This site is about my endeavor to perform, teach, write and sell Boogie Woogie style piano music. I started learning the piano/keyboard in January 2009 with no previous keyboard experience. I have found that playing the Boogie and Blues genre of music is fun, challenging and a great retirement pastime! Send comments and questions to Boogie Beau
After two years plus playing almost solely on the Roland Juno Stage I decided to try something else .. something hopefully better. Not that I don’t like the Stage, it’s more that I just wanted to expand my horizons and try a weighted realistic keybed again. I did have an older RD700 which I thought was pretty stiff feeling on the key presses. Of course the RD700 didn’t have any newish gizzmo features either .. thus it got sold a few months ago.
Roland FP-7F
My search for a next keyboard took several weeks but I finally decided on a Roland FP-7F that has the new PA III ivory feel escapement 88 key bed. I’m not going to do a review on it here but I do want to mention one of the big selling points for me. The built in song player on it will display lyrics. So that means I can record my Boss DR-880 patterns into Sonar, add chord notations and then play them on the FP-7F. This is something I really wanted to be able to do. I’ll be creating a detailed video slide show on Youtube about how I manage to port my DR-880 patterns over to the FP-7F.
My prized Roland RD-700 and case has been sold. :-( Though I loved the sounds on the RD-700 my finger joints never liked those fully weighted keys. The lightly-weighted rounded edged keys on the Juno Stage are just so much more pleasant to practice on. With the RD-700 gone there was open keyboard stand just begging to be used and I quickly obliged.
M-Audio Venom
At Sweetwater Gearfest 2011 in June I got some hands on time on the new M-Audio Venom and attended an hour demo there on it. It’s a new product, under $450, and comes with a lovely computer based program editor to help setup user presets, sound and arp beats on it. But a warning … the Venom is not for someone looking for a keyboard to learn piano with as it doesn’t even have piano voices on it. Instead it is loaded with aggressive synth sounds and arps. Definitely not my type of music but I want to expand my horizons and thus I went for it.
In a user setup you can layer and or split the keyboard with as many as 4 sounds. Each sound is associated with an arpeggio so you could get 4 arps playing at once. Buttons on the keyboard allow you to control the 4 sounds during a live performance. So that’s the skinny on the M-Audio Venom. Watch for a Youtube of me using it later this fall.
The floor area around my keyboard rig has been an embarrassing scene. Four power strips, several AC/DC adapters, cables everywhere. The area hasn’t seen a good cleaning for a few years as the wife isn’t allowed to run the power sweeper next to all those cables. After a bit of brain work I came up with a solution.
1. I purchased a 48″ x 8″ long shelf from the hardware store. Cut a slot in both ends and added it underneath the table stand. I have a power strip on it and place the AC/DC adapters there on it also for the stage and drum machine. The surplus cordage is gathered in with velcro wire tie straps. I’m using velcro to keep the power adapters in position.
Rig power shelf
2. Though a bit hard to find in the picture I have a second table stand with a smaller 36″ shelf right next to the Juno Stage. That stand has my mixer, computer and VK-8M on top. The shelf board also has a power strip on it which the power strip under the Stage plugs into. I also mounted a third power strip under the long table I have along the wall there. The results is I have no cables except for my foot switches on the floor.
Overall it is just pleasant to look at and a neat image compared to the spaghetti ball of cables that was there previously. I’m working on a third board now for the traveling rig I’m putting together. On that one I’m adding some extra holes to strap down power supplies and I’ll sew up a padded bag for transporting it.
Over the winter I picked up two used drum machines on EBAY. They are very different little beasts. The first one is a Yamaha RY-9 called the Big Jam. The main reason I got this was because of it’s small size and it can run using battery power though it did come with an AC adapter. I figure it will give me something to do on long flights or even when at the beach waiting for wind. However after struggling to learn how to program it I am ready to give it the boot. Though it has some interesting presets it is just not much fun to make beats on. The LCD display is a bit faint also. As I want to spend my spare drum time on the Roland MC-303 I sold the RY9 on EBAY shortly after making this post.
Yamaha RY-9
The second drummer I got was an Roland MC-303. There have been several Roland MC-### models made over the period of like the last 25 years. The MC-303 is way more than a drum mahcine, Roland calls it a Groovebox. The presets are mainly techno trance beats. I was surprised that it contains several rhythm sets as well as a bunch of tones and a bunch of specialty sounds in preset banks as well. I’m still learning how to program beats on it as there are tons of options. The display is neat and bright and the kinda keyboard buttons on it along with all the little led lights .. well it’s cool to
Roland MC-303
just look at when it’s beating. After fiddling with this girl a few hours I now love the EZ-Composer feature on my Roland Boss DR-880 drum machine even more. The EZ-Composer is just such a big time saver as it lets you quickly preview a bunch of different combinations very quickly to come up with a good matching drum beat and bass line for a song. With the MC-303 you need to have what you are looking for in your head first .. then you can program it and go wild with effects. I’m looking forward to spending some serious time with this little girl.
I got my first ever camcorder, an Aiptek HD 12, it does it all and the price just $199. I don’t know if this el cheapo will last forever but it came with battery, a case and all the cables and charges with the included AC adapter or while plugged into your PC via USB. There is even HDMI output.
I can capture myself playing and at the same time screen capture the keyboard keys playing. I then take those two video and align them pretty closely as the audio is all in the screen capture video. I build the final video in Adobe Premiere Elements 9 which can upload directly to my YouTube account. I plan to build several of these learn how to play a song video in an attempt to attract subscribers on YouTube.
