RE: All I want for Christmas

["Bruce A. Wahler" <bwahler@tiac.net>]

[My apologies if this shows up twice.  I sent it several hours ago, and 
it never seemed to show up on the ML.]

Daniel V. Samons wrote:
>
> In the past several years we have seen the arrival of a number of
> products that do a good job creating hammond sounds (XM-1, V3,
> XB-2, etc.)  What we need now is a really nice midi controller
> made especially this purpose.

Dan,

I agree in principal, although my "wish list" is slightly different.
Read on ...

> I could really make some use of a controller with the following
> features:
>
>   -61 note upper and lower manuals, with the capability to program the        
> first octave or so as presets.

How about 61-note upper and 76/88-note lower?  Basically, as many
lower keys as would fit alongside a 61-key upper board + 2 sets of
drawbars and mod/bend wheels [forgive the awful ASCII drawing] --

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>   -upper keyboard with typical hammond style "waterfall keys" although
>       I could live with synth keys)
>   -At least one set of drawbars on-board, perhaps expandable to as    many as 
> four.

I'm in agreement to this point (although I'd like two sets of drawbars).

>   -lower keyboard could be a good semi-weighted, synth-action keyboard        
> feel, (not an actual weighted feel but with enough of that to be
        able to use it for piano playing, perhaps along the line of one
        of the nicer Roland synths.)

I'd prefer a good Fatar or Roland piano-feel keyboard, as long as the
upper keyboard has a light touch.

>   -Old style leslie switch on board with three positions:  chorale,   brake, 
> tremolo.

For my liking, I'd rather have two switches:  one that disables the slow
motor, and one that switches the Tremolo on.  That way, you could have
either one-speed or two-speed operation, without that annoying center
detent in the switch.

>   -Several assigable continuous controllers for controlling any number        
> of hammond features.
>   -Several assigable switches, to controll V1/V2/V3/C1/C2/C3 and other        
> functions like key click.

Amen!  Don't forget inputs for two volume-style pedals, two switch-style
pedals, and a MIDI In that actually merges with the keyboard data
stream, for external keyboards, or a set of MIDI bass pedals.

> I have often wondered why such a beast has not been manufactured.  I
> for one would purchase something like this in the $1000 range provided
> it was well built.  I'd give even more if it was a really pro piece of
> gear (I payed almost $400 for a Fatar to go with my computer midi
> setup and it is an el cheapo peice of plastic!)

I suspect the price would be more like $1500-2000.  I paid $750 for my
Fatar Studio 88 -- ATA case style, with no display, wheels, program
change buttons; just a good piano-action 'board -- and I'd gladly pay
that much again, for the same fucntionality.  You really get what you
pay for, when it comes to weighted keyboards.

> It seems that for a lot of rock and popular music players this would
> be a very useful controller.  You could set it up for piano/low and
> B3/high or a twin manual B3 for more intensive organ work.  For other
> types of music you could just assign the keyboards to any number of
> different synth sounds.  The possibilities are virtually endless.  On
> synth patches you could program the drawbars to controll oscillators,
> filters etc.  But the real advantage would, of course, be with the
> hammond stuff.

I own a cobbled-together approximation of this already:

    Upper -- Roland D-50 (61-key synth-action, bender, LCD panel)
    Lower -- Fatar Studio 88 (88-key weighted action)
    Yamaha MIDI merger
    Peavey PC1600 (drawbars, switches, pedal inputs)

I don't use the D-50 for sounds anymore, just for the keyboard,
alphanumeric display, and MIDI functions.  I've been toying with
replacing the PC1600 with the Voce MIDI Drawbar Module, but there are
some neat things that you can do with the PC1600 that the Voce can't
do (ex:  when I hit any of the six buttons that I have designated as
lower keyboard presets, the PC1600 sends a message to my MIDI patchbay
to disable my piano module from the lower keyboard; presto, a dual
manual organ!)  It works great, but it needs an awful lot of wires to
set up, and it uses THREE wall warts!  I've been toying with the idea of
mounting it in a single enclosure, but a ready-made setup would be even
better.

> I would be interested in seeing if other players have thought about a
> similar controller, and what their ideal specs would be for such a
> beast.  Perhaps we can come up with the ideal blend of features that
> some budding venture capitalist can turn into a product we can all
> use.

There ya go!

-BW