kaptainkeys

Not sure about that one anymore unfortunately

The headset mic looks like an interesting option, especially as a main vocal (just got to make sure you put a gate of some kind on it), but if you are looking for a handheld mic that can act as your vocoder and a backup main vocal mic, I'd highly recommend the Behringer XM8500. Durable, cheap as chips (literally), and sounds way better than a $20 mic has any business sounding. I know Behringer doesn't have the best reputation, but if you're looking for a cheap dynamic mic that sounds like it should cost the same as an SM58, this is your mic.

I recently ran sound for a cart for a parade, and we powered the entire thing (mixer, iPad that was running the music (that overheated in the middle of the parade, that was not fun), and power amp for the speakers) off a nice, quiet Honda inverter with zero issues that was rented from rent-a-center.

Which piano sound do you want to hear? If you want to hear the CP's own piano sound, connect your amp to the CP's outputs. If you want to hear the sound of the plugin on your laptop, connect the output on your laptop to the amp. I'm not sure why the laptop running Ravenscroft is necessary, the piano sounds in the CP are more than good enough to practice, and you never have to worry about having your laptop nearby.

How come companies don't start doing what Korg did on the M3 module? Mount a wall wart inside the synth and put a regular IEC plug on the outside.

Nice! The gunmetal gray combined with the black accents kinda makes it look like a Krome EX, but with a good keybed and metal build.

The biggest issue I have with the Gaia is the fact that the supersaw waves are sampled, rather than generated by the virtual oscillators. If you record it in stereo and flip the phase on one of the tracks, you'll get no sound, which generated supersaws don't do.

That Kia looks nice, I saw an EV6 for the first time in the wild about a week ago at Costco. As glad as I am to see truck companies (and car companies in general) moving to full electricity at such a rapid pace, at the current moment, the charging and service infrastructure is too limited for the flood of EVs coming to the market in the near future. Unfortunately, there is little incentive from the government for companies like Blink and Electrify America to expand the charging network and keep their chargers in full working order.

Stumbled across a couple videos showing off what the F-150 PowerBoost can do:

The way I see it, Ford's mild-hybrid F-150 PowerBoost is the truck I would use to power a gig: it can still supply an astonishing amount of power (including 220v) to other devices, but can also charge itself if necessary and will definitely make it all the way back home. A crew cab 4x4 F-150 PowerBoost hybrid will set you back $50k including delivery. Not cheap, but certainly not super expensive, although keep in mind this is with cloth bench seats and no options aside from 4WD and the PowerBoost engine.

I 2nd this. If it is your first gig ever, don't start with a super complex MIDI system. Keep it to a keyboard or 2 plugged into power and audio, and go from there. Don't start expanding and complexifying your live rig after you actually know what would be useful in the heat of the 'battle.'

More than battery electric, I'm interested in the viability of Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars like the Toyota Mirai. Right now, the Hydrogen network is basically non existent outside of San Francisco and LA, but being able to drive an electric car the same way as a gas car with short fill ups would be awesome. Sure they are less efficient than a battery electric vehicle, but BEVs aren't the most efficient either if you are not in the perfect temperature all the time. BEVs also run into the issues of battery degradation, which is already a problem on phones and laptops, but requires much more rare metals that can't be recycled or mined easily, which doesn't fix the pollution problem, just pushes it off. At the point where we are now, the viability of electric cars for the average American is very low. If you live in an apartment without a garage, where are you supposed to charge it? If you live anywhere outside a semi-urban area, the charging network and range of EVs makes range anxiety even worse, so how do we fix that? If you don't have the income to purchase an EV new, where do you buy one from? The battery degradation of an EV means that even a used EV doesn't make sense, because it isn't going to last as long. In my opinion, these are the questions we need to be asking, not 'what new gadget can we put in an EV that makes it less reliable and more expensive?'

Maybe try a stand designed for a laptop, basically an ultra heavy duty music stand. Something like this.

You aren't the only one who would die on this hill, I would (and have) too. I spent an entire weekend rewriting a standard SATB choir arrangement of Africa because whoever wrote it thought it would be a good idea to swap the Tenor (Lukather's part on the record) and Bass (Paich's part on the record) harmonies in the chorus, rather than sing it the same as the record. It just sounded off to me and nobody was averse to swapping the parts, and then I ended up re-writing the whole thing from scratch when I figured out that it was missing the ooo's in the second verse.

Summer is on the way here in the Northeast and I'm looking to get some new t-shirts. What is a good place to get some reasonably priced good quality t-shirts with synth or keyboard graphics on them? Amazon has not turned up any useful results. If you guys have any suggestions let me know.

Top board looks to me like a Yamaha MX61, but I'm not 100% sure.

The only thing I would say is see if PreSonus has an ASIO driver for that interface, if not, download ASIO4ALL. Some VSTs, especially standalone, don't play (no pun intended) nicely with the default Windows drivers. Using the default drivers you might get results ranging from somewhat playable (albeit with latency) to a really long key liftoff delay, or it might not even work at all.

I don't have an FA, but if I did I would be interested in this opportunity. For Separate Ways, there might already be a patch in the keyboard that is 85-90% of the way there, a lot of keyboards have that and may even hint to the name of the song.

I'm surprised that Costco is not just exchanging the faulty unit with a new one, instead of making you return it and buy it again. As far as the return policy, from my experience Costco will take almost anything back if you're a member and bought it on their credit card, although the return policy on electronics may be a little less lenient. Hopefully all goes well, I've been curious as well about using a Surface as a multi-timbral sound module (basically your use case), so I'm hoping all goes well.

Seems like hammond is trying to lose customers... even Viscount has an effects loop on their clones, and they are a small Italian outift, not the name in tonewheel organs.

Mine is something I came up with a couple of years ago as a play on the 'got milk?' phrase, my picture is just off google images, I keep meaning to change it one of these days but haven't had the time to do a piano photoshoot 😂. I'd rather spend my time at the piano playing anyway.

Not sure what stands people use, there definitely are ones out there that can clamp on the keyboard stand, but I wouldn't put something like that on an X stand, because it would probably make it more wobbly. The Studiologic and Arutria 88s have a shelf that is magnetic, but those are made specifically for those keyboards.

The space is probably wide enough for the laptop, my worry would be the depth. It would suck if you went to change a parameter on the computer and you knocked it onto the floor because it slid backwards.

Over the years, many keyboard sounds have been made famous by being utilized by specific artists. Sounds that come to mind to me like this are the Roland RD-1000/MKS-20 Piano1 sound, made famous by Elton John, the DX7 EPIANO1 (layered with an acoustic piano) sound made famous by David Foster and Chicago, and the analog brass sounds (mainly from the CS80 and Prophet 5) made famous by Steve Porcaro of Toto. Any more that you guys can think of?

I know people who consider non-smart tvs and iPhones with a headphone jack vintage...