MKB300 Redux

Back in the 1980s, midi was young, and so was I. It was then that I fell in love with the Roland MKB-300 controller keyboard. You can read Chapter One elsewhere on this blog.

I'd used it for years, but other synths and controllers eventually took its place. I'd tried, and failed, to sell it on Craig's list and Ebay. Shipping and packing seemed daunting anyway, so eventually the MKB-300 was just sitting in a closet gathering dust.

Chapter Two for the MKB-300 began when someone else fell in love with it. A Gearchild reader named Anonymous.

Anonymous, it turned out, had an actual name, Peter Ehrlich, and it turned out he was looking for one. He rocked a mellow techno groove, was into vintage synths and it seemed he really took a shine to the controller keyboard. Emails ensued, I posted the video, above, to show him the keyboard in action, we settled on a price. He was game.

 From Mr. Ehrlich:

"The Roland MKB represents to me the pinnacle of midi controller design because it sits at such a transitional period in the history of midi.  It is an instrument in its own right and, as such, is geared towards players rather than producer/engineers, where I fall. I enjoy the idea that I may be able to assist this instrument in continuing its musical journey.  At least I intend to give it my best shot.

But I was still wary about shipping the hulking monster keyboard.  Its hugeness was one of the main reasons I'd resisted putting up on ebay. It would likely be expensive to ship and be a huge hassle as well.

But Peter's enthusiasm won out and his shipping tips convinced me it would be possible: Hit your local bike shop trash for huge sized cartons, use a lot of bubble wrap, tape and ship it via the post office. The post office? Yes. He said he once even got a stove shipped through the post office.

Low and behold, the U.S.P.S. web site seemed to suggest they'd take a package of this size and weight. Unfortunately my local post office EMPLOYEE would NOT take it. The clerk with the tape measure said it was too big. I sensed ineptitude and my instinct was right—the post office two miles down the road had no issues with it. I heaved the coffin-sized box over the counter, and off it went.

After a a week and 3000 miles on mail trucks, it arrived without a hitch. The MKB-300 was home again.

Alesis NanoPiano

Alesis makes a lot of small, inexpensive music gear with a lot packed inside. Buy something Alesis and you'll get what you expected, once home you will likely find a whole bunch more functionality, sounds or something under the hood.

That it's almost a shame, as lots of potential customers may have passed this up, not realizing how much it could do.

Yes, it was "nano," that is, small. But the sounds were huge sounding, high quality (16 bit 48k) and it had 64 full notes of polyphony all packed into its tiny 1/3 rack space.

The name is also not right. Yes, there were amazing acoustic and electric pianos in there, all you'd need, but also bass, organs, mallet percussion, synths, sound effects and all manner of splits and layers.

They kept it simple and hands on, two knobs got you to all 256 sounds manually, and I never got so far as to try and use program change messages to switch between them remotely do any editing as you could with an external editor, apparently.

I, like most, I suspect, who got this, did so for the cheap and available sounds, the immediate gratification of the front panel. It was fun, but if you like to tweak, forget it.

It was not multi-timbral either, one patch at a time, kids. That was the ultimate downside for me, and I moved on looking for a rack unit that had performance set ups I could program per composition in my sequencer. A pallet of sound I could use AT THE SAME TIME.

I guess I just wanted more. I had plenty though, I just wasn't appreciating it. I've seen these on ebay for like nothing, and I've just set up an alert to tell me when one comes up.

I want my NanoPiano back.

Behringer Bcr-2000

Behringer BCR-2000

My last post really got me thinking about finding a midi controller of my own. It would really help to mix in Ableton Live, which is what I usually use. I'm on a laptop and it's been particularly a pain using the mouse pad to mix. You can't really do things in real-time. Well, maybe one thing. Mostly, you need to set up snapshots and draw curves for fades, and envelopes. It's nice to have all that control, but some actual faders, knobs and buttons would take it to a whole another level.

I came home with the Evolution UC-33 first. For $199 it had faders and buttons, all could be programmed. I was able to set it up pretty easily, but it became clear pretty quickly that when I turned it on every fader was going to be in the wrong place! You touch it and you get a sudden jump in your volume or eq value or whatever you've mapped that partucular controller to. I woke up the next day thinking that it really sucked, if only because of that.

I returned it and got the Behringer Brc-2000 instead for $139. I thought about the BCF-2000 (F for fader) at first. It's got actual motorized faders. Nice, but for 150 bucks, how good could those motors really be? It was going to break, I figured, so I went for the BCR-2000 (R for rotary).

The BCR also has a lot more controllers on it and they also show the value of the parameter mapped to each knob by lighting up a ring of LEDs. So you get the same function and feedback as the motorized faders, but no motors to worry about. The knobs are infinite, they don't top out, so they are always in the right position.

The main problem, if you can call it that, is that with so many controllers, it's hard to remember what a particular knob or button is going to do. Think about it, there are 32 knobs and 16 buttons in each scene. But the top row of 8 knobs also act as push buttons, and has 4 encoder "groups," making those 8 into 32 knobs and 32 buttons. Add those 64 assignable controllers to the other 24 knobs and you have 88 controllers per scene x 32 scenes and you get over 2800 assignable controllers available! I bet that'll be enough. Of course midi messages can be sent on any of the 16 midi channels so the amount of possible unique messages you can program is just insane. (Oh, I forgot, there are another 4 buttons on the side. I use those for transport functions). I'll lay a strip of tape down, like we do on a big mixing board, and mark it up.
A company in the UK makes markable, erasable plastic overlays for this too.

I set mine up in a rough amalgam of the channel strip in LIVE!, with solo and mute buttons, volume, pan and send knobs for each channel, up to 8. Another 8 continue in the next scene. I rarely use more tracks than that. I saved an encoder group on top to address volumes of each of the drums in LIVE!'s drum machine instrument. LIVE! learns the controllers with a little wiggle, so it's easy to set up existing projects to receive the right controllers, and I've set up a blank LIVE! template for new ones. There are free controllers left over for soft synths and real-time tweaking of filters or effects parameters. Quite fun. I haven't felt this knob-happy since I had my Pro One.

So far so good. I've been having a little trouble with some of my virtual synths that lack documentation as to which controllers each of their virtual knobs or buttons receive, but I'm experimenting and figuring some of that out. Additionally, when I got it home I discovered the BCR-2000 is also a full a midi interface for other gear. It's midi ins and outs connect with it's USB port and the computer. Good thing, because with my Mbox and this, there's no USB port left on my laptop for my keyboard controller.

As for the look (mine is the one at the top of this post, it looks more black than blue) — call it retro — the physical design lacks the modernity of Novation's Launchpad or Nocturn controllers — this looks sort of clunky, chunky 90s. That is until the house lights go out and the Christmasy red glow of the manyLEDs begins to charm you. There's even a way to make them act like a UV meter and bounce to the music. I haven't figured that out yet, but I will.

Best $139 I've spent in a long time.

Cool Control Surfaces

I'm loving the new controllers coming out that are built to integrate with Ableton Live, which I use as my main composition tool. They mimic the software program's grid and allow you to "play" a physical surface, allowing the software to reach into the actual (not virtual) world, where our hands and bodies can interact. Composers and musicians and DJs especially love Live because of its clip view. You can use it to launch entire sets of songs, all tempo matched, and intuitively mix, add additional tempo matched (or not) flourishes, integrate virtual instruments, etc. Composers can arrange and mix variations of a tune by launching individual parts at will. All on the fly. And now with these cool controllers we have tons of buttons and sliders to "play" the software with.

1 Akai's APC40 ABLETON PERFORMANCE CONTROLLER, $349
This thing is awsome, integrating a sliders, knobs the huge pad grid. Here is what they say about it:

The unusual front panel of the APC40 is packed with glowing buttons. It looks this way because it's designed to let you to take complete control of Live's unique Session View. Session View features a grid that allows you to load audio and MIDI clips into its cells. You can play and stop each of these clips in any sequence, and you can launch groups of clips together as a "scene." You can choose to have the software time-stretch and quantize all of these sounds so they flow together musically. It's an extremely simple yet wildly creative approach to manipulating sound, but until now there has been no true hardware solution that could free the user from staring deeply into their computer monitor with a mouse in their hand.

2 Novation LAUNCHPAD, $199
I like Novation's version better. It's cheaper, has a cooler minimal design, and even though it doesn't have sliders you can mix by switching modes and sliding up and down a column of the buttons. You should really check out the promotional video. Here's some of their description:

Each button has three color states so you can see at a glance what's loaded (orange), what's playing (green), and what's being recorded (red). Similarly, Live's interface tells you what section of the Session View the Launchpad is currently controlling. This two-way communication ensures that Launchpad and Ableton Live are always perfectly in sync.

Launchpad doesn't just launch clips. Switch to "mixer mode" and the same button grid offers a unique way to control Ableton Live's mixer. Volume, pans, sends, track arming, soloing and muting can all be controlled via the grid. Using buttons instead of dials, Launchpad lets you jump to different levels across 8 channels at once, useful for controlling multiple effects sends.

Again, software is finding it's way to our physical world, where we can interact in a natural, physical way.

3 This is an plain old ACCORDION
That's right, not a cool midi controller at all. So what's the point here? Just that there is really nothing new going on. Accordions have been integrating rows of buttons to trigger chords and notes in a really similar way for 200 years. It made sense then, and it still does. So why'd it take so long for the manufacturers to figure this out again? I don't know, but I'm glad they did.

But if you really want a midi accordion, you can have that too. Roland's V-Accordion goes for about $1600.

Roland MBK-300 Midi Controller

The MKB-300 weighs a ton, on the other hand, how many 23 year old midi controllers do you have that still work perfectly?

This is the way they used to make them, solid metal all around and real wood too. Built like a tank, my MKB-300 controller has lasted over two decades and still performs flawlessly. When I got this around 1987 or so, a midi controller was still an exotic thing. I can't remember how many times I had to explain midi to my friends, musicians and non-musicians alike: "Well, it doesn't actually make any sounds on it's own, it triggers sounds in other equipment. . ."

Now days midi controllers are a dime a dozen. And they're flimsy, for the most part. But besides the build, this board was well thought out. 76 keys, semi-weighted action, and 128 memories all easily accessible, through its 8 bank buttons and 16 program change buttons. It allows two midi channels for each memory location. The two channels are set up as either programmable splits, in dual mode (2 midi channels stacked) or use the whole keyboard for a single midi channel, switchable with the second.

In addition, each of the two channels in each of the 128 memory locations had a programmable bank and program number associated with it. So when you hit a memory location, you got the channels you wanted, the split/dual or whole mode you wanted, and the program change you wanted. You were ready. If playing in a band, you could easily plan out a few sets worth of patches on a couple of outboard synths, or a multitimbral module. You could improvise as well, sending program changes at will, then conveniently snap back to your saved setups.

And no menus to navigate, a major annoyance, so for me, this early midi board hit a sweet spot in the development of midi gear. It did a lot, yet everything was on the front panel, perfect for performance. Just push a few buttons. May just one.

Ok, it had no aftertouch, but I usually turned reception of that data off in my sequencer anyway so as not to clog my midi pipeline. But it did have a bunch of midi outs, something you never see these days, and let's not forget the individual damper and soft pedals inputs for each channel, adjustable dynamics via a pot on the back and the handy-dandy transpose slider for easy key changes.

Back in the day (1984), his baby retailed way up there, somewhere between 1 and 2 grand. I have a feeling it didn't sell that well. It was overbuilt, and demand wasn't that great for midi controllers. I got it at a blowout sale for about $600 in 1988. I used it for about 10 years straight, and had it on the side, occasionally tinkling its ivories since, but less and less with the purchase of new toys that have replaced it. I hate to see it go, but I just need the space, and since it won't die, I finally decided to put it up for sale.

Korg Micro X

"As an absolute minimum we would suggest 32 MG and a processor running at 120 MHz. There is no maximum system requirement, but an Apple G3/300 MHz with 64 MB or more would be very cool." -FROM THE BOX OF CUBASE VST, MY FIRST COMPUTER RECORDING/VIRTUAL INSTRUMENT SOFTWARE PROGRAM.

Boy do times change. My current mac blows those specs away, but software has gotten more demanding too. My 1.4 ghZ G4 notebook starts to hicup in Live or Protools with a just a couple of virtual instruments running — sometimes with just one demanding vst. Let's face it, not everyone can afford to get the latest computer every year.

Frustrated by crashes I went out looking for an external voice module to trigger via midi out of my sequencer. My adventure with the JV101 proved less than ideal. I wanted something editable and with more contemporary sounds.

I never even heard of the Korg Micro X when a salesman pointed it out to me. It's keyboard is so short you can barely play it on it's own, but with a controller keyboard (I already had one) and almost any computer (even my lame G4) the sounds, editing and system integration of this machine really shine.

Get this: The supplied editor opens just like a virtual synth inside of your recording software, so you can work seamlessly inside your sequencer, just like with virtual synths, only here the processing chores are all off-board, on the Micro X's back. Free of the CPU load of the virtual synths, my lame mac is running like a champ.

Add to that: Lots of great sounds, ample polyphony, editable, multiple arpeggiators, realtime control knobs and even built in templates for using its knobs as midi controllers for Live and other software, the little thing is a rocket in the pocket with a sequencer, and lot's of fun to play on it's own with it's cool patches and synced arpeggios.

And it comes with an orange case. Well worth the $500.

Roland JV-1010

The JV-1010 is like Las Vegas. Lots of sparkle and polish, affordable to get there, but my short vacation with this unit is ending. (I got this 1999 half-rack at a used music store for $175 a few months ago [2008]).

And it really isn't a synthesizer, in the traditional sense, despite what it says on the panel. Yes, you can get into the JV-1010 and start raw with the waveforms and create new sounds by modifying what happens to them, "like" a real synthesizer. But editing the sounds on this is limited for me by the fact that there is no reasonably priced Mac editor software for it these days. Not surprising, because this is so old it has a serial computer connection on the back!

It's basically a "ROMpler." It plays back bits of samples of natural instruments or actual synthesizers from ROM to mimic natural instruments, synths, sound effects etc. And it does it really well for $175 (what I paid in 2008). By God there are over 1000 patches in this, probably every sound you've ever heard on a record or in performance! Drums, pianos, organs, clavs, guitars or all kinds, and plenty of synthesizer sounds. The specs are truly awesome.

That's pretty much how my ebay auction reads. Sure, it's great for producing recordings. You have all the sounds right in here. But I'm in this for the fun, and I want to do something, not just play back canned sounds. And yes, composing and arranging is doing something, but somehow the overstuffed library of sounds in the JV-1010 makes it just too easy to randomly pick and choose and get a comfortable sounding track going. Like Las Vegas glitter, it's hard for the individual personality to shine through the prepackaged glitz.

I feel like I have a brick of gold on the table, but I needed groceries. See, the folks down at the Shoprite won't accept it at the register. It's just not the currency I need right now. I'm in the market for a tweakable, knob-ladden synth or sampler serving immediate sound mangling satisfaction.

Voyetra Sequencer Plus on IBM PC XT

Not my music! But this really shows Voyetra Sequencer Plus

These days you can do more with an iphone, but in 1984 Voyetra Sequencer Plus rocked the music world as the first professional MIDI sequencer available for DOS. Back in those days, floppy disks were really floppy. On my IMB PC XT, with its two floppy disks (no hard disk) probably 128K of ram, if that, it actually did a great job. I had it hooked into my FBO1's and Roland 707. Suddenly, I commanded midi control central.

The joy of this software was its simplicity, and the clip above does a good job at showing the screens and interface. It was basic, but some ideas haven't been bettered, like the now standard MIDI "player piano scroll" note view, already there 25 ago. There were no windows, you had a few full screens to go to, but everything was right there in front of you, the way I still like it, as in Abelton Live, which I use today. Stacks and stacks of windows are bothersome and get in the way of your creative flow.

I bought the used XT from a co-worker who was upgrading for $375 with a monitor and everything. He accepted an installment plan of $125 a month. It was actually 1987 when I got this setup going. And I used it for some time, until I graduated to a Mac 2ci and Steinberg Cubase.

My XT/Voyetra setup grew. In the end it fed midi to an 8-way midi-splitter connected to my 2 Yamaha FB01s (4 audio outs), a Yamaha TX16W sampler (10 outs). My drum boxes were the Roland TR707 (8? outs) and an Alesis SR16 (4 outs) and I also got good drum sounds from the AKAI XE8 (even more outs). I ended up with quite a few audio tracks that I could individually control. They all lead to a 16 channel Boss mixer, n0t even enough channels to handle the load. The simplicity afforded by a visual interface was complicated down the line by the enormous amount of audio it could trigger. The awesome tangle of wires, I grew to hate, while the Voyetra Sequencer Plus I have fond memories of. It plain-old-fashioned-simple WORKED.

And it didn't give me CPU overload messages!

The computer is still sitting in my mother-in-law's attic. I wonder if I can get it running again?

The Astounding Yamaha FBO1

Lame little DX module, say you?
When this arrived in 1986 or so, with it's unbelievable EIGHT note polyphony with up to 8 discrete midi channels, all for about $400 bucks, it really was revolutionary. I got mine when it dropped to $299.
Let's remember the little FBO1 as the module that broke that $500 price barrier, bringing multitimbral midi, internal memory, ability to patch edit on a computer and the sound (almost) of the DX7 (only 4 operators for the FB01) to the common man.We're used to our multitimbral workstations and computer instruments, but back in the 80s you needed real cash to get a multichannel midi setup happening. Two of these could be linked for a full 16 note polyphony as well.

It's limitations were also it's strengths. For example the polyphony was not allocated dynamically among the voices. You needed to assign 1 voice to you bass patch, 4 to your string pad, 2 to a percussion thingy, and the last to something else. Accidentally lay a fifth note on the pad? You'll not steal from the churning bass riff. Lack of flex brought control.

At least that's how I thought about it. Anyway, who ever heard of dynamic voice allocation back then? That was Star Wars stuff.

Soon I got two of these and used them on a primitive sequencing setup: A Voyetra sequencer on a DOS PC XT without even a hard drive. The dual floppy discs really were floppy those days. A few other modules for drums, some effects. And I had something going there.

And two of these screwed into a rack nice and neat.

Here's a nice link.