Keyboard Rig (update)

Some changes in what I'm planning for the keyboards - I've changed my mind at this point on the wish list items (which could still change again - not sure yet) changing to another keyboard instead.


- Yamaha MOX6 workstation
- Roland VR-09 V-Combo (WL) Nord Electro 4D combo organ
- Roland VP-550 Vocal Ensemble
- Roland Gaia SH-01 virtual analog synth
- Novation X-Station 49 Synthesizer
- Moog Little Phatty Stage I (WL)
I have sold the Roland VK-8M organ module - went on EBay last weekend and shipped out yesterday.

Now - I went through reviews of past VR combo keyboards, read tons of stuff on keyboard forums from guys who are really picky about their organ clones/workstations, and well I just went thru my own logic process and thought that a $1000 keyboard with a looper and other toys built in probably wouldn't satisfy the B3 need. Sounds seemed reasonable, and really the D-beam is an attraction to me, but I'm really attracted to the Nord Electro4D 61 - it's the Nord virtual tonewheel engine with drawbars!! As well, it ships with the Mellotron sound set standard, works well with the Sonic Reality packages, has very decent sounding pianos... and I've seen respected guys like Dave Kerzner, Per Wiberg, Derek Sherinian and others using this live and in studio for a long long time. The drawbars control for the organ emulation really was what I've been looking for - my Nord Electro2 was a pain in the ass to change registration settings while playing, it felt like playing my old Intellivision Football game from the 70's. But the update is great and this is ultimately what I'm now going to get.

The other change as mentioned was to remove the Little Phatty from my list. HORRORS!!! I'm going to put this change on hold to give the Novation a real run for it's value. I got the X-Station for so little money on Craigslist that it costs me nothing to keep it, and it seems to offer a lot of promise based both on the reviews (remember this is a keyboard from 2006 or so) and what I believe it's capable of doing to emulate and load patches from NI's Absynth VST. I really love the Absynth and it's various incarnations - so much so that I have been considering tossing some hardware keyboards out for a Muse Receptor of some kind (still a chance of getting this - stay tuned) and host much of what I'm looking for in sound sets on that and use the Ultrabook for set list and patch manipulation. Anyways, if the Novation doesn't cut it, then I sell it and go for the Little Phatty... or a dark horse deep in my wish list is an Access Virus TI - if I feel that we need another big wide range keyboard then it's the 61, otherwise I'm looking at the Polar with 37 keys (same as the Gaia). It might be going against many peoples' grain to dump the Moog for the Access, but I think that with the new material I need to really look to integrate a new set of timbres and stylistic items that I haven't done before. It wont be obvious hijacking of the electro and dance stuff just to paste in haphazardly, but there will be influence there with the technology helping give more edginess to the material.

I've elected to make the Gaia a keeper overall - it's got a great sound engine, and very intuitive interface making it easier for a guitarist like me to edit patches, plus a great editor set for my PC that enables deeper control of the sounds. The Novation has that as well and that appeals to me for the moment - again w.r.t the X-Station lets see if the D/A converters hold my interest. But the Gaia also has the wonderful D-beam interface which I loved on the V-Synth, and I'll be taking advantage of that.

So there you have it - I'll be posting my Visio drawings of the rig and how it will look set up on a full stage. The nice thing about this rig is I could simply take the MOX6, VP-550, Nord and Gaia out for smaller gigs and it would cover everything off decently, but for larger shows the entire rig allows for me and Paul to have a full set of hardware available to fill out the material. I have both a Axiom 49 and my Roland GR-33 to trigger sounds thru MIDI, and there would be no problem handling us in that regard.