Tag Archives: Arturia

Roasted and toasted

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If you’re missing the old PSR Tutorial Forum, C’mon over to Yamaha Musicians Forum. You’ll recognize many of the familiar faces. 🙂 Saul’s site has the same colleagiality as the old forum and chances are good you’ll get answers to your questions.

I’ll continue to post my long opinion pieces here. Sorry if there hasn’t been much lately. I took time away from the PNW and visited with family in Arizona. Hot with afternoon thunderstorms. Cue “No Rain” by Blind Melon. “Oh, good is raining, again.”

New stuff

Now that Labor Day (USA) is past, it’s the Fall launch season — back-to-school and pre-holiday in full swing.

Not too many kids will tote these to school, but Korg have announced the FISA SUPREMA “Aero Digital Instrument”. Hey, it’s a full-sized digital accordion! Forty-one keys with velocity sensitivity and aftertouch, and 120 velocity sensitive bass buttons. [Gives the phrase “Free Bass” a new meaning.] 320 voices including tonewheel organ. 100 drum instruments. Man, that’s one heck of an all-rounder. Weighs in at 23.3 pounds (10.6kg).

Fais pas ca! At $8000 USD, I don’t know if I’ll be getting on my Buckwheat. (The occasional accordion tune does come up at church.) Korg also offer a button model at $8,300.

New MIDI controllers have been sprouting like August weeds. Arturia sprung the KeyLab Mk3 Universal MIDI controller. It has the usual French Arturia styling with a semi-weighted keyboard and aftertouch. Yes, real wood paneling. $499 USD for the 49 key model and the 61 key is $599. The Mk3 comes with the usual Arturia bundle of sounds and effects. The 49 is 17.4 pounds (6.1kg) which sounds a tad heavy for me.

Novation have launched (pun intended) the Mk4 Launchkey range, five models going from mini to full-size 49- and 61-key models. Pricing remains modest: $250 USD for the 49 and $300 for the 61. The Mk4 models have a small OLED display, rotary encoders and semi-weighted piano-shape keys. Only the pads have aftertouch, but at these prices, we beggars cannot be choosers. The new Mk4 Launchkeys do two zones (split and layer). Faders are on the left where they belong. The pads have an innovative “Chord Map” mode giving you a 5 by 8 matrix (Adventure x Explore parameters) of built-in chord sets to wander around in.

Weight (9 pounds / 4.08kg) and price put the 49-key model on my radar. Ableton Live provides cheap late afternoon entertainment (better than Candy Crush), so Live integration is attractive. Plus, our son copped my Launchpad and I could use a replacement. 🙂 My biggest knocks on the mk4? It doesn’t do expression pedals and it cannot send a full MIDI Bank Select plus Program Change message sequence. I hope to try one out.

Here’s a shout out to a local company — Mackie (Bothell, WA). Mackie announced two additions to its Thump line of powered PA speakers: Thump210 and Thump210XT. Both models have a 10 inch woofer and 1″ compression driver driven by 1400W Class D amplification. The input section has a two channel mixer and app integration for remote mixing. The XT model adds Bluetooth connectivity for audio streaming and speaker linking. Prices are reasonable: $349 USD and $399 (XT). The new Thumps weigh about 25.4 pounds (11.5kg).

Not a new product per se, but the Yamaha YC stage organ got a new update (OS v.14). Jazzing YC owners will appreciate the new VCM organ type, H4. Quoting Yamaha, the “H4 has more mids and lows with a darker, wider percussion that’s great for playing left-hand bass.” The update adds new Live Sets (e.g., Soft Jazzy, Loudest, Ballad Organ, Gospel Layer, WR+Organ) and the ability to store Master EQ settings in a Live Set.

New stuff not here yet

PSR folks are eagerly awaiting the Yamaha PSR-SX720 and PSR-SX920. Information trickles out, but nothing official. One on-line retailer may have jumped the starter’s gun putting both models up for pre-order. (No apparent price increase.) The retailer claims a September 9 launch date. Another on-line retailer believes the old models are discontinued. Something is definitely afoot.

I cannot verify the authenticity of this picture

[Update] If the Yamaha trickle-down theory holds, the SX720 should be a lot like the now deprecated SX900 minus vocal harmony and the usual 900-level stuff. The retailer leak mentions a new SX920 sound system called “”Expansive Soundfield Speakers (ESS)”. If the picture above is genuine, there will be cosmetic changes (e.g., a few grey buttons in place of black, more attractive speaker covering), and the PSR-SX720 will get Chord Looper (controlled by the new buttons next to the Live Control knobs a la the SX900).

See, all reasons to come over to Yamaha Musicians Forum. Let’s talk. 🙂

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

Arturia AstroLab: Yes, I played one!

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Right from the git-go, I thank Guitar Center Lynnwood for letting me plink away at an Arturia AstroLab. I dropped in to play before sufficient caffeine had kicked in and I wasn’t really feeling the music. Nonetheless, I was glad to actually play an AstroLab and not watch its demo videos. 🙂

Arturia AstroLab

AstroLab and I are not quite ready for each other yet. I really need the Augmented Brass and Augmented Woodwinds. The Augmented series are pretty sweet instruments and acoustic woodwinds, especially, are essential to what I play live. Still, thanks to playing AstroLab now, I will keep AstroLab on my radar screen.

AstroLab or Analog Lab?

In case you haven’t watched a few videos, AstroLab is Analog Lab in a stand-alone keyboard. That’s the short of it. Sitting down to AstroLab is exactly like sitting down with Analog Lab. Most of Lab’s collection of instruments are there along with a number of recognizable presets. I couldn’t perform a systematic check, but I believe Arturia have cooked up additional presets for AstroLab itself.

The big elephant in the room: If you have Analog Lab (or V Collection) on a laptop, why AstroLab? AstroLab is not cheap at $1,599 USD (MAP/street). You can get a pretty decent laptop and Analog Lab for $1,600. For that matter, you can buy Analog Lab V bundled with a KeyLab Essential MK3 for only $270 (MAP). Add on a laptop and you’re ahead of the game. [Analog Lab V is integrated brilliantly with the KeyLab controller series, BTW.] So, AstroLab needs to have significant value-added.

From my own perspective, I’m not wild about using a laptop in a live church setting. I once had a laptop balk in church and when I’ve got to play, I’ve got to play. I like the idea of Analog Lab running on a reliable, dedicated keyboard. On the down-side, AstroLab gives up KeyLab’s sliders, having no sliders at all. (To me, pads are MEH.) On the up-side, working at AstroLab is Analog Lab V déjà vu. And that’s a good thing…

Build

AstroLab is an attractive looking instrument. Visually, it would grace any stage. Dimensionally, it is not much wider than the 61-key keybed and, as a result, is quite compact. That’s why AstroLab’s heft is so surprising. At 22 pounds (10 kg), this instrument has some weight and you won’t be throwing it around with palm swipes. The KeyLab Essential 49 and 61 are only 6.1 and 6.8 pounds, respectively. I love my KeyLab Essential 49 for its light weight and portability. Thus, the relatively weighty AstroLab is a double surprise.

Arturia AstroLab Color Display Encoder

The build, encoder knobs, buttons and keys feel solid and durable. The integrated display knob, not so much. The display knob — what Arturia calls the “Color Screen Encoder” — feels like it rocks around and I feared a bit for its safety in my under-caffeinated hand. I would rather confirm selection with one of those solid-feeling buttons near the display knob.

One near-term suggestion: Ditch the cheesy-assed music stand shown on the Arturia AstroLab “Details” web page. It’s not up to the usually superb Arturia design aesthetics.

Display and UI

I was quite amazed by the amount of detail shown by the color display. You can easily recognize all of the virtual synths and keyboards by their familiar appearance. I didn’t have any trouble reading the instrument, patch, and parameter names. Text is legible.

As to the user interface (UI), you can dial around the menu system (literally). Patches are organized by virtual instrument, sound category (strings, etc.) and artist. The artist category lets you dial in a patch based upon a popular song or what have you, a feature that will be welcomed by cover-band players.

Arturia need to divide a few categories into separate, smaller categories. For example, brass and woodwind instruments are in the same, combined category. In order to find a clarinet, I must scroll through a bunch of brass instruments. It’s bad enough to scroll through a list of instruments, but, hey, lets focus the list and reduce scroll time. How ’bout separate categories for woodwinds and brass?

Splits and layers

My only other source of frustration was trying to create a split. I didn’t have time to browse the AstroLab manual before heading down to the music shop. Intuition alone didn’t cut it and I never succeeded in creating a split. Bummer.

Sounds

I took along this week’s music and a few of the jazz tunes that I’ve been working on. Genre-wise, it’s pop, not electronica.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a large number of patches that could fill-in for the Augmented Brass and Woodwind instruments. That’s a relief. Generally, patches sounded bright and I raised this point with the store manager. The staff had compared AstroLab vs. Nord and found more mid- to low-range with the Nord through the same monitors. Tweaks needed?

Some of the acoustic pianos sounded too bright and brittle. Fortunately, they could be tamed with the “Brightness” and “Timbre” knobs. I felt much better once I got into the Augmented Pianos. Nice work, there. I couldn’t assess piano sustain, not having a sustain pedal attached to the demo unit.

As to the keybed, it is comfortable to play. It’s another one of those “Compromise” keybeds which aim for a sweet-spot between acoustic piano, electric piano, organ and synth. I much prefer the AstroLab keybed to KeyLab Essential — by far. The keybed made playing electric piano enjoyable (something I dread on Yamaha MODX6). B-3 organ didn’t feel bad under the fingers, either.

I have only one small, probably correctable, quibble about the key touch. Sometimes a patch wouldn’t trigger (produce any sound) when using my lightest touch. This seemed to occur with synth-y patches and maybe setting the key touch sensitivity would make the instrument more responsive.

I did notice a delay when switching between “sampled” instrument patches. Arturia acknowledge this delay due to sample loading. Plan for it when playing live. Switching between modeled instruments is darned quick. I didn’t notice any drop-outs due to polyphony limits, but then I wasn’t pushing AstroLab very hard with splits or layers.

Conclusion

Earlier, I addressed the big elephant in the room — what you get for what you pay. Arturia want to compete with the Yamahas, Korgs, Rolands and Nords. In terms of build and keybed, they are on par. As to sonic value-added, the AstroLab is a work in progress (WIP).

Arturia are smart enough to know it’s a WIP. They need to fill out the brass and woodwind offerings, for example.

The big value-add is Arturia’s sound design. AstroLab is Analog Lab V (temporarily minus some goodies). If you want Analog Lab V in a dedicated keyboard, you got it now.

Copyright © 2024 Paul J. Drongowski

Arturia Keylab Essential mk3

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Why do I like Arturia?

First, they make great products and I use ’em. I own and play both an Arturia Keylab Essential mk2 and an Arturia Keystep — not to mention the software!

Second, Arturia really care about customers. Recently, I posted about the new Arturia Keylab Essential mk3 and how it needed to send MIDI Program Change:

I was excited when I saw Arturia’s announcement of the Keylab Essential mk3 MIDI controller. The mk3 has some nice enhancements without increasing weight and size over the mk2. The price is only slightly higher ($219 USD for the 49 mk3). The mk3 adds a larger 2.5″ LCD display, USB-C communications and power, and expression pedal support.

I downloaded the mk3’s manual and was immediately crestfallen. Keylab Essential mk3 cannot send MIDI Program Change. This is a serious step back from the mk2.

The Keylab Essential mk2 is one of the few MIDI controllers that does it right, sending Bank Select MSB, Bank Select LSB and Program Change in one go. I’m still amazed that most other MIDI controllers send Program Change without Bank Select.

Well, guess what? Arturia saw my post and replied:

We really value our users’ input, and we are very sorry to hear that you were disappointed by the fact that the new KeyLab Essential cannot send MIDI Program Change. We know that it was a much appreciated feature on the mk2, and our R&D team is currently doing their best to implement it on the mk3 as soon as possible. For your information, a new firmware should be out in about three weeks, and we’re hoping you’d be willing to give a shot to the KeyLab essential mk3 then.

By the way, I’ll be looking at the new Part feature (split point!) as this is a super, needed advancement over mk2.

Thanks, Arturia, for reading the blog and being proactive! I think it’s always important to call out manufacturers and retailers who go the extra mile (or kilometer) for customers.

Music Expo Boston 2017

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Saturday was a glorious warm day in Boston — perfect for a trip to Cambridge and Music Expo Boston. Music Expo is a series of mini-conferences produced in association with Sound On Sound magazine. Boston is fortunate to have Music Expo this year along with Miami and San Francisco. Loic Maestracci is the main organizer and he did he bang up job. The iZotope development labs and studios were the local host and venue.

Music Expo has an informal workshop feel to it. Even the more “formal” presentations had a friendly, laidback vibe with people freely getting into Q&A. Several companies had exhibits which were hands-on. (More about this later.) For example, Ableton had three Push 2 systems on hand where you could sit and try one out with the guidance of the booth staff.

Two session tracks and the exhibits ran in parallel, so one needed to pick and choose carefully. If I leave anyone out from this review, apologies — there was just too much going on at once.

My day got started with a fine performance by Elyssa Nicole Fontes and Megazoid. Elyssa is a composer and vocalist who uses backing tracks to perform. The staff had made a decision to move Elyssa and Megazoid to a more accomodating studio, so Elyssa had to fill dead air while the techs brought up her gear and tracks. This goes to show that artists always need to be prepared to handle tech issues in front of a live audience. Elyssa handled the situation with poise and aplomb. It also gave the attendees a chance to ask many questions about her technique, gear, mix, etc.

I then dropped by the Arturia booth to say “Hello.” The Arturia team certainly showed how to travel light with various ‘steps, a laptop and a MiniBrute. That MiniBrute is too cool for school and tiny! I’m glad that I visited the booth early because they seemed quite busy throughout the day.

Next stop was the Yamaha booth. “Booth” is not quite the right word as Yamaha were ensconced in a recording studio. They were demonstrating their latest — the MX88, Montage and Reface — with the MX88 and Montage routed through Yamaha HS8s and a sub. And joy of joy, the demonstrator was Phil Clendeninn! Like most studios, this one had a comfy couch in the back, so I kicked back while Phil ran through 30+ minutes of the best of Montage. Among other sounds, he desconstructed the Seattle Strings performance. The violins are far more realistic and expressive than the MOX patch which I am now using for exposed lines. Oh, I am so ready for this.

Highlight of the day number one: I finally had a chance to meet and chat with Phil. Phil is better known as “Bad Mister” (yes, the dude can play) who has written many useful, informative Motif and Montage guides and has answered zillions of questions on the Yamaha synth site and on the langouring Motifator site.

We covered a lot of ground. When I mentioned Yamaha arrangers, his response was “Oh, ho, you just wait!!” BTW, having done booth duty at SIGGRAPH and elsewhere, I’m amazed at the amount of energy and enthusiasm that Phil brings, and brings, and brings. It’s very hard to maintain that kind of level.

While we were conversing, I finally had a chance to try a Yamaha Reface YC. Of all the Reface, the YC could still win my heart thanks to Vox and Farfisa nostalgia. I always wanted a Continental as a kid, but had to settle for a Mini Deluxe Compact. (More well-kept vintage gear which I wish that I still had.)

I mentioned to Phil that I hadn’t been able to play a YC since launch despite efforts to find one in Boston, Seattle, and Lord knows where else. He acknowledged that this is a problem in this day and age of Internet sales. He ran through a list of concerns that a physical retailer would have: physical security to keep demo units from developing legs, knowledgable staff, etc. He thought that the lack of knowledgable staff also hurts mid- to high-end arranger sales in North America. Sometimes musicians need to be shown what an instrument can do in order to make a sale. The array of buttons on a modern arranger or synth can be intimidating and you don’t often know where to dive in.

From my point of view, there is only one nationwide brick and mortar music store in the U.S., Guitar Center, and unfortunately, knowledgeable keyboard staff are few and far between. I had a flashback to AMD days and the brick and mortar dominance of Best Buy in the computer, laptop, tablet space. It’s difficult to sell and support technogically complicated products to end users. (Please keep this thought.)

With a crush of people coming in, I bade Phil farewell and stopped at the Q Up Arts booth. Q Up Arts were demonstrating the California Keys (for N.I. Kontakt) — a sampled Fazioli 10ft grand. California Keys is cleverly packaged and I won’t spoil the surprise.

Highlight of the day number two: My wide-ranging conversation with Douglas Morton of Q Up Arts. To those in the know, Douglas is a talented, veteran sound developer and artist. I used a number of Q Up Arts products back in the day when samples were provided on audio CDs. (And dinosaurs roamed the Earth.) We began discussing the good old days of audio editing, vintage computer gear, Douglas’s work for the Salt Lake City Aquarium, ending with cross-country skiing in Utah. Douglas lives in two gorgeous locations: Dana Point, CA and Park City, UT. (Been to both and once lived in SLC myself.)

One of the subjects that we touched on was how to bring up the next generation of players on new software and gear. (Familiar theme now, huh?) Youtube videos only go so far; it’s got to be hands on. I quickly thought back to my experience in the morning at the Ableton booth. Push 2 is a spiffy product. That display, c’est magnifique! The Push 2 user interface, however, is not as immediately intuitive as the Novation Launchpad, for example. Thank goodness there was an Ableton staff member on hand to guide me. (Shades of gramps with a smart phone. 🙂 )

Douglas thought that an educational tour of high school and college music labs might be part of the solution. I thought of Living Computers Museum+Labs in Seattle. Education is where Living Computers could ace the synth exhibits at the Museum of Pop Culture, also in Seattle. (MoPOP was formerly known as the “EMP Musuem” and is another Paul Allen venture.) The MoPOP synth exhibits, at least when I visited a few years ago, didn’t offer much in the way of guidance and weren’t inspirational. Living Computers, however, have enthusiastic staff, labs and an educational outreach mission.

Lunchtime and I was able to hear Decap deconstruct his track See You Out There. Decap is a West Coast hip hop music producer (Talib Kweli, Snoop Dogg, Ne-Yo, and Tim Kile). I enjoyed his presentation very much while unwinding and eating lunch in the iZotope cafeteria. Coffee was provided, gratefully, as I had left the house early to drive to the MBTA subway stop. Decent coffee at that.

One big take-away from Decap is the need for playfulness and persistence. His tracks grow from ten minutes of sheer inspiration through four or more days of perspiration as he experiments and shapes it. His experience fits with my current personal philosophy. Put the phone (or tablet) down, start playing and stick with it. Stop pining after the next new tool. You probably have everything that you need already. Just get on with it! Be spontaneous, playful, and take advantage of happy accidents.

Cakewalk demonstrated a prototype virtual reality (VR) system for clip-based composition. You navigate a 3D space where you are surrounded by instruments and virtual pads that select and control clips. Reflecting on the experience today, I think they have a solid technology demonstrator. I give them my computer science respect for getting their system up and running. Cakewalk still need to find the killer hook that makes you want to pull out your credit card though. Surround sound development? It’s early days yet and I wish them the best.

Next session was a panel discussion about “D.I.Y. in the Recording Studio: Building and Maintaining your Analog Gear.” The panel consisted of six folks who are hands on engineers and producers. Great advice from all although I have a small quibble with making one’s own cables. I make terrible cables! I’d rather build a kit to gain electronics experience than fighting crappy home-built cables while performing or making a track. That’s just me.

The panelists spoke about how they got started. It struck me that all of the panelists got started by playing with electronics even if early experiments didn’t work out so well. Just do it! The notion of playful, enthusiastic, self-directed learning is totally at odds with today’s mania for educational accountability and teaching to the test. What is happening to the creative dimension of engineering and the arts in this country? Engineers and artists are bright, intelligent people and we seem to be actively stifling early enthusiasm. Arg!

At that point in the day, I had to call it quits and head home. It takes a while to get home from Cambridge and I didn’t want to get too strung out. What a glorious day walking in Cambridge. Kendall Square looks like “Science City” in a futuristic sci-fi movie with all of its computer and bio labs. The trains were a little crowded with very colorful people heading to and from Boston Pride. A great day all around.

My conversations and experiences convinced me of the value of Music Expo. Youtube videos, e-mail, texts, etc. are not enough. You need to rub shoulders with other kindred souls, converse, handle gear, ask questions, hear other people’s questions, get answers, be guided. NAMM is not the right venue. Music Expo Boston had it right: friendly, personal and interactive.

Copyright © 2017 Paul J. Drongowski