GForce OB-1

[IvyBirds]

As a gigging musician, the last thing I want is something as huge as that to lug around, especially when you have to fly.

I would never fly with a synth, that's what local rental houses are for. In my 4 decades of gigging I have never known any professional gigging synth player who wants to travel with Synths via air. Putting your synth in your luggage? Wow, you actually do that? Why?

It's dead simple to rent a Motif or Montage pretty much anywhere, and the promoter can easily provide it. Even back in the 1980s and 1990s it was dead simple to rent a DX7 to use a controller for your rack synth

As for local gigs which is what I do 99% of the time so I can sleep in my own bed, I have a hard case for my Montage. It fits and sits great on a portable foldable hand truck in the back of my SUV. As does my two tiered stand all held together with a bungee cords. It makes for a dead simple load in, and I don't have to carry anything but my backpack

[pekbro]

Well hopefully you long time gig players have
paid into social security or have worked something else out. At least if youre from
the states. I know too many musicains who
screwed themselves over by not paying
into SS. The gig thing comes to an end
eventually.

Of course, this has nothing to do with anything. I know Bones works for a living,
so hes been smart, tho i dunno about
retirement is Au.

Ot, I know, but have a habbit of mentioning
that to any pro musicians i know, well at
least the non-multimilionaire ones, since
ive seen many of them having a hard time
when the gig calls stop coming.

[BONES]

Of course, that is less and less the case now. The Strolling Bones are still playing in their 80s and there are plenty of artists still touring in their 70s. Grey hair isn't the career killer it used to be.

Wow, you actually do that? Why?

Because it doesn't cost me anything and it simplifies my life. Relying on third parties is a recipe for disaster. We like to be 100% self-contained so that if anything f**ks up, we only have ourselves to blame. That's why I bought a stand I can pack down into my suitcase.

the promoter can easily provide it.

Maybe for what you do but the promoters we deal with are mostly non-industry amateurs. When a touring band asks them for that kind of thing, they call me and ask if I can lend them some of my gear.

As for local gigs which is what I do 99% of the time so I can sleep in my own bed, I have a hard case for my Montage. It fits and sits great on a portable foldable hand truck in the back of my SUV. As does my two tiered stand all held together with a bungee cords. It makes for a dead simple load in, and I don't have to carry anything but my backpack

Yeah, I used to have panel vans* to lug all my stuff around, now I can catch the bus to a gig if I need to.

___________________________________________________
*Do Americans and Europeans have panel vans? They have fallen out of favour here but they used to be quite common. It's basically a wagon/estate with no back doors or back seat and a long flat load bed -

[BBFG#]

You don't have soccer moms in Europe? (Minivans). Of course, since Silence of the Lambs, we refer to panel vans in women's sizes now. (James Gumb's being a size 14).

[pekbro]

Mostly i meant studio musician types, guys in a regular band dont have the same problems
if they are still in demand.

Its weird, many of the guys i know would
get kinda depressed that they were getting
less calls, so when they did work, they were
kind of resentful and difficult, thus cutting
their chances even further. No one wants
to gig with difficult folks of course.

Anyway, just my experience.

[_leras]

Just remember to try them out in store before you buy. Things can be very different in person from the impressions you get from YouTube.

I unfortunately also demoed Synapse LegendHZ at the same time, which has an amazing sound - but is really not such good value, or perhaps is good value, but also more expensive.

I think those two have very different strengths and weaknesses. I reckon they'd complement each other quite well.

YouTube is way better than the information that used to be available. Everything has mulitple demos these days. But definitely agree having hands on a synth is where you can really tell if you like it.

Every synth has it's sweet spots, but they often need to be found, which is where hands on controls can really help. That first play of a hardware synth can be brutally disappointing... No reverb or delay, no sweet spots, no muscle memory to help morph the sounds.

And yeah the legendHz is a good contrast to the ob-1 for sure. The ob-1 is gnarly, fizzy and scratchy, where legend hz has some sounds that were just big warm pillows of audio. Between the synth and it's FX it definitely comes out fully cooked and needing little if any treatment.

[_leras]

*Do Americans and Europeans have panel vans? They have fallen out of favour here but they used to be quite common. It's basically a wagon/estate with no back doors or back seat and a long flat load bed -

These Estate cars are no so common.

If bands needed a van they also preferred ones with no windows in the back so that the gear was safer. Usually a Ford Transit van.

(Once too old for their parents to drive them around anyway )

[thecontrolcentre]

We generally used a Vauxhall Astra Estate for getting to gigs. Could fit all the gear and 3 people very comfortably. That was when the whole studio came to gigs. 3-4 big flight-cases containing mixers, effects racks, desktop synths and several keyboards ...



The last gig I did I took just a BOSS groovebox and drove there on my motorbike

[BONES]

Umm, that's a photo of a hatch, not an Estate.

YouTube is way better than the information that used to be available. Everything has mulitple demos these days.

In the old days I could take a $5000 synth home for a couple of weeks to see what it was like. Pretty much the same as having a fully functional demo version of a softsynth, only heavier.

If bands needed a van they also preferred ones with no windows in the back so that the gear was safer. Usually a Ford Transit van.

I had two Escort panel vans with no back windows and one of the two Mazda 323s I owned had no windows, either. At the pizza joint I worked at back then, we even had two tiny little Suzuki Altos that were set up (at the factory) as a panel vans. They were amazing.

[thecontrolcentre]

Umm, that's a photo of a hatch, not an Estate.

Sure was ... I've changed the photo

[beely]

Starsky's take:

[El°HYM]

[_leras]

Half hearse, half batmobile... Hmmm.

[BBFG#]

Half hearse, half batmobile... Hmmm.

In the end, he chooses the banjo.

[zerocrossing]

There still isn't anything ITB that matches the immediacy of hardware for playing.

Another load of cobblers. Once you've spent enough time with a Roli Seaboard or a Linnstrument, going back to hard plastic keys feels like selling yourself and your music short. It's like banging on bricks. Even playing my softsynths with a standard MIDI controller, like a KeyStep or MPK, feels EXACTLY like playing a hardware instrument. And before you start bangin' on about latency, back in the day Scott Solida did a big test on his dungeon full of hardware and found that some of his hardware synths had latency of as much as 25ms. IIRC, the average was something like 19ms, which is close to double the total round-trip latency of my PC system (11.8ms). You might be able to uncover the original thread, although it is probably 20 years old by now.

You tried arguing about hardware with...hardware. And as always with BONES bullshit you selectively edit to try to prove your point. Good job man. Good to see you're keeping up your standards. Anyhow, again, nothing like playing the System-8 on System-8 hardware. Since you brought up a standard MIDI controller....no playing the System-8 VST with a KeyStep isn't the same thing as playing the System-8 hardware. Its not the same using a MiniLab which I own and has plenty of knobs and sliders.

Everything is hardware. Everything comes down to pushing electrons around in the end.