Crank it up to 11 and break the knob off!

[Feeding Crows]

I always loved the synthetic sounds of the Korg.

But for piano, Yamaha is #1.

 

[Feeding Crows]

I have soft pianos that I paid a lot of money for... but bang for the buck.... Yamaha Grand Piano sound wins! I love Yamaha. I do have some some Steinway soft piano stuff... but I don't know where the recordings are. Honestly, I can't tell the difference. It's very little, if anything. Here's my Yamaha!

https://audio.jukehost.co.uk/315PM8tJN34yCwOtUXI6UYxbIKAbJLr3

 

[Feeding Crows]

Also has a great sax sound.... Here's an small original...

https://audio.jukehost.co.uk/c1bc55e9059

 

[BothWings]

I left behind a baby grand, and I got a Yamaha DGX. I'm saving up for a Clavinova one of these days.

How do you play so many keyboards at once? Or is it just a display?

I generally only play one at a time, although occasionally two. I have a 16-track multitracker. I I use different synths for different parts and sounds in my recordings. Being a full-time working husband and father of a 13-year-old, I don't get an awful lot of time to play these days. I'm also relegated to playing in a musty basement which is not exactly inspiring. (In our last place I had a nice attic studio overlooking the river, with carpets and Windows facing both east and west.) I don't know how my equipment stays in such decent condition down there now, but it generally does.

I do play a few times a week, sometimes laying some tracks and sometimes just jamming through the night. Sometimes a few months later I go over some of my recorded material and discover stuff that I don't even remember doing, and I think to myself "gee that's worth building on!"

Incidentally I forgot to mention a string synthesizer I have, Waldorf's "Streichfett". It gets plenty of use and I don't know why I didn't mention it. When I heard your piano piece, which is a nice little ditty by the way!... the first thing I thought was that I wanted to add some strings to it using my Waldorf!

 

[Feeding Crows]

This is the first song i ever wrote with midi, when i was a little kid. I was about 12. I went a little crazy with the instruments, but they're now thru my Yamaha, as opposed to the Roland Sound Canvas I used to have back then. Still, it's crazy! But an original, as 12 yrs old! I play all the instruments!

https://audio.jukehost.co.uk/Af1WMVwUgieWhwKLbBSK6cVcpiS7FZPy

 

[Feeding Crows]

I generally only play one at a time, although occasionally two. I have a 16-track multitracker. I I use different synths for different parts and sounds in my recordings. Being a full-time working husband and father of a 13-year-old, I don't get an awful lot of time to play these days. I'm also relegated to playing in a musty basement which is not exactly inspiring. (In our last place I had a nice attic studio overlooking the river, with carpets and Windows facing both east and west.) I don't know how my equipment stays in such decent condition down there now, but it generally does.

I do play a few times a week, sometimes laying some tracks and sometimes just jamming through the night. Sometimes a few months later I go over some of my recorded material and discover stuff that I don't even remember doing, and I think to myself "gee that's worth building on!"

Incidentally I forgot to mention a string synthesizer I have, Waldorf's "Streichfett". It gets plenty of use and I don't know why I didn't mention it. When I heard your piano piece, which is a nice little ditty by the way!... the first thing I thought was that I wanted to add some strings to it using my Waldorf!

So you're into MIDI, right?

 

[Feeding Crows]

so few people that i have ever met that are into midi....

 

[BothWings]

So you're into MIDI, right?

Well, you know... I have mostly only used MIDI to control synth modules from my keyboards. I'm not into sequencing and stuff like that much. I prefer straight audio recording in most cases. I have also used midi connections to download sounds and patches to my keyboards in the form of Sysex. The way I use midi is pretty simple compared to the way it can be used. If you have one good keyboard and a number of synthesizer modules connected to it via MIDI you really have a whole bunch of keyboards rolled into one.

Some people use sequencers and laptops to create whole MIDI files that drive all their equipment at once. I'm not really into that approach for the most part because I don't feel like it's me playing anymore! In some rare cases I will automate a groove box or drum machine and play along to it live. I've only played with a few people since I moved here. My obligations have forced me to become a home recording musician and not play in bars and clubs anymore. Not a lot of people around here seem to like what I like either. My taste is so broad it's difficult to get on the same page with the somewhat narrow people around here. I've met a few people that I share a lot of musical taste with but unfortunately most are not musicians.

So anyway, no... I am not really "into" MIDI and most times I just like to switch on and play. I do however like to record myself when I stumble on something good. Then as I said I had more tracks to it later. MIDI makes it a little easier to get a variety of sounds and to control keyboards using other keyboards.

 

[Feeding Crows]

but midi controls everything in a concert, the lights, the flames, the lazers, not to mention most of the instruments that you hear.

 

[Feeding Crows]

Me too, i just turn on the kb's and play. I don't even record digitally anymore. I just use my phone.

 

[Feeding Crows]

You wanna hear a song?

 

[Feeding Crows]

If so, piano, or ukulele?

 

[Feeding Crows]

Or how bout you play one for us!

 

[BlackSand]

.

Morning, Time To Get Moving ...

.​

 

[BothWings]

so few people that i have ever met that are into midi....

I think there's a schism between real musicians and people that are more about pushing buttons than playing keys. The latter are to the "few" that you mentioned but I think there's really a lot more than you think... It's just that you probably don't cross paths with them because you're on a different wavelength. Sounds like you're a pianist first, which I respect. I also first cut my teeth on a piano for years before I started getting into electronic stuff. It wasn't until about 15 years ago that I started experimenting a little with what midi could do for me. Before that I just played straight up keyboard through an amp or a piano. Throughout my teens we had a piano in the house. Eventually I got a keyboard and put it on top of the piano as kind of a string machine. And eventually I started taking that keyboard to my friends' garages and houses where we started playing together. Obviously that wouldn't be possible with a grand piano.

 

[Feeding Crows]

MIDI is not pushing buttons. It's playing every instrument.

It's really hard! It's not just playing a piano. It's also learning how to play strings, and guitar, and drums, and sax, and every other instrument, with your piano keys. You know how hard it is to play drums using your keyboards?!? It's hard!!!. And then mixing them all together to sound like a one-man band. I used to do it for a living! Not a living, but to make a little money and get laid.

 

[BlackSand]

.

Faster ...



.​

 

[Feeding Crows]

You're thinking about mixing software, like DJ's use. That's really complex too. And I don't understand it.

But MIDI is nothing at all like that, two different worlds. Think of a player piano, that runs a piece of paper through and plays the notes.

MIDI would be the piece of paper that tells the piano what notes to play and when, and how hard and how long. Plus it tells it what instrument to play if it could play multiple instruments, all the notes, how much reverb, echo, and flange. Plus any bending of the strings, like a guitar. Sustain pedal. Everything that is necessary to be a one-man band, on a piece of paper, is MIDI. It's instructions on how to be a one-man band.

But it needs something that can read those instructions, and that's called a midi synthesizer.

You have to create that piece of paper though, by playing the music, one instrument at a time and recording the instructions, so you can mix them all together at the end.

That's MIDI 101.

 

[Feeding Crows]

.

Faster ...



.​

How fast do you want it? I am fast as fook!

 

[BlackSand]

How fast do you want it? I am fast as fook!

.

Give it all you got and then some, cause you're still coming up short ...




.​