My Morning Rant Against Everything New

[raffkey]

Ok so Im in a grumpy mood-see my other post under VR 09 TIPS..

 

In effort to replace some defective gear, (keys and amps), I purchased a boatload of stuff in the last couple years and really am not happy with most of it!

 

For years I gigged with an Ensoniq Mirage, Viscount organ, 147 Leslie, Juno 106, Korg X3, Peavey Keyboard amp, and a host of other stuff and never had a lick of trouble.

 

These days I find myself sending keyboards in for repair (Kurzweil PC 361, Yamaha NV P80), amps that crap out (Behringer K3000), and am generally disappointed in everything I purchase!

 

Just bought a VR 09 its OK- see my other post-but can be topped by a used instrument for the same amount of dough or less!

 

Recently purchased the Yamaha P105 to replace the NV P80 which plays by itself on occasion(how many hands does that guy have?).

 

The P105 sounds great BUT: its a two hand operation to add layer or split sounds; complete guess-work when it comes to transposing or adding reverb (did I hit the right key/button combination?); no registration or program saving; limited voices; and no midi among other things. $600.00? Really? The $300 NV P80 is almost identical in terms of sound, and has way more features and voices.

 

I took a chance on the Casio PX 350 to replace the Yamaha P105. Not bad sounding once you tone down the high notes, but Yamaha is better in my opinion. That aside, this board has issues as well. Number one: when I layer strings with piano and try adjusting the volume between the two, the strings cannot be lowered. Their volume can go UP and overshadow the piano, but going the other way (-24 steps) makes little difference. Number two: the reverbs, (4 choices), none of them make any noticeable change to the sound. Number three: the sustain pedal is really a hold function pedal as opposed to the setup found on Yamahas. If youre playing a layered string and piano voice on the Casio and use the pedal, be prepared for abrupt breaks as you release the pedal. I much prefer the function of the Yamahas where as you when you use in the pedal in the above scenario, only the piano sustains and the strings die out as they should-not be held indefinitelyI know that a feature as opposed to defect (on the Casio), but I cant imagine anyone liking it..

 

Oh and Im not against Casio. I bought the original CASIOtone. A mini keyboard with only four voices, but built like a tank. I still have it. It reminds me of a simplier time.

 

OK thats my rant for today-I need coffee..

 

 

[MuzikTeechur]

I don't think anyone who has bought a Behringer K3000fx is happy with it.

I bought one for school and the treble horn circuit crapped out almost immediately. Sometimes Behringer gets it right, but usually they're copying someone else's circuits without fully understanding the concept.

[stillearning]

Yes, they're copying other's designs, but I believe they understand the concepts. They often simply choose to execute and manufacture cheaply.

[stillplaying]

Lol at your comment on the Keyboard that plays itself without being asked. I had to do a gig once with a little Korg Micro X as the sound module. Not sure what I did but it started drumming away by itself at one point. Not good.

 

I play through the main PA in venues (or whatever the band has brought if they are providing a PA).

 

Monitoring through a Behringer B210D for almost a year. Cheap and does the trick. I have and no longer use (for function band work) good quality passive wooden speakers, a couple of power amps and two mixers.

 

That Behringer is shoe box sized, light and good enough to let me hear I'm playing the right notes for live band work.

[The Real MC]

I hear ya. I needed a decent MIDI controller for the road, one like my long-out-of-production Kurzweil MIDIBoard. After enough frustration reviewing new stuff, I bought a 2nd MB on the 'bay. They just don't make gear like they used to.

[Stokely]

I have had a bit of the opposite--several of my older boards from the 80s had issues--JX-10 had some key contacts fail, poly800 would randomly go out of tune by a semi-tone. I've owned a Motif, Virus and pc361 over the past five years (after a long hiatus from bands) and they've been very solid, and my Studiologic controller is approaching 20 years old (!) and has seen more moves than an army kid...

[AnotherScott]

The P105 sounds great BUT

...

$600.00? Really? The $300 NV P80 is almost identical in terms of sound, and has way more features and voices.

Well there is the obvious difference of 88 weighted keys. But I'm surprised you found them to sound almost identical. I have not heard the P105, but I had an NP-V80 and a P95, and I thought the grand piano sound of the P95 was noticeably better.

 

I much prefer the function of the Yamahas where as you when you use in the pedal in the above scenario, only the piano sustains and the strings die out as they should-not be held indefinitelyI know that a feature as opposed to defect (on the Casio), but I cant imagine anyone liking it..

As you describe it, the Casio works the way I prefer. If the pedal is down, I want the keyboard to behave as if my fingers were on the keys. One of the ways I use a sustain pedal is to hold a string chord and then go off to play something on another keyboard. I would not want the string chord to fade out while my foot was on the pedal. I want the string section to keep bowing that chord until I tell them to stop! And in the real world, orchestral strings don't "fade out."

 

If non-fading strings are overwhelming your piano part when you layer piano and strings, my take on it would be that you shouldn't be holding the pedal so long, and may want to put some additional consideration into your piano pedaling technique. One of the problems could be, with many digital pianos having much faster string decays than real pianos, it might be easier to hold the pedal down too long, something that would more quickly create a mess on a real piano. That is, you may be missing some of the audible cues that would otherwise lead you to release the pedal more quickly, because of the limitations of the piano itself. Really, pretty much any time you're changing the harmonic content of your piano part enough for the held string chord to create a problem, even just for piano, you probably should have already released the pedal by then.

[JeffLearman]

When you're copying, even if you're capable of understanding, you rarely understand what you're copying as well as something you built from the ground up, and any changes or substitutions you make are far more likely to cause problems than if the original writer did it.

 

At least, it's that way when copying code (which I've done, not from a competitor, but from other projects). Porting code to a new environment is similar. If you take all the time to understand it, you'd have fewer bugs, but your time to market would be substantially longer. I doubt hardware differs much from software in this regard.

 

I've been buying and using (til it rots) gear since the 70's. The vast majority has worked for 20 years or more. Of the stuff I've bought since 2000, the reliability percentage is a little lower, but not enough for me to be sure it's significant.

 

On the other hand, cost of gear has dropped dramatically. Stuff like mixers that I got for $1K in 1980 dollars (which is like $3K today) I can get for a couple hundred now, and it's cleaner and quieter. For keyboards the improvement in cost & features is even more remarkable. So, even if the reliability is lower, the cost utility is higher.

 

While that may be little comfort if something dies during a gig, keep in mind that with less outlay we can have backups for everything, like having a B212D and PX5S in the van in case the K10 or PC3K8 fails, while having spent less than we would for comparable rig in the 80's or 90's.

 

On the other hand, musicians' pay hasn't increased with inflation, so never mind. At least everything sure is easier to carry!

[JeffLearman]

Regarding pedaling, I agree with Scott: I want the pedal to act as a sustain pedal on all layers and zones, by default. However, I also want the option to ignore the pedal for any patch or layer or zone. My MR76 allows that. I wouldn't expect something like a P105 or PX130 to do it, but I bet the PX-5S does.

[mate stubb]

Yes, you have 4 zones on PX-5S, each of which can turn off any or all sliders, knobs, wheels, and footswitches.

[tucktronix]

Yes, you have 4 zones on PX-5S, each of which can turn off all sliders, knobs, wheels, and footswitches.

 

You beat me to it!!

[justin_havu]

After owning a Korg M3, a Triton Extreme, a Roland Juno-G, a Yamaha MO6, two M-Audio Axioms (49 and 61mkII, one of which has the blue screen of death[49]), I can comfortably say that I am more happy with my older gear than I ever have been. I can get just a great a sound out of my current setup (Generalmusic Pro 1, Roland JV-80, JV-35, Yamaha S03, Korg 01/W) as some of the stuff that's out today. But, that's just my taste. Everyone's opinion is purely subjective. That being said, I don't need multiple gigs of sample libraries or the biggest wave ROM to get a good piano sound. I can honestly say that I won't be buying any new gear on the market anytime soon.

[Ekewaka]

Usually the more you pay, the more reliable the gear is; more fun, too. Casio PX-5S being a surprising exception, $999 and all that goodness.

[ITGITC]

 

Jeff, you never cease to impress me with your genius.

 

You said:

 

Stuff like mixers that I got for $1K in 1980 dollars (which is like $3K today)...

Of course I never buy your BS at face value, so I looked it up.

 

You are so close it's scary:

 

$1,000 USD in 1980 dollars is equivalent to $2,834.90 today. (KLONK)

 

You're off by only a very small, some would say "infinitesimal" or even "Tee-Tiny" amount...

 

I'd say, oh...

 

Two gigs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Canoehead]

Speaking of "old gear". I recently purchased a Motif 8 (original model), thinking maybe I could sell it for a bit of a profit and get new 88-note controller or piano. After trying the A 88 and PX 5S I decided I much preferred the Motif and decided to keep it. It's big 'n' heavy, but hey, I just pretend I'm working out when moving it.

[JeffLearman]

Two gigs.

Yeah, no shit -- that's the really sad part! I'd love to see ... [actually no, I'd cry] ... an equivalence of funds based on musicians' pay rather than general cost of living. It'd be tragic. And it's not like musicians were overpaid in 1980!

[J. Dan]

Did you try any of this stuff out before you bought it? It seems like most of your gripes are things you could have figured out by spendingna few minutes with it at the store. That's the problem i have these days with fewer stores stocking what i want to try, but at least they have return policies. Any time i make a purchase, i try to make sure i fully understand how i want it to function, then verify it will do what i want right away, preferably prior to purchase, but at least within the return period. That's why I ended up sitting on the fence for so many years, looking at the M3 with Radius, the PC3K, then finally pulling he trigger on the Kronos, each of the others had shortcomings I didn't thinkI could live with.

[raffkey]

Hey Dan,

 

Living in remote, northern, upper Michigan, I'm waaayyy far away from any music store that carries any keyboards (keyboards from this decade, anyway), and thus I have to rely on opinions on the 'net, youtube videos and the like.

 

I wait an extremely long period of time in my estimation, before purchasing anything but still end up returning stuff that I'm not happy with..Musicians Friend and Sweetwater Sound can testify to that!

 

That being said, I was able to travel a few hundred miles once or twice over the past few months and tried out a few pianos in various music stores. An interesting discovery: The Casios and the Yamahas varied slighty from store to store..I know it could have been the amps they were going through, etc. but I walked away from one store thinking "ok, I love the Casio" then walked into another and came away thinkging "the Yamaha is the one I want"...

 

For those keeping score: I returned the Casio PX 350. It was pretty good, but when I play the Yamaha 105, I keep hearing in my head (with all the other voices up there), John Lennon's sound on Imagine, Paul McCartneys piano on Maybe I Amazed and several others. It just sounds familiar. The Casio was a good piano sound, but I was happier with the Yamaha-warts and all.

 

I'm getting used to the VR 09..love the extra voices, and running thru a Vent it's close to my VR 700, but just not there in my mind for some reason..can't really put my finger on it, but I'm sure no one in the audience is mentally comparing the two.

 

Anyway, I've had my coffee today, so I'm a bit more mellow than my original post..

[JeffLearman]

To demo gear, use the same headphones you use for practicing. That eliminates a couple big variables.

[Bucktunes]

^This, x1,000 ^ If you're just kicking tires, the sound system they have hooked up might be fine. But anytime I'm seriously considering a keyboard, module, softsynth, etc. I'll bring my headphones along. Or at least use an identical pair at the store, if available. This way you know what it will sound like when you get it home.

 

As far as reliability - I've found that the flagship models from any manufacturer tend to be pretty trustworthy. The lower priced spin-offs, not so much.

[Synthoid]

As far as reliability - I've found that the flagship models from any manufacturer tend to be pretty trustworthy. The lower priced spin-offs, not so much.

 

Yes, but often the cheaper stuff gets flipped quickly... offering up great deals on eBay.

 

[Steveaudio]

Ok so Im in a grumpy mood-see my other post under VR 09 TIPS....In effort to replace some defective gear, (keys and amps), I purchased a boatload of stuff in the last couple years and really am not happy with most of it!

 

For years I gigged with an Ensoniq Mirage, Viscount organ, 147 Leslie, Juno 106, Korg X3, Peavey Keyboard amp, and a host of other stuff and never had a lick of trouble.

 

These days I find myself sending keyboards in for repair (Kurzweil PC 361, Yamaha NV P80), amps that crap out (Behringer K3000), and am generally disappointed in everything I purchase!

 

Just bought a VR 09 its OK- see my other post-but can be topped by a used instrument for the same amount of dough or less! OK thats my rant for today-I need coffee..

 

 

You only have one rant per day? I wish I could cut down to that!

 

You're on a "losing streak", it sounds like. I was on one of those in the late '70's with keyboard gear, when for some reason I thought I needed to start replacing a lot of my stuff (that was great, & never failed"), with "new stuff".

 

I could say, with the old (reliable) keyboard gear you once had, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Maybe, take a break? Go jogging, or fishing (Michigan is good for that). Get your mind off it for awhile, if possible? BTW, I bought a mint-condition PC3 a year or 2 ago, & had to take it for repair after 3 weeks of home use......I was mad as Hell......

[Michael Wright]

Of course I never buy your BS at face value, so I looked it up.

[bloodyMary]

Ok so Im in a grumpy mood-see my other post under VR 09 TIPS..

 

In effort to replace some defective gear, (keys and amps), I purchased a boatload of stuff in the last couple years and really am not happy with most of it!

 

For years I gigged with an Ensoniq Mirage, Viscount organ, 147 Leslie, Juno 106, Korg X3, Peavey Keyboard amp, and a host of other stuff and never had a lick of trouble.

 

These days I find myself sending keyboards in for repair (Kurzweil PC 361, Yamaha NV P80), amps that crap out (Behringer K3000), and am generally disappointed in everything I purchase!

 

Just bought a VR 09 its OK- see my other post-but can be topped by a used instrument for the same amount of dough or less!

 

Recently purchased the Yamaha P105 to replace the NV P80 which plays by itself on occasion(how many hands does that guy have?).

 

The P105 sounds great BUT: its a two hand operation to add layer or split sounds; complete guess-work when it comes to transposing or adding reverb (did I hit the right key/button combination?); no registration or program saving; limited voices; and no midi among other things. $600.00? Really? The $300 NV P80 is almost identical in terms of sound, and has way more features and voices.

 

I took a chance on the Casio PX 350 to replace the Yamaha P105. Not bad sounding once you tone down the high notes, but Yamaha is better in my opinion. That aside, this board has issues as well. Number one: when I layer strings with piano and try adjusting the volume between the two, the strings cannot be lowered. Their volume can go UP and overshadow the piano, but going the other way (-24 steps) makes little difference. Number two: the reverbs, (4 choices), none of them make any noticeable change to the sound. Number three: the sustain pedal is really a hold function pedal as opposed to the setup found on Yamahas. If youre playing a layered string and piano voice on the Casio and use the pedal, be prepared for abrupt breaks as you release the pedal. I much prefer the function of the Yamahas where as you when you use in the pedal in the above scenario, only the piano sustains and the strings die out as they should-not be held indefinitelyI know that a feature as opposed to defect (on the Casio), but I cant imagine anyone liking it..

 

Oh and Im not against Casio. I bought the original CASIOtone. A mini keyboard with only four voices, but built like a tank. I still have it. It reminds me of a simplier time.

 

OK thats my rant for today-I need coffee..

 

 

 

You want reliable and usable gear? Spend more money. Or buy used hi-end (I'm really into saving money and buying used gear).

 

 

It's like complaining about a $300 Fender Squier not holding tune as well as the $2000 American Deluxe Fender. No shit..

[raffkey]

My problem is (was) I have two sets of gear- in a effort to quit hauling things around twice a day on weekends.

 

I'm in a rockband that plays most weekend nights, and have a reliable setup that I like to leave set up through the weekend gig.

 

I also play in a church/praise band that meets on Saturday nights at 5:30 pm, and I wanted a suitable but a complete other set of keys and monitor or amp to get me through that performance.

 

For my rockband, I have very reliable (and quality stuff-thank you very much bloodyMary) in the likes of Roland VR 700 with a Vent, Juno DI, and Korg micro sampler, that serve me quit well.

 

For the praise band, I had a Kurzweil PC 361 (I like to think of that as high end), and had been hauling the VR 700 back and forth between locations. The Kurz went down, so I purchased the VR 09 as I needed basically the organ that the Kurz provided. I was also using the Yamaha that is proving to be about the best out there to MY ears-money was not an issue..

 

Hey Steve, I know what you mean..I hate buying more or other equipment after I get used to something else.

 

I think I just need to spend time with each new piece and take it for it is, and not what it could be..

[DaveMcM]

I don't think anyone who has bought a Behringer K3000fx is happy with it.

 

No so. During the past I have been through some of the more popular high end stuff but for the past 2+ years I've been using the Behringer K300FX and find it to be a fine amp. The 7 band graphic EQ works great, the built-in effects sound fine, it has enough bottom end, the XLR direct outputs seem clean enough, etc. Are there better sounding options? Sure, but typically a separate mixer is required, more cables, a place to put the mixer, not to mention quite a bit more money. So the question for me was "how much better versus the hassle and expense". I really see nothing wrong with the Behringer products. Do they copy other products, probably so. Do the other manufacturers do the same thing, of course they do.

[Synthoid]

I also play in a church/praise band that meets on Saturday nights at 5:30 pm, and I wanted a suitable but a complete other set of keys and monitor or amp to get me through that performance.

 

Good to see someone else here that plays with a praise band. I felt the same way about hauling keyboards around, and ended up leaving my Triton Classic at church. I just had all the buttons replaced since a few were getting flaky. Overall though, the Triton has held up very well the last 12+ years.