MIDI Controllers and Live Performance

Oh, I saw it :stuck_out_tongue: But you solved the problems that are inherent with their upper tier. It would still be way, way low for me though- is that for playing seated??

I use the following combination to play seated and standing:

This is my ā€œTransformerā€, i can easily switch between standing and seating (only two screws).
While standing, my keyboard is aligned with an angle of ~35Ā° which let my arms and hands play in a straight line and i am not totally covered by keyboards so the audience can actual ā€œseeā€ me. Additionally, i can move around very easy, beneath the rack are four rollers.

Greetings, Tom

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Thatā€™s actually the middle position. Better sight lines for entertaining. The keyboard sits a bit low but the doorstops raise the front of the piano so the wrist remains more or less straight when standing up. That said, I eventually decided to move it to a higher position. The copper second tier has three sets of holes that match the distance between the top bars of the stand for the three diffferent heights so it can be used whether sitting or standing.

Can I assume you touch type? Is that a stock monitor or a touch monitor?

No, it is not a touch monitor. I have M-Audio Code61 keyboard with 16 pads which completely control cantabile. I donā€™t (normally :wink: ) have to use mouse and pc-keyboard while gigging.

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After years of trying various keyboard stands, my only trusted option for playing standing up is the Kƶnig & Meyer ā€œSpider Proā€.

  • Holds two keyboards nicely, with fully adjustable level for each layer
  • If you go single-board (like I am currently doing), you can easily remove the second tier
  • It stands on ā€œspider-legsā€, which is perfect for pedals underneath
  • Sets up and breaks down in 20 seconds
  • packs into a single column; pretty easy to transport
  • high enough for tall players (Iā€™m 188 cm / 6 ft 2) - which was a killer criteria for a number of otherwise great stands
  • solid enough to carry a 25 kg 88 key PC3K plus a 61 key Motif - yes, the Kurz does wobble a little bit, but itā€™s definitely good enough to rock!

Cheers,

Torsten

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I can vouch for the Spider Pro too. And on top of Torstenā€™s list, it also looks really cool, especially compared to the usual ā€œironing boardā€ style Quickloksā€¦

The only reason I donā€™t use my Spider Pro any more is that my Moog Voyager is too deep to fit on the upper tier.

Neil

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Iā€™ve used the Spider Pro as well. Itā€™s expensive, but worth the cost, imo. I also bought the K&M mic boom stand which screws onto the threaded shaft at the top of the main column- that configuration works quite well and the resulting position of the mic doesnā€™t interfere with viewing or reaching knobs/sliders on the keyboard.

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Thatā€™s right but itā€™s important for me to see my display from my Korg Keyboardā€¦
The second Key most time is routed with Cantabile to the Lower Keyboardā€¦
I only play at home and so it is no Problem to work with different Chairs.

JĆ¼rgen

Iā€™ve used the Spider on gigs, love them. Theyā€™re like Apex stands perfected by Germans :smiley: (Well, exactly like that, really.)

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I tried that for some time, but I got annoyed by the keyboard noise being transmitted through the stand + the boom to the mike - sounded like a (quiet) floor tom pattern.

So these days Iā€™ve got my tablet holder for LivePrompter sitting on the main column and my microphone on a separate Gravity stand. Much better sound-wiseā€¦

Cheers,

Torsten

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Good stand but not enough space between the legs for pedals. The pedals on the extreme right and left have your foot getting obstructed by the legs. just my experience with them. They are great if only using oine or two pedals though, and I have a Baby Spider for such gigs :slight_smile:

Thatā€™s true. I do use a minimum of pedals though, never more than two. That may change in the near future though so itā€™s a consideration.

this :arrow_up_small: :arrow_up_small: :arrow_up_small: :arrow_up_small:

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Playing any parts on a weighted keyboard creates the wrong mindset, apart from piano, and certain electric pianos (to some degree anyway).

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Well - I may backpedal a littleā€¦ there are some subjective qualities to ā€˜keyboardsā€™.
The mindset for piano, sure. Thatā€™s a physical entity which we can relate to in terms of touch and response.
Organ, the same. Itā€™s another instrument which has hundreds of years of history behind it. Thereā€™s an expectation from the player, and a piano keyboard stultifies that expectation.
Synths? Not so much. One could program sounds and play music which specifically favor a piano touch. A violin player may well argue that playing Sample Modelingā€™s violin on a keyboard of any sort creates the ā€˜wrong mind setā€™. :slight_smile:
Shall we talk about the Roli?

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Just to be the ā€œother opinionā€ here, I donā€™t actually have any problem playing organ and synth parts on the NI S-88 keyboard - it is a very, very fast keyboard, and I can smoosh and finger-glide and do anything I like on it without it messing with my mindset!

But, Iā€™ve played every imaginable kind of church organ from all eras - pipe, reed, pump - and those keybeds were all SOOOO different from each other, that Iā€™ve learned to adapt and to simply practice until it felt natural. So many older tracking organs are incredibly heavy, and old reed organs are so damn stiff with the strangest ā€œreleaseā€ actions.

Pianos, too, feel so different from each other. Some are so spongy it is crazy; others so stiff and heavy it hurts at first; some have such sharp edges that doing a finger-glide will saw your finger off to the first knuckle, I swear!

Perfectionism is one thing to get into when you have the time, I suppose, but after hundreds of different keyboard ā€œfeelsā€ beneath these fingers where I still pulled off the performance to my satisfaction, I donā€™t find the matter THAT important anymore. I am happy with the ones I have now, and even they are all quite different. Favorite synth/organ keyboard is likely my Kawai K5000 Fatar, and my recent acquisition of the NI S-88 is giving me a ton of pleasure. The Korg Wavestation is a bit noisy but is fast, and the Alesis QX-49 I picked up at a pawn shop feels spongy - but they all work! :slight_smile:

Terry

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Hey I donā€™t mean to hijack this thread but is there a esay way to assign a pitchwheel to control pitch in vb3 or B4II, or globally. Iā€™ve tried binding but without success.

Just want to add my thoughts to some of those here with regards controllers and standsā€¦

I was in Holland for a gig a few months ago and I was saying that I needed to get rid of my ancient A-frames and I was interested in the Spider stands. One of the guys there runs a music tech shop and said that he found that the Spiders suffered from metal fatigue and he wouldnā€™t trust them (despite being able to supply them to me). That very night (a remarkable coincidence!) I witnessed a player have his Spider stand collapse mid-song, with some of the audience having to rush forward to prevent him and his keyboards from plummeting off his riser! I bought Ultimate Support Apex stands instead!

The thing I hate about the Apex stands is the lack of any ability to angle the support arms. I created a design for an angled wedge support and had it made in acrylic by a plastic fabrication company. That solved the problem.

I loathe weighted keyboards. They are fine for piano, but for the thousands upon thousands of other sounds in my synths?.. Iā€™d rather have synth action. For me that meant hunting out at least one long (76 notes plus) non-weighted board, and they are not thick on the ground.

I now have two keyboards - an Alto Live88 (88 notes) and a Roland A800 ā€˜Proā€™ (61 notes). This combo are great. The A800, in particular, is close to perfection. I would prefer a longer key length, since they are a little tough to trigger on fast licks, but I can mostly manage. I would also prefer wheels to the Roland bender, but I do prefer the bender for some parts, so you canā€™t have everything. The connections sticking out of the side, instead of the rear, is an annoyance. The A800 is my main controller; its controls send out on a separate virtual MIDI port from the keyboard, which makes it ideal for controlling Cantabile - I created all my bindings in the Background Rack and leave it to get on with the job. The A800 will not output data from any of its controls unless I specifically ask it to, which makes it a very safe machine to entrust to the task. Itā€™s really like having a separate control surface.

If only the A800 could act as my audio interface too, like my Roland System 8ā€¦ Sighā€¦

The Alto Live88 is, I suspect, semi-weighted, but itā€™s light enough to be considered ā€˜non-weightedā€™ to my way of thinking - similar to the Roland JP-80, but less smooth. I want to find another of these boards for my second stack for later gigs, but mine is the only one Iā€™ve ever seen. It only has one pedal input, for either sustain, or control, which is its biggest weakness.

An old Digidesign MBox2 is my audio interface.

Both keyboards, and the MBox2, take power from USB, so no PSUs needed, other than for my laptop and my monitoring system. I like that. If I get a power failure mid-gig then at least my rig stays put.

This is the first time I will have entrusted my entire rig to virtual synths, with no hardware backup, but Cantabile has given me the confidence to do this. Gone are my days of hefting Kurzweils around! Itā€™s taken me quite some time to become comfortable with Cantabile, and I still think I havenā€™t created the optimum environment in there, but I will do better next time around. There are many ways to do some tasks, and it takes time to understand the consequences of choosing one approach over another.

Anyway, hope something here is of interest.

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My rig:

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