Until a few days before New Year's Day, 2007, I didn't
have much in the way of gear, but what I had worked well -- although its
capabilities were limited and I had to do a lot of cobbling things together
to do a recording with backing tracks. (See the litany of what I had to do
to record Killing Me Softly on the first page of this site.)
THEN, things changed a LOT! I taught a "Wintersession"
class (Wintersession is something that the Marquis de Sade thought up to be
able to continuously torture students and an instructor for TWO WEEKS) to
earn some gear money and, after a quick run to the Guitar Center in Memphis,
came away with most of THIS!
YeeHAH! Life just got a WHOLE lot better!
My music room was set up like this until we got a leak one night in the
faucet line in our bedroom, which is exactly above the Motif ES in the
picture above. I came home one night and walked in the room an turned on the
light to see water running out of the light. It occurred to me that this was
not a good thing, and my friend Stuart and I grabbed gear and dragged
everyhing out before the ceiling came down. It didn;t come down, but a lot
of water had collected in it and we ended up having to have a lot of repair
work done.
Here's the setup, from left to right:
Yamaha P60 keyboard:
This was my only keyboard for the last two years (except for my 45 year old
Wurlitzer spinet piano, which is unfortunately sounding its age). Even
though the P60 was cheap, it's a great instrument. The
action is as real as you are going to find at the price (this model is no
longer available, the
P70 is the low end now) or even twice as
much, and the only way to
do better is to get a better Yamaha. Even though it's an entry model, the
P60 uses the same keyboard mechanism as the more expensive P models, and the
piano sound samples are outstanding. It's default sound is as dead-on true
to a small grand as I have heard, and I can play on it for hours without
ever changing it a bit. The onboard speakers are great, and I
rarely need an amplifier when I am playing with a group of people although
it would be nice if it directed a bit more of the sound toward me. By not
needing an amplifier, I get direct control of the sound and volume, and setup
is a snap. I
also like the way that all effects are controlled from the keyboard itself,
which makes it very easy to switch settings once you get used to it. My only
complaint is that its two organ patches are not very useful for most rock,
and even with a lot of tweaking I can't get anything close to a B-3 to come
out of it. Also
one of its two electric piano patches is too velocity sensitive and so it's easy
to kick it into its "falsetto" bell mode, which is quite annoying. Otherwise, it
was perfect for what I
needed to do for a long time. I've had it for almost two years with zero problems. It is truly a
quality piece of work and a good friend.
Mackie
DFX-12 Mixer: This serves as the control center for all of the
equipment, and can add effects although I usually don't use it for that.
When buddies come over to jam, they can plug into this and we all get mixed
together. It outputs audio to the studio monitors (speakers) that are on the
wall to the right and left of the mixer and to the big black subwoofer on
the floor.
PreSonus
Firebox: The Firebox is a firewire audio interface/processor that
works great with laptop computers and digital audio workstation (DAW)
software. I can plug any electronic instrument into this unit and it will
process the signal and send it to the software with almost zero latency. By
doing most of the processing in the unit instead of in the computer, the
computer's CPU can concentrate on running the software side of the picture.
Yamaha Motif ES8 with mLAN-16e: This is the new star of the show and the
reason I taught that Wintersession class! This is truly the King of
Keyboards. While it's capabilities surprise me more every day and I have
only scratched the thinnest outer layer of what it can do, I can tell you a
few things about it. It is a
synthesizer/recorder/processor/mixer/sampler/music production workstation.
In other words, I think it can do anything -- all by itself (well, except
for me). Without being hooked to a computer or any other device except for
speakers, it can produce something like 1800 different instruments including
more pianos, acoustic and electric, and organs (yup, LOTS of B-3 sounds with
FULL LESLIES) than I can count. And if I ever get tired of those sounds I
can tweak them or add other effects, or just buy some more. It can also
"sample" sounds from any sound source to create new voices that can be used
in the instrument. For example, I could capture the exact sounds of a real
guitar or any other instrument and then store and use them in any song. It
can also record an almost unlimited number of tracks, in stereo, using this
instrument's voices or external instruments (and singers) or sounds
generated by a computer. It can mix all of those tracks, add effects, and
produce the final product in a number of formats. That's what it can do
BEFORE it gets hooked up to a computer. With the mLAN 16-e computer
interface, the Motif is married to any production software to greatly
enhance the capabilities of both the software and the Motif. So much to
learn...
Gateway M680 Notebook with Echo Indigo I/O sound card:
This is the brains of the system, as it runs the software that makes the
whole thing work if I'm not using the Motif as a standalone system. The
Echo PCMCIA sound card is a carryover from my earlier Spartan setup, and was essential because most notebook computers don't
have a powerful sound card built in. The better the sound card, the lower
the latency when playing through the software. Latency is when you hit the
key on the keyboard and then wait for awhile for the sound to come out of
the system. Even if that wait is very short, like a quarter of a second, you
can't play like that without going nuts if you are using any backup
accompaniment at all. With this card, I can get the latency down to less
than 5 milliseconds, which is low enough to be unnoticeable. The wide screen
on the Gateway is great since you can get a lot on that screen and it is
very bright and clear -- nice for these poor old eyes...
Korg MicroKontrol midi controller: (not in the
picture) It's cheap,
light, durable, and easy to use. The micro keys take some getting used to,
but you get more keyboard space this way than with any other controller this
size. It's easy to program and easy to use.
