I've had one saying that I've lived by as long as I can remember.

You can do anything you want in this world as long as......

a) it's not criminal
b) you don't affect anyone else in any way by your actions

thanx Mark and so true it is....

Gary is this the Crown CM-311A Mic your talking about shown?.....
I can see it works very well for you and that's great,......it's just not for every singer. Glad we all have choices....

Why is it whenever I make a comment about a player/players it gets interpreted as "they have to do it "my way or the highway?" There is no right or wrong method of performance, there's just "maximum performance" and I don't believe one can deliver that if your attention is focused on a chart or the sheet music rather than totally on an audience. If someone chooses to think differently, that's fine by me. I'm only offering my comments on what I see and don’t see in other performers. That’s all they are are “comments” and NOT “commands.” Goodness, hasn’t anyone been listening to Donny lately.......”we’re all here to learn from each other!”

Last week I went to another outdoor concert to see a band. First of all he had speakers that were so small you couldn’t hear them if they were set up in a telephone booth and you were the only person in there listening to them. Of course, I’m not supposed to comment on that or I'll have him thinking he’s supposed to do it my way, right? Then the mix.......because you couldn’t hear the vocalist (singing through the mini-speakers), the drummer was overpowering her. But Mark, keep your mouth shut.......don’t offer any suggestion that could be misinterpreted!

But, THIS is what I was leading up to. This man, by his own admission, has been playing 50 years.......and he’s still stopping between songs to find where he put the music to the next song. Talk about “dead space.” There was more of it there than you’d find in a cemetery. It gets worse.......never looked at the audience once or spoke to them even. At the end of each song, he turned to the band to discuss the next tune. All this stuff should have been mastered in his head, so he could concentrate on the vibes coming from the audience.

Speaking for myself, when I’m playing a room I don’t walk into that room with music or cue cards or anything but my instrument in hand. I don’t know what I’m going to start with or what I’m going to end with or what I’m going to play in between. I just know I’m going to stay in direct contact with the audience every second, not take my eyes off them to read any music (it's all in my head), not going to distract myself thinking about what I’m going to play next. I’ll wait until almost the last measure of the song I'm playing to determine what song fits in next with the audience. The dynamics of the audience changes from minute to minute. A few weeks ago, I played a great song, but it wasn’t going down well. I was watching the audience getting restless, and so, immediately, I stopped that song and got their attention back with “76 Trombones.” I couldn’t do that if I had to take the time to look up the song.




Answer.......it doesn’t, unless you’re shooting for maximum versatility where you can change your performance the moment the audience changes their listening moods (which is appx every five seconds)



Sometimes yes, sometimes no.



and what do you do if play list #1 doesn’t work and you go to play list #2 and that’s not working either?



me neither.......I don’t believe there’s any mention in the 10 Commandments that you can’t play one song at a time



Agree again, but it really would be nice if (as Donny keeps saying) musicians learned to “discuss and dialogue” and "learn from each other" rather than interpret comments as challenges.

BTW.....I don’t delude myself into thinking I’m anything more than a “big fish in a little pond.” Always have been and always will be. But one thing I consider myself real good at, and that’s in “delivering” music to an audience.......different than just playing music to an audience.

Well, I got all that out of my system. I write this stuff not to hear myself talk but to try and stimulate more personal music conversation among the members…..not just which keyboard is the best. After all, we're finally running out of new keyboards to compare!

I forgot to mention. I went to see Tony play live at a concert. He's very good at what he does, so I respect the fact that he's taken the time to learn what works best for him.

It affected me, and since I was the subject of the picture, I believe I have every right to ask that it not be used.

Back to mics...
Tonight, just as an experiment, I used my Shure SM35 headset mic, all night. It did just fine. My vocal control was just fine. I used it part of the time with compressor and part without. It does better with the compressor, as would be expected.
The Crown has built-in compression; the Shure seems to not have it, but no matter, my keyboard vocal processor does. The Shure costs $100., about a third the price of the Crown. I prefer the sound and feel of the Shure. That doesn't make it better; just better fit for me.
The audience couldn't care less about which mic I used. I will go back to the handheld mic next time because I prefer it, NOT because I don't have "vocal control". I don't want to have it "on" all the time. Don't want to have to move it or mute it to cough, clear my throat, take a sip of water or speak privately to a customer.
I can see it would be good if one were moving around a lot or dancing. I don't do either when I play and sing, so that is not a factor for me.
If you ARE in the market for a headset mic, I recommend the Shure SM35 as a real bargain. It is fairly comfortable and can be used wired or wireless. It does require phantom power, which the Korg PA4X supplies.
It mic has the same processing as the Beta 58, and with e.q. can sound pretty much as you want it to sound, as can just about any decent mic.
Experiment over for me. I'll keep it around in case I ever get in a situation where feedback might be a problem.

Nice review Don and I agree with all your cons
& I'll add vocal singing mic technic and IMO just looking silly is why I will never use one.
Godspeed to those who enjoy wearing one.

Dave, If I were to have known you didn't want photos of you posted ahead of time, and you knew I had it, I would not have posted it. Guess I'm not a mind reader, after all.

All the best,

Gary

I'm not mad. It's just a bit of a cyber gray area as to who owns what these days. My thought is that no one should post pictures of anyone without the subject's permission. I may have violated that myself, years ago, but that's the way I've come to feel.
Don't loose any sleep over this. You're still my bud.