Is it just me? I am continually tweaking e.q., effects, levels, changing mics, turning controls on software compressors, de-essers, gates, limiters, harmonizers, sounds like drum kits, etc.
And that is small time stuff compared to changing keyboards.
Most of the time I listen to my recordings and don't even remember what I was trying at the time.
Don't even get around me, it's probably contagious.
I have two more mics on the way. This will bring my arsenal to maybe 20. Most have only been used one or twice to try out. Anybody need a mic cheap? BTW Gary D. is an enabler!
It has been over an hour since my last tweak. But that's because I left all my stuff at the club.
I love my Korg. Why did I spend hours today listening to demos of BK9 and Midjay PRO? He--llll--pppp mm--eee!

Don
I feel exactly just like you.
As Andrea gave me an advice, I will have the opportunity to go and test the Korg Pa3x and Pa900 next week.
Why do I have to go listening to Korg when I am really satisfied with my tyros ?
Fact is I never get enough having new styles, sounds ... and it is not because I'm not satisfied with my keyboards actually.

Exactly when I bought the M-audio little keyboard and use A.I.R Ignite with my Tyros 5 to play melodies. Just for fun because I like it, so my friends keep asking me :why do you buy the top arranger from Yam and want to test other sounds ?
It is not because I don't like the sounds on the Tyros 5 but only because it is a little challenging for me to test and see , I'm too curious. And the results are great.

If you aren't tweaking your gear to get the most from it, you're doing yourself a disservice. I make it a point to learn the capabilities of all my gear so that using it is second nature. If a piece of gear isn't intuitive it can hinder my work flow so I avoid it unless there are no better options available.

So you've got 20 microphones? You must just be starting out. Lol. I couldn't even count the number of mics I've had in my arsenal. Thankfully with each one I've learned their strengths and weaknesses and rule out some altogether. Also, certain mics with specific preamps can sound phenomenal with one and horrible with another. Knowing what works best is only accomplished by real world use in the trenches. Many people presume if they own one great mic, say a U47 or C12, it can cover every base but that's simply not the case. Sometimes the best mic for the job is the one that doesn't cost a small fortune.

I like tweaking too...but it's mainly in styles...to me they are the "soul" of an arranger keyboard, and a big part of my overall sound. Also, I don't use them to color my songs; I create songs by using styles...they are a crucial part of what I do. I've never considered styles a crutch...they are part of the art.

I'm quite happy with my Tyros4's "natural" sounds like pianos, guitars, organs, strings, brass and other orchestral instruments. If there's any tweaking, it's usually just filter settings, or maybe changing an attack, release etc. The many on-board synth sounds are based on the Motif, so they work very well, and are occasionally tweaked in those same areas as the natural sounds. I had years of major tweaking with my old Roland Jupiter 8 and Yamaha DX-7 (both sold) and I may get back into again with a Casio PX-5S in the new year, but now I'm more into arranging and recording the tunes I never got around to doing whilst working.

Still have my favorite and only microphone...a very old (well over 30 yrs) but still in mint condition Electro-Voice RE-15. Works a treat for my vocal purposes (nice warm "vintage" sound), which also includes Vocoding. The RE-15 is also great for mic'ing instruments, like acoustic guitar. It's meant to be used on a stand, and shouldn't be employed as a "hand held" mic, as using this way tend to cover the comb-filter holes. This screws up the sound and the polar pattern.

With so much to do regarding style editing, practicing, playing, arranging, re-arranging, recording, the many jaunts to SZ and other forums throughout the day...well, let's just say the word "boredom" is not in my vocabulary.

Ian

Twisting knobs...

In my opinion every totl arranger should have 4 free assignable knobs.. Its currently the most forgotten feature in arrangers..... For real time controll purposes..

I was hoping the next generation Tyros and/or PSR-S-series would have similar controls to what is on one of Yamaha's more inexpensive arrangers, the PSR-E433. Only two knobs, but they are assignable to most used functions.

It's a very expressive little keyboard, considering the price....unfortunately, the style controls do not include On-Bass, or I would've picked one up just to play around with.

Ian

Go figure that neither Korg nor Yamaha realise how much some free assignable knobs can do for you... Espescially because the sliders are allready assigned to so many things.. And for a lot of things knobs just work better..

Maybe (but unlikely) they'll (Yamaha and Korg) come up with an I-Pad app that will allow some real time editing...touch screen knobs/sliders are better than no knobs/sliders.

My old Jupiter 8 was a piece of cake to use...everything had it's own slider or control knob...also very intuitive.

For me, the most intuitive synth I ever had was the Mini-Moog...my very old, but beautifully preserved, little Yamaha CS-01 mini analog mono synth is also pretty neat (even has a breath controller input), although it really could benefit from midi ports as the small keys can be limiting.

Ian

Don, you'll soon have 21 mics. I sent you the mic that you lent me. Thanks buddy!

I'm also a big tweaker with Styles & OTS's. Nothing wrong about that, it's all about getting the board to sound as you want it...Then again the following day I'll possibly tweak the same thing again as ears seem to change day to day.
It also helps to get to know the ins & outs of the keyboard OS.

It also helps people discovering how sounds in these instruments work..
It starts with, let me turn that knob and see what happens
And ends with, if i want my sound to change this way, i need to turn that knob..

( where mobs offcourse relate to parameters)
But it helps when you know what to expect when you change a filter cutoff parameter..

Better to be a tweeker than a twerker!!!

BK-9 has two sliders assignable to control any two insert effect parameters, and THREE sliders freely assignable to sound editing or tweaking while you play...

These days I'm more of a mouse pusher than a knob twiddler. Sometimes I wish my Chroma Polaris still worked. Sigh....

Graham,

Your going deaf that's why

Nice... but arent those the same sliders to be used with track volume, organ drawbars, general arranger setting and much more depending on which mode you are in?

On top of that non motorized sliders are allways in the wrong position and as soon as you touch them the parameter jumps to the slider position...

Whhere as a knob is by nature allways in the right position (if they use the right type of knobs) and thats a huge difference for me..

I'm more of a "I wonder how 'I've Got You Under My Skin' will sound as a bossa nova musician," then a tinker of knobs.
Maybe if I made the hundreds of dollars that DonM and Gary makes gigging, I'd tinker with the keyboard etc. But then how would I find time to play with, and walk little Gemma my puppy. What about time to watch Gunsmoke and Virginian on YouTube? There's only so many hours in a day.

Don, when do you golf and fish and watch Randolph Scott, Gunsmoke, Dallas, The Saints so on and so forth? Do you guys sleep with the keyboards too? Oops, sorry, the devil made me ask that.

Got the mic yesterday Paul. It's a great mic, but it is too hot to work on my keyboard. I can't turn the input down low enough to keep it from overdriving. I can run it through a channel on the mixer and then to the keyboard. That way it's still really hot but usable. That's just one of the great mics for which I don't have a use. It's an Astatic CTM-77 hand-held condenser mic if anyone is interested.
I fiddled with it for an hour again yesterday! I keep going back to my favorite: Sennheiser 855. I have two of those.
I also have Shure SM58, EV PL 84 (2), Behringers (3), some old EVs, Sampson Q7, AKG D5, Heihl hand-held condenser, CAD 189, and half a dozen Sampson R11s still new in the box and a couple more in my bag (I use these for guest mics. They are good mics and if someone bangs it up or even steals it I don't care.) I also have a couple of EV 767s that I can't find right now. But they are here somewhere! I know I'm forgetting some too.
The two on the way are one of Gary's headsets and a Samson Q8 I bought off Ebay for $28.! Supposedly it's an open-box special from a dealer. Best price I've seen elsewhere is around $100.
It will probably be for sale again soon.

I had my Electro-Voice RE-15 for the longest time tucked away in storage at my uncle's house, while I was living in Newfoundland. I couldn't even remember what I had paid for it, but I remember buying it in Halifax, along with my second Leslie 147RV purchase (two Leslies are wicked!). I do remember the salesman telling me it was a very good microphone. This was probably the late 60's.

A few years ago, I get to talking with some guy in my buddy's recording studio about vintage microphones, and I tell him about my RE-15. He immediately wanted to buy it at a pretty decent offer, but I held on to it as I didn't need the money at the time.

I did a bit of research, and I find out that it is an extremely good microphone, both in it's day, and still very much today. I've seen them going for around $600-$800 on E-Bay. I also learned that it was a microphone used by Elvis for quite a few of his shows and some live recordings, and it's a fairly sought after mic.

Back when I bought it, I tended to buy the highest quality gear I could manage..my Yamaha MS-60S were quite expensive nearly 30 years ago at around $800 each, but it paid off as the microphone is still functioning (and looking) perfect, and so are my MS-60S.

Sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

Another mic I just sold a few years ago, a Shure SM58 was also a lovely performing mic that was every bit as rugged and reliable as the RE-15. I used it mostly when singing backup in a few of the bands I played in.

I'm sure there are better performing newly developed mics out there, and they probably cost less, but I don't know if they would hold their value as well as the SM58 and RE-15.

Ian

Hiiiii Don. Don't feel bad. I've been a member of TA (Tweakers Anonymous) for many years.., and am constantly relapsing.

LOVE the Sennheiser !!!

"Another mic I just sold a few years ago, a Shure SM58 was also a lovely performing mic that was every bit as rugged and reliable as the RE-15."

I truly believe the old SM58s were made better. The one I have sounds fine, but the rumble it picks up is the worst of any of the ones I own, including the lowly Samson R11. And they are 3 for $60.

I got rid of my pair of SM-58s several years ago, just never liked the overall voice quality, but that may be because I'm not a power singer, and that mic seemed to perform best for power singers.

I still have my Sennheiser E855 and Samson Q7, both of which are great handheld mics. Until a couple days ago, I had 3 Crown CM-311As, but one headed south for the winter. Should be in central LA by tomorrow afternoon.

Cheers,

Gary

Don post a video or pic of you using the headset mic & let us know your experiences with it!

If I get that far with it!
Gary, I'm about a far North in Louisiana as you can get, a few miles from both Texas and Arkansas.

Give it a shot ....
I lasted 5 minutes with it. ...

... a man KNOWS what he wants ...

I should have said northwest LA. Remember, I used to live in Palestine,, TX and spent a fair amount of time in Bossier City during the early 60s when it was a wide open town.

Gary

Well, for starters, forget motorized faders! Nothing has those.

BK-9 has 10 sliders (plus 5 knobs and 4 Assignable SW). In general arranger play mode, they default to MFX 1 & 2 (assignable to which MFX and which parameter you want per Performance), CC 1, 2 & 3 (same), then M.Int, MBS, LWR, and UPR 1 & 2 volumes.

In Hammond sim mode, they default to the 9 drawbars and an overall volume (selectable pre or post overdrive).

In mixer mode, 8 of them default to the 8 style Parts.

Works pretty well, overall.

BTW, there are 4 Assign SW's by the bender (bit like the SA buttons on a Tyros) but they are freely assignable to a myriad of functions. Of course, we could always ask for more sliders, buttons and knobs, but at the price point, I think it's the most flexible...

BTW, the sliders don't jump their values. You have to slide them through the value of the parameter before anything starts to happen. This is the best way, IMO.

That's pretty much the way PA3x works too Diki. Sliders default pretty much the same and have two positions where all are programmable. I generally reassign the DNC buttons, because I usually prefer to do my own bends and nuances when possible anyway.