CHarrell
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Posts posted by CHarrell
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1 hour ago, D. Gauss said:
buy a nice, solid wood table off craigs list for 20 bucks and buy one of these (below). DO NOT buy any overpriced "worksation desk" made out of MDF. They are super heavy crap and fall apart if you even look at them.
I did during the initial days of COVID after getting so tired of making tracks sitting with my laptop on my bed. 😅 Has been working great for me for 4 years. I really appreciate the more modular setup too, as opposed to the keyboard desk being "glued" to the rest of the desk.
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7 hours ago, Mark Schmieder said:
Good timing as I was wondering if I should start using Reverb to sell things as I'm not even getting watchers on Gear Exchange even after dropping prices and of course setting low "make an offer" bottoms. I don't think many people know about Gear Exchange yet, and as with this forum, I think it attracts the sort of people who are afraid to make offers.
So I'm stuck with CL, which sometimes is a bit of good luck on specialty stuff and expensive stuff moving, even without price negotiation, as shipping charges have gone through the roof and Gear Exchange requires a set price in advance. With shipping costs varying by more than $100 between the coasts, it's too risky to place a cheap item as one could lose a bundle. But eBay isn't getting watchers, offers, or bites either.
I think maybe everyone's just scared about the economy due to inflation.
As for the actual experience as a seller, Gear Exchange winds hands down, by a country mile, except for that one caveat regarding shipping. And I have sold some stuff on there, it's just the specialty stuff, and oddly my Hammond XL-1c that I expected to sell in a day and hasn't had any watchers or inquiries on ANY of the four places it is posted! Maybe people are waiting for NAMM thinking there might be an XK-1d announced (unlikely).
It's great to have a no-fee option on Gear Exchange, and it is by far the safest place to sell and to buy. Lots of protections for everyone involved, and immediate intervention by real human beings -- namely your own sales agent -- if any issues come up, bottlenecks, questions, etc.
In this situation, frankly, Reverb is probably the best alternative route. I diss Reverb above, but though the transparently fake offers and lowballing can get annoying (nowhere near eBay levels), the user base is so large and active that it's consistently been the easiest way to sell gear for me since 2019.
When I created my CP88 listing on GX yesterday, I saw that the selling fee is roughly a percent lower than Reverb, so not as large a margin as I'd hope in exchange (ahem) for the smaller user base and more "segmented" access (it takes more effort to hop onto GX than it does Reverb, and the options tend to be way more limited). It's nice they offer 100% credit with Sweetwater, but I prefer direct payout so I have options.
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1 hour ago, KuruPrionz said:
I'm glad to read this now. Depending on how things go locally on craigslist, I may be listing some items online. It sounds like Gear Exchange is the way to go. I gave up on eBay many years ago after racking up 975 positive feedback. They raised their rates to an absurd level.
I've done pretty well on craigslist but it is location and sometimes timing dependant (Bellingham is a college town, when students get their aid money they will spend).
Oh snap you're in WA too!? I haven't sold gear on eBay in 6 years, not a single moment I miss it.
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3 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:
My impression is that Barry, like Lennie Tristano, has become sort of a cult figure in jazz education, famous for his weekly clinics expounding his concepts with a roomful of students. Curiously (to me), I don't think he had an official teaching position at any academic institution - where I assume his status and life experience would have easily gotten him a position. Or am I wrong?
This seems like a really good article on him, written after his passing a few years ago.
https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/barry-harris-obit/
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1 minute ago, jazzpiano88 said:
Has it become that way in academia? I’ve watched his videos lamenting how Jazz education is all wrong. Have his concepts become the new norm is jazz education as you suggest? YouTube, to me isn’t a good metric as you have the copycat syndrome for clicks.I couldn't tell you that with any degree of informed honesty. I've seen some--ahem, videos of students in their classes with instructors that have mentioned Barry Harris, but it'd be ignorant for me to assume that's what you'd find in schools all over.
That said, for most lay people, or even musicians looking to transfer/gain skill sets without wanting to pay the $$$$$$$$$ for more official schooling, I would argue YT is the number one platform where people learn. For better and worse.
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Just now, CyberGene said:
I came up with another approach. If you have an m7 chord, you can actually play an m7 chord that is a semitone higher but transpose each of its tones a semitone lower.
The diminished-augmented minor 7 chord has opened up my playing like you wouldn't believe.
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7 minutes ago, ProfD said:
Reminds me of having a bunch of folks sitting around in a room smoking sticky green. Then, one of them starts to philosophize.
All of sudden, the higher folks get, they start nodding in agreement and believing in the *concept*.
Before you know it, folks are running around drinking Cheez Wiz from red cups and proclaiming the Enlightened One has arrived. 🤣😎
This is entirely hypothetical, I assume.
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1 hour ago, Reezekeys said:
I've never made it more than 5 minutes into any video dealing with Barry's concepts.
I thought I was the only one. 😭 I feel like there was a universal subconscious switch that turned on one day and suddenly every jazz educator, particularly on YouTube, decided that Barry Harris was it. But as the Wayne Shorter tune says, there are many "Ports of Entry" into understanding, so if these are the conduit for people, then great.
One technique/exercise that I've enjoyed lately is taking a simple chord voicing, and experimenting with substituting the notes--particularly the inner ones--while keeping their function as their chord degrees. So for example, take the C E G B in a Cmaj7, and substitute the E and G for their neighbors, Eb and Ab, but still treating them as the 3 and 5 of the chord. It creates an immediate tension in the inner voices that you can resolve and play around with in so many ways: keeping the Eb and moving the Ab down to the G, then down to the F#, or even just simply bringing them back down to their "normal" notes.
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28 minutes ago, pawelsz said:
Kawai has some amps simulations in ES/MP lines too, so those could be useful for electric pianos.
I've been very pleasantly surprised by all of the effects on offer in their recent line of digital pianos: the amp sims make a strong impact, and with overdrive, you can get some real crunch in the sound. Only thing is that the ES effect slots are very limited: you have the MP with the larger amount of effects slots, but those get a lot higher in weight. My dream is an updated MP where they update the interface and get the weight down to ES levels.
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This is very timely for me, thank you for the write-up! I've used Reverb for years, but have never sold anything on GX. I recently listed a CP88 on Reverb because frankly I spent beyond my means and need to recoup as much as I feel is fair for a used keyboard. I explain this on the listing to be as transparent as possible...and of course beyond the scam offers ("my dad is very interested, please message him at xxxxxx@gmail.com"), I've gotten offers for hundreds of dollars less than my asking price.
Your post inspired me to make a listing on GX and see how that fares!
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And what about Uber or Lyft rides?
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1 hour ago, Dave Ferris said:
I've played the F90X on two occasions now. I can see it being appealing to people that like the Roland concept of what a digital piano should sound like but the touch, tone and the overall player feedback I got were not at all my preference. The Roland is solid and very well built.
My last playthrough actually had me thinking the keybed was surprisingly similar to each other, though I would give Yamaha the edge for its "crispness" of touch, where the 90x felt a little softer and mushier.
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What are the major factors you're wanting to compare? I actually played both right next to each other last weekend.
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1 hour ago, Sean M. H. said:
max...but we all know what assuming does
Don't assume we all know!
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47 minutes ago, Paul Woodward said:
One for sale near me, doesn’t look very portable though…
While I don’t mind spending a bit of cash on something I can enjoy playing, £4000+ is a bit much for a board I haven’t even tried (no stores near me either).
That's quite the custom job! 😂 I wonder if they'd be willing to separate it from that cabinet.
If price is an issue, I would also double the suggestion to check out a Fantom 0-8. I'm shocked by how much they crammed in there...PHA 4 is PHA 4, but if you like it (might be difficult coming from Korg RH3), they offer so much, and if there are certain sound categories you find lacking, it's got a USB Audio interface so it'd be easy for you to hook up your iPad or other device for pianos etc.
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28 minutes ago, ProfD said:
I'm getting a Kawai MP7SE for that very same reason
Fun instrument! Too heavy for me to want to gig with, and the interface is dated, but I really enjoyed it when I had it. Tangential side note, the tremolo strings patch is one of the funniest patches I've ever heard in an instrument.
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Exciting update! I remember wanting some updates to the sequencer when I was trying it out a couple years ago but can't remember what...have there been any changes on that front?
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2 hours ago, ProfD said:
If musicians *see* a ton of gear or expensive...they expect to hear something to justify it. Human nature to a degree.
That's why I painted my keyboard pink and plastered it with Hello Kitty stickers, nowhere to go but up!
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1 hour ago, Reezekeys said:
Definitely no need for an audio interface on a Mac if you don't need to input anything and just want stereo output. The headphone out is fine.
As to installing, my experience is mostly with NI and there are definitely a few steps to go through – like first downloading and running Native Access, entering the serial #, then downloading & installing the actual instrument files; pretty straightforward actually. For some sample-based products, you may want to move the samples to an external drive (if the installer doesn't allow you to do it during the initial install). I found the instructions NI gives you pretty clear - but there's really no standardized or common practices that we can rely on all music software devs to follow. I've never used Ravenscroft on a Mac so have no idea what if any hoops there are to jump through to get that particular piano installed.
You also need to know how to set up the computer's audio system correctly for playing a VI. NI lets you adjust the buffer size pretty easily but you still need to know what "buffer size" means in the virtual instrument world, why it's an important setting, how it relates to your computer's processing power, and how to adjust it – as in where that setting is located! Sometimes it's not very obvious. I'll go out on a limb and guess that most of this info is readily available with a little searching - provided you know the terminology to search on!
I snagged a few UVI products on their holiday sale such as the VI Labs Modern U, and the iLok thing has a pretty clear step-by-step process, but I can see it be intimidating for someone with a low threshold for tech.
52 minutes ago, drawback said:I don't know where the OP and his helpers had problems with Ravenscroft, but even though it's been a long time since I did it I don't recall having any problems with installation, latency, or any other issues and this was on a 2010 Macbook Pro. UVI Workstation is one of the clearest hosts to run – its GUI, if not easily understood, has a good instruction manual – and Ravenscroft's interface is still one of the easiest out there.
As I mentioned earlier, for an easy introduction into general MIDI instruments installed on a computer and controlled by a keyboard, something low-CPU and stand-alone is the free demo of Pianoteq. Start there, iron out what you don't understand about interacting with a computer for music, and move ahead or just move on.
I'm at a point now where I specifically look for products that run in UVI as opposed to Kontakt, I love UVI's general host interface, and its extreme easiness in mapping any parameter to a control surface. Seems way less resource-hungry, too.
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2 hours ago, ProfD said:
All of these folks would have to be in the union for it to be effective.
On top of that, too, I think for such things to be effective, all/most of the restaurants/venues would have to be in some kind of collective arrangement as well, like a bar association or something. It wouldn't be impossible, but that opens up a whole lot of other things, obviously. Thankfully as a composer, PROs have at least been able to work out a system that guarantees a certain level of compliance so that the writers get paid.
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3 minutes ago, Anderton said:
None, because there will always be musicians who think "exposure" will shoot them to the top, so they'll play for next to nothing.
Of course, you get what you pay for...
Good and depressingly hilarious point, but if we're talking in classic union terminology, scabs would always be a factor in any collectivised space. But say if musicians rallied together, and they presented an overall united front.
For concert venues, where musicians are practically 95% of the draw, there's power there, but what about a city with swank restaurants that book live music? Would an effective musicians union be able to do anything? I feel like the restaurants would just not get live musicians.
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I'm super pro-union, and deeply advocate for workers and their rights and abilities to collectively organize for better treatment on multiple fronts. But without having done any research on this subject, my imagination runs pretty short on how it plays out with individual musicians and the many venues one usually has to play to get income. I've seen many of you report the lowering of pay from venue to musicians over the decades, and in my short musical career, lord knows how many times I've played 3 hour sets to get enough money for a couple large bags of potato chips. And I've talked to venue owners who have blamed entities such as musicians' unions or PROs for having to shut down but surprise surprise, turns out they were doing shady-ass business practices (tangentially related is a very recent case of a restaurant in Oakland closing due to "increased crime", but turns out they had to settle a big lawsuit in the past couple years for wage theft).
So obviously, some kind of collective action would need to happen to instill a far-reaching change. But would that take place with a union? What collective bargaining power do we have as musicians with venues outside of concert spaces?
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3 hours ago, Reezekeys said:
I've also been using a laptop-based music rig for the last 22 years, full-time for the last 16 years.
Can I ask you something? I was too young to be on the scene during that time, but I get the sense that that was NOT a common approach back then. In fact, I suspect the idea had resistance due to a lot of factors that have been mitigated or addressed to varying degrees over the years. So during that time, what led you to taking that route?
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1 hour ago, Stokely said:
Same here, but mainly on the chance that it has poly AT that is good. I haven't tried the earlier models to know how well Arturia implements AT in general, though of course they could use some brand new keybed.
I have keyboards I can use as controllers but I'm wanting to try out something with poly AT. If the Montage M 6/7 had it, I might have gone for one considering I'd use it live.I don't know about the 88, but AT is super-easy to trigger on my 49...if anything, too easy! I'll find out many of my software instruments have AT features in the most surprising and inopportune moments. Overall, though, very good.
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Reverb vs Sweetwater Gear Exchange
in The Keyboard Corner
Posted
Unfortunate but not surprising. I think with the advent of services such as FB, craigslist, Letgo (or whatever it's called now), eBay is low on priority lists; add their desperate revenue raising practices that repel sellers and thusly buyers...it's more of an Internet historical attraction to me. Of course, it still has its place.