they'd been planning a big tribute/benefit concert for Shaun in September...with Erykah Badu, Norah Jones, Cory Henry and many others...

This has changed for me as I've gotten older, busier and started having more financial responsibilities in my personal life. Things like board size/weight, number of trips during load-in/out, cost of the boards (ie not buying a $4k board to go play $100-200 bar gigs), etc. matter more now than they once did. Not to say that sound quality is secondary--but's it's certainly not the be-all end-all. Over time, I've gained the perspective that the crowd--spare any fellow musicians that may be there--generally couldn't give two shits whether you're playing a Nord or a Casio, as long as you keep them dancing/entertained!...and since we very rarely run our own sound, there are so many variables in terms of what ends up in my monitors (skill of the engineer, quality of the speaker, mono vs stereo, whether or not I can control my own mix, etc), that even the old "it's not about the audience--great sounds helps me play my best" thing starts to lose validity a bit. Size is important not only because of schlep-factor, but also floorspace! The smallest band I play with regularly is a 5-piece (my other two bands are even bigger)...and we don't often have the luxury of playing huge stages. So every inch matters, in terms of what bars, restaurants, etc we can get into. Right now, my rig is a PC4 (88) below a Fantom-07...but my IDEAL rig would be a weighted 73/76 board (with the wheels above the keys!) and a 61 key semiweighted up top...but since the former is all but non-existent these days, I don't have a reason to get the latter (no point downsizing to 61 up top, if the bottom is still an 88). As far as specific board features...controllers and ergonomics have become increasingly important to me. I'm not sure how I could even get through gigs without 9 sliders and assignable buttons at this point! I'd have to totally revamp my entire workflow if I couldn't fade in/out various sounds on the fly the way I do on my PC4 (not to mention using the sliders for organ drawbars as well). Patch management has also become increasingly important for me over the years. I'd say 75% of my gigs, we are calling songs on the fly, as we sort of "read the room." Need to have a page full of sounds ideally 1-button press away. Both the PC4 and Fantom-0 allow me to do this in various ways.