NKD: New Keyboard Day!! Korg Krome 61-Key Workstation

Well, last Friday I said hello to a new Korg Krome and goodbye on Tuesday to the Roland Juno-Gi after it sold on ebay within 12 hours of listing it!

I made the decision very quickly to switch up the keyboard equipment after we took the Roland Juno-Gi on vacation for Corey, my 14 year old step-daughter, to practice and for us both to play while there. It just proved to be very complicated to program, record and explain how to do all of the above. The screen is too small, too many layers of menus that are named strange things that don't seem logical. It's the Roland way, apparently. Every Roland I've ever owned has been hard to program and, well, to just simply make a preference change!! I will miss the simplicity of the 8-track audio recorder though.

So I know I should have looked around a bit more, seeing how I have had a lack of confidence in Korg with my SV-1 and the lack of support they have provided. I said I'd not buy another Korg product... :o

I should have researched but I played one at Guitar Center and liked the feel of the keys, the large touch screen and the sounds are amazing and clear sounding. The arps and drums are easy to use and I can jam instantly in most sounds with just the flick of a button! Programming it will be a bit harder but it will just take time to wrap my head around how it works.

I hope I made the right choice. Time will tell. I did get 15% off the $999 price tag which I hope will help compensate a few years from now when I sell, if I sell. I could have purchased a used one but by paying $150 more, I got a 2 year manufacturer warranty for buying new!

"You can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself."

I read a quote once by an actor from the old surf/gidget movies named James Darren. He said "I think Ricky Nelson said it best in "Garden Party": "You can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself." If you're content with doing what you're doing, stick with it. If not, find the road that takes you there.

So yesterday my employer of 7 years on staff, 14 years total, and after many months of negligent business tactics, announces that she is burned out and decided to sell the business. 

Now we all know that none of us will have jobs after that happens. 

Good thing I've been cultivating leads for the past few months and have a few things in the works! 

So I'm looking for that road, if you hear of any thing, please send me directions!! Thanks!

The Music Man made me do it! Damn his "Think System"!! My Jupiter 416 Pocket Trumpet!

I've said for years I wanted to, half-jokingly, play the cornet or trumpet. It was watching the musical "The Music Man" many years ago that put that thought in my head!

Well, I bit the bullet, risked the ire of my lovely wife for buying YET another instrument and got a great deal for a very nice looking Pocket Trumpet! Enjoy!

The Right Tool for the Job!

A lot of my ability to start and complete projects lately has a lot to do with my lovely wife, Stacey, and her love of Elfa storage components from the Container Store!

My little closet guitar workshop was pretty pitiful using left over ikea shelving. It was rickety and unstable for any real work. Plus I couldn't leave a job out for fear it would fall off!

NOW, thanks to aforementioned parties, I have a wonderful place to work, complete with more storage, a place to keep an amp for testing and the right size and height for me to "get the job done!"

Ole #27 Custom "La Cabronita" Tribute guitar gets a Bigsby!

 My beloved tribute (to the Fender Custom Shop La Cabronita Especial) custom built guitar a great upgrade last night... A BIGSBY!!

That's right, not only does it have that great Gretsch Filtertron twang thang goin' on, now it's got that great classic Gretsch/50s/60s surf rumble back vibrato sound to keep all you dudes and dudettes rockin' all night long.

How does it sound? GREAT! Now that I have some great recording equipment, I'll have to get some licks rehearsed (so I can sound like I actually know how to play!) and upload something for all to hear!

The install was really quite easy and the custom bridge that Marc Rutter made me worked like a charm! He put some slots in the tail piece to allow the strings to pass through to the Bigsby's roller bar.

Now next up will be a new pickguard that fits the new MOJO! Black? Tort? hrm... Not sure, but I'm sure I'll post the results here!

This custom guitar also features: (besides the Gretsch Filtertrons, Bigsby B5, Marc Rutter Custom Half-bridge with Bigsby Mod) Fender S-1 grease bucket tone circuit switchable volume knob, a 3-way gibson style Switchcraft pickup selector switch, a polished aluminum electro-socket plug with a Switchcraft 1/4" jack, Sprague Orange Capacitors, 2011 Fender rosewood telecaster neck, Sperzel Locking tuners with pearloid buttons and, of course, Schaller style strap lock buttons.

Now the only other mods I can think to do, other than a new pickguard, is to switch out the trem arm for a "chet atkins" style wire arm and maybe some custom painted hot-rod graphics someday!

My first week with a Zoom R24

I wanted to post my perspective about my decision to sell my M-Audio Fast Track C600 and buy a Zoom R24 Recorder/Interface/Controller.

I worked in an analog studio from 1992-1995. It was set up with some great, albeit old, gear from the late 70s. MCI board, MCI 2" 24 Track recorder to match and much much more. I learned so much.

But since then, I've had a hard time getting back involved in recording using the computer. I am an admitted mac snob and have been using them since '87, they are all I know. So I obviously bought Logic Pro 9 to go with the C600 last year. I had used GarageBand before that, of course.

I just never bonded with that way of working and felt I needed something to bridge the gap, you know, some kind of control surface that gave me that tactile feel. I looked at the Zoom R16 the year before but ruled it out for a number of reasons: did I need 8 inputs? (Turns out YES!) Was Zoom a very good company? I had owned a G2 and thought it was dreadful. (Turns out YES, too!) Did it have good enough pre-amps? (Yup!) Would it be too hard to learn using a tiny screen, no visual on recordings like the computer, etc.? (Turns out NO, not hard & it also turns out that the lack of the "big picture" screen, I'm getting more intimate with my recordings, counting out beats, sequencing drums for the first time since 1992!)

Update on recording gear

So I took the Korg NanoKontrol and NanoKey back to Guitar Center. They really aren't built very well for what they cost and would end up seeming like toys instead of real gear. So I did a lot, I mean A LOT, of research and hesitantly took a chance on another product made by Zoom.

My first foray with Zoom was their low end guitar multi-effects unit the G2. Hated it. But with the Zoom R24 Multi-track recorder, DAW interface and controller, I was really impressed!