CHarrell
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Posts posted by CHarrell
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Thanks for all of your input so far!
1 hour ago, ElmerJFudd said:Don’t bang, don’t work harder than you need to.
I get concerned about this because I'm a pretty aggressive player. How do you know the difference between playing with force versus overexerting yourself?
16 minutes ago, David Emm said:avoid snorting a line of coke from an intimate section of a stripper.
Oh now you tell me!?!?
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Yesterday, I was listening to a recording of Lalo Schifrin's Gillespania suite that he did in either the late 90s or early 00s with the WDR Big Band, and was hearing him do some slick playing. I was enjoying it but then my mind flashed to more recent interviews with him, where it seems that he can barely play the piano anymore, and it got me sad. Then my mind flashed to seeing Herbie play last year, whose playing is still so nimble, lucid, and exciting.
All of this got me thinking: as long as I have arms and hands, I want to play the keys for the rest of my life. I know there's a fair amount of people here who've been playing actively for decades, and are now in their golden years. For those people, what did you do, do you do, to maintain your playing ability over the years? I'm only 30 now, but I want to be proactive and take potential steps now so I can be like you as I advance in age!
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3 hours ago, Stokely said:
Speaking of hosted in China...search for example "sale Roland Fantom" and you'll get a few super low priced "Fantoms" on Alibaba/Ali Express and the like. Are there really people fool enough to buy an electronic keyboard from a place like that? Don't answer that.... I know there are tons of fake guitars and fake pickups (I wouldn't trust upgraded pickups in a used guitar, or at least wouldn't value them as upgrades, as apparently fakes are not only very cheap but can be very hard to spot.) But keyboards? If it worked at all, would would be inside the thing?
Hard to imagine a factory making knock-off Roland Fantoms and the like. Maybe its simply that these are stolen or something, no idea.
I shared this story a month ago but there was a wave of Nords for like $400 on Ali Express. I thought it would be fun so I messaged the WhatsApp number (because all reputable storefronts conduct business on a third party app and not on the website they're located on). The person got back to me and was giving me all kinds of crazy deals: "Sorry I don't have the money to buy this outright."
"You can do a three installment plan, no interest."
"Sorry, I can't pay that installment right now either."
"Well you can just give a small downpayment for now and we'll ship it to you for free."
"Can you send me pictures to show it's real?"
"Yes, I'll send you photos when I arrive to my office."
Hours later, he sends me a pic of the Nord Stage 4, which is stored in a warehouse with a massive array of classic gear. ...I looked up Nord Stage 4 on Reverb right after and immediately saw the exact same photos on a listing from Armens in NY. I decided to play a little dumb: "Can you explain why I found these exact same images on an unaffiliated website and seller?"
Exact response: "this is why sometimes it is difficult giving pictures to buyers. some drop shippers will come to us gather information, use it and repost on their website ."He didn't message me with any more deals after that. 😅
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1 hour ago, eric said:
Seems to connect to a medical device sales line. LOL.
Some people accuse Korg's modern synths of being sterile, but this is a little on the nose, don't you think?
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1 hour ago, SamuelBLupowitz said:
Burn it to the ground!
Yes let's make it DeadNation!
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1 hour ago, Brad Saucier said:
Occasionally I run across posts worded almost exactly the same as yours, but for other keyboards, so it's definitely nothing unique with this particular model.
Exactly, which is why I made the point above that I don't think it's that big of a deal per se. What is a bigger deal to me in this case is how easy is it to make software velocity curves simpatico with a keyboard action. In every Casio action I've tried so far, it's a quick matter of making the bottom end of the curve more pronounced and the higher end steeper to hit those higher velocities. With the Yamaha NH actions, it's just making those sub 30 velocities consistent. (I feel validated when I pop open Keyscape and see their keyboard preset curves almost match mine). Some other manufacturers, though, I just cannot for the life of me figure out a simple curve adjustment to get it to sync up well.
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2 hours ago, Mike Martin said:
Definitely does not cap out. Leon's video of Pianoteq using the 6000 as a controller shows the velocity rangeIt's definitely hard to argue with that, and I don't wish to, but I can only speak from my personal experience--VI Labs instruments were my primary way of testing these, which show velocity in/out numbers in real time as a helpful reference. And no matter how hard I struck the keys, I could barely get past 107-8, if I remember the specific numbers. Now there could be all kinds of variables at play. Who knows, maybe my seat was too low when I tested it.
If people are able to get the full velocity range without any adjustments, that's great. And ultimately I think so much software now is so sophisticated in how they allow us to tweak velocity response, that I see the full 0-127 response of a keyboard closer to a non-issue than otherwise.
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7 hours ago, allan_evett said:
And the PX-560 is now much more advanced, with a much stronger soundset, appealing touchscreen and front panel. The demos I've seen have been quite enlightening; how did I miss this thing in 2016? Most dealers list it as 'out of stock' right now, but there are plenty of demo and used choices available.
Don't forget the PX5S! After start and stop attempts with it over the last year (May 2023), I've come to really enjoy it. Not all of the basic sounds and effects are winners or the highest quality compared to some of the competition, but the ease I've been having in sculpting sounds, such as adding a cutoff filter to a piano based on velocity to make those quieter dynamics darker, or throwing on some atmospheric effects, has in a lot of ways made up for some of these and sounds great for stage work.
For studio, I'd like to use it as a nice feeling and decently well-endowed controller for software.
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9 hours ago, J.F.N. said:
I had a look at these in a local music store at the end of 2023 when they arrived, they look fabulous, sounds and feels okay, but it felt like way too much money for what you actually get, I am sure these will end up as nice accessories in some fancy peoples show off living rooms, but I for sure definitely wouldn't waste my money on one of them.
This is purely anecdotal, but at least in my neck of the woods these boards do _not_ move in stores for those prices. There are three stores here, all catering to different markets, with a 7000 that have been there for a year or more at this point...if I ever want to reassess my feelings on the line, I know I can go to any of these places without calling ahead and the same 7000 will be there waiting. One of them had even resorted slashing over $500USD off the price months ago and still no takers.
I imagine business is better with online retailers, especially with payment plans etc., but the significantly upped price is tough to swallow. When selling my 6000 on Reverb, I had to cut the price a significant amount after a while to finally get a buyer.
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11 hours ago, Dockeys said:
Man that’s disappointing news. I was looking at the 5000/6000 as a possible controller for iPad or MacBook. That’s a big discrepancy. I guess these are marketed as home keyboards rather than stage pianos.
9 hours ago, LarsHarner said:Same here - @CHarrell thank you for sharing that- it seems then this might not be the best option for me.
My preference would be to have a usb powered input anyway,
In hindsight I should have gotten my MKII with 88 keys- I've tried the action and to me its a little better than GHS on my P125.
I think if you ironed in the velocity curves for the software instruments you wanted to use, it could be a very responsive controller. I would personally make those lower velocities harder to hit (libraries with a "bend" option like on VI Labs make this very simple), than bring up the curve at the high end to reliably hit those 120s. I will say the 5/6/7000 felt like they physically bottomed out too easily, like it's...I don't know, flat or something, as opposed to feeling the pivot swing. Definitely very light! Maybe some software adjustments would improve that sensation though?
That said, the 6000's sounds I would consider very giggable if that's a concern, and the onboard connection between them and the keys feel great to me.
Very seldom have I tried a controller board where the curve felt right outside of the box. The only ones actually being from Roland, the PHA4 feels perfect from the jump, for example, but I don't like the feel overall, so I'd rather take a keyboard where I like the overall feel and response and do what are hopefully broad, simple tweaks to the virtual sound to get the response how I want it.
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1 hour ago, LarsHarner said:
Is anyone using this as a controller in addition to the sounds?
I briefly had a 6000 last year, I remember the velocities capping out in the 100s and had to change the software velocity curves a fair amount.
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40 minutes ago, D. Gauss said:
i think you're off on the weight. no way it is 45 lbs. more like 33 or something.
Correct, the PXS6000 and 7000 is about 33. The 45 lbs he's referring to is the SL88 Grand.
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What does lowest ticketed price mean though? I've never seen that before.
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7 hours ago, ProfD said:
Up to 90% off lowest ticketed price (limited exceptions apply).
I'm ignorant, what does this entire message mean?
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1 hour ago, Manolios said:
No new sounds???
You thought a 3 year gap in OS updates would result in new sounds???
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49 minutes ago, AnotherScott said:
You can save/load Live Sets to USB (individually, in their banks, or complete libraries) and restore as needed (e.g. if you need different sets for different shows/bands).
How many factory Live Sets do you really find useful? After all, they're basically just combinations of voices that are still available to you even after you overwrite those patches. Sure, in different combinations, with different effects or whatever, but I see those kinds of things more as samples of things you can do. The odds that you'd choose very many of them for a song seem kinda small. My inclination would be to maybe keep a few that really caught your ear, and offload all the rest to a backup stick to free the spaces for the useful things you assemble yourself. IOW, I don't see over-writing factory live sets as a loss, both because you can always restore them, and also because of how few you're every likely to really use (in addition to not having "unique" sounds, but just being combinations/tweaks of the stock voices that are always in the board anyway).
The board is so quick to make tweaks on, you can usually dial in some of those sounds in seconds, too.
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I've only had very limited experiences with the EP-1 engine in some very brief playing with a Kronos, Nautilus, and (does SV2 use the EP-1 engine or is that just the Grandstage?) Is it competitive with popular software EPs out there?
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8 minutes ago, Montunoman 2 said:
Yeah, lessons can be mucho dinero. If you’re so inclined, check out the community colleges. All the piano at the colleges around here have masters degrees from prestigious institutions, and impressive performing credentials. The composition instructor at the college I’m going to won a Grammy for a big band arrangement he wrote.
Thanks for saving the day, Montuno Man!
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7 minutes ago, zephonic said:
I’ve realized you need to know WHAT you want to learn from a person,
I had to learn that lesson a couple years ago. I've been self taught all my life, and have gotten by on a lot of determination and learning on the job, but a couple years ago I decided that I hit a plateau in my playing and wanted to confront my fears of judgment, so I got a lesson with Jovino Santos Neto, who is local. It wasn't cheap, as you could probably imagine, and was held over Zoom. He listened to me play something just off the top, gave me some feedback, and then we started talking about the more philosophical aspects of music and his time with Hermeto. It was a great conversation, but I felt like it was more of an interview. However, we kept exchanging e-mails after a while and actually listened to some performances I had sent for his feedback, and he was very encouraging.
I haven't booked another lesson with him in the last 2 years because of finances, but I probably should. This next time, I'd want to share explicitly what I'm looking for during the hour.
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I've stopped trying to keep track of Behringer years ago, thank you all for confirming that this was announced years ago because I was going a little crazy.
Which synth is this taking, the Grandmother? Or was that another Behringer synth?
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34 minutes ago, David Emm said:
That would be an immense project. Even the simplest Proteus 2000-era synth had a seriously modular internal structure, never mind ownership of the sound data. Digital Sound Factory sells the sounds, but no synth in programmable total, nor the highly creative arps. Modulation routings that were SOP in E-mus took years to start seriously appearing elsewhere. Its less a matter of being abandoned and more one of IP being locked away in a few places.
If someone super-enterprising offered a "Proteus" framework into which you could plug the various libraries, arps included, I'd be in line early. The design was several generations ahead when it first appeared. NOW I could understand it far better than I did back then. 🤓
My apologies if I'm misunderstanding or wasn't clear enough, but are you saying this plug-in by EMU doesn't feature these elements?
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/proteus-vx-by-e-mu
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2 hours ago, Sundown said:
And I’d love to see whatever remains of Emu released as software (Proteus, etc).
It's abandonware, as in abandoned years and years ago, but there is a plugin called Proteus VX (I think) that compiled all the Proteus sounds into one software spot.
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17 hours ago, jerrythek said:
Those patenta are really Stanford's and the work of Scott A. Van Duyne and Julius O. Smith, III, covering waveguide technology. They deserve the bulk of the credit. Yamaha paid for the rights and controlled it for a period of time. And everyone that explored that field had to pay their license fee.
Didn't Yamaha do the same with John Chowning and FM back in the 80s?
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Lots of great answers here touching on the sometimes complex nuances of band dynamics. When I left my last band, I had the spirit of really wanting to see it progress and thrive past my own individual involvement, so I felt like my tunes and arrangements--which frankly were a bedrock of the band's musical personality--were all open for them to use. From there, it'd be incumbent upon them to establish a musical identity of their own that moves past the mark I left.
The only thing I asked is that the bandleader continually sends me their setlists and performances, so I can log those with ASCAP and get royalties for the original tunes that I wrote (with the spillover effect of the original writers of cover tunes getting royalties too, since I report the entire setlist).
Hard to imagine a factory making knock-off Roland Fantoms and the like. Maybe its simply that these are stolen or something, no idea.
AI for keyboards
in The Keyboard Corner
Posted
At the risk of sounding unimaginative, I really feel like "AI"/automation/whatever should handle the more tedious/"work" elements of playing a keyboard, in line with your Hammond preset example. Now obviously voice commands wouldn't be too good during a performance, but maybe there'd be an app to interface with the keyboard. Rather than traditional preset hunting for a sound you want as a base template, you could choose parameters that the AI would then instantly synthesize into a patch, kind of like a more targeted randomizer. "gritty Butterfly EP with deep swirling phaser and short delay", "Have Preset 20 split RH split with Preset 46 at F#4", etc.