In music news I bought a new keyboard last week, mainly to use live with the rock band. The old keyboard has great sounds, particularly electric piano, clavinet and organ. But it was not easy to switch between sounds quickly between songs, lots of button flipping. With old classic rock that was fine, but now we’re doing a fair amount of 80’s and modern pop and dance stuff, which requires layering and being able to call up different sounds in the middle of a song. The new keyboard has a thing called Stage Setups that let you combine stacks of sounds and effects and store them as presets, with the individual components of the sound under the control of a bank of sliders. Super powerful and flexible, just what I need. Only thing is now I have to learn how to program the thing! Last week the band learned the classic Funky Town by Lipps Inc., and that’s a good example with different synth and string sounds coming in and out. We have a gig this Friday night, hope I’m ready.
