Monclova Home Coming Festival

I didn’t make it down Saturday but did spend a couple hours Friday evening listening to the All4It rock band.   The members of the 4 piece band (lead, bass, drum and keyboard)looked to be in the mid-50′s age group and they played great old cover songs from the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s like they had been doing it for 40 years.    A different keyboard player took the stage most of set two so I guess they had two guys sharing that job.    It’s always great to watch a keyboard player doing his thing with a band ..  unfortunately my ears seem to have troubles hearing the keyboard over the guitars most of the time.   My observation was a good percent of the songs the keyboardist was using a gritty rock organ sound.     However he had a few solos that I’ll have to try myself sometime.   He did a solo introduction with vocal of 3DogKnight’s   ”I  May Be Weary”  that was interesting.    Also the keyboard solo in Hotel California  sounded good also.   

All4It! Band

It was great to have live music and beer I could walk to.   The crowd was a little sparse I thought so I hope more people make it over to Monclova for the 2011 event.

Inside GearFest 2010

SweetWater is a music gear equipment company head quartered in Ft. Wayne  Indiana about a two hour drive from me.    They are a different kind of music warehouse company.  For example when you purchase gear online from them you get a personal followup call from your assigned sales engineer.      When I seen the invite from Sweetwater to GearFest 2010 I didn’t think much about it at first.   Then I read there would be like 150 companies exhibiting products plus some free seminars so I signed up.   Still I was a bit concerned it might be time not so well spent.     I can say now that I’m extremely glad I went because SweetWater’s GearFest was a totally awesome experience.    The SweetWater facilities are incredible and I surely will go back again.       The highlight of the trip for me was a 90 minute talk by a mixing engineer.  

Mixing Lecture

Outside there were several large tents set up with over a hundred exhibitors.  Everything on display was for sale at GearFest prices.  That meant any gear you saw exhibited could be bought on the spot.    Well not that exact unit but a new unit right  from the warehouse shipped to your front door at a crazy low GearFest price.  I don’t want to tell you every little thing about GearFest because that would be like telling you the end of a new movie you been wanting to see.    Buy some gear from SweetWater and get invited to GearFest 2011.

Cats Out CD cover

A sampling of the songs in Cats Out is available on the player on the top of this page.   Cats Out  will be available on most  online music distributors in the coming weeks for digital download.   Simply search for artist name  Scott Haas or album name Cats Out.    It can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months to appear on distribution sites so be patient and check back again if you don’t find it on your favorite music site on the first try.    The physical CD’s are scheduled to be available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ScottHaas  around 6/11/2010.   

For you keyboard and piano students the piano sheet music with lyrics  for the songs on Cats Out is available for download  now for a modest fee via the  Boogie Beau Album link on the right of this page.    

Cats Out is my first attempt at composing, recording and all other 101 things it takes to get an original album of songs up online.    Exactly how it’s all done on the computer and keyboard I’ll save  for a future post.     I will say that with the initial learning curve of several software programs behind me the composing, recording and mixing won’t be so challenging next time.   

May 23, 2010
Scott Haas  a.k.a.  Boogie Beau

Roland KC-60 and Behringer Truth B2092A

I use a Roland KC-60 amp which has a sub-woofer output jack on it.   Unlike  the Roland KCW-1 the Behringer Truth B2092A doesn’t have a volume control.   Instead it has an input trim control.   As it turned out the output volume was near perfect for my small 15 x 11 studio room.    However I thought it need a small boost so I got a Behringer MicroMix MX400 mixer.   That worked out great and acts pretty much like a volume control.

Behringer Micro Mixer

The end result is that I’m happy with this setup.  That said I wouldn’t do it again simply because the Truth is a large heavy box with no handles.  It’s really hard to move and takes up a bunch of room at 24 inches tall and  23 inches deep and 13 inches wide.    The other thing is it has a noticeable buzz to it so between that and my PC I don’t have the quiet environment I’d like to have when I’m not pounding on the keys.  One last note is I tried connecting direct from my main mixer L and R outs to the Truth then from it to my Roland KC-60.   Even on the lowest input trim setting the bass volume was way to loud.   At 360 watts the Behringer Truth B2092A can shake down the house.

Owens Center for Fine and Performing Arts

After near a dozen lessons spread over four months I’ve completed my  Owen’s College  Community piano lesson offering.    It was fun, interesting and I surely improved greatly on my sight reading.    Owens College has a music education department and a newish building called the Owen’s Center For Fine and Performing Arts which houses music classrooms, practice rooms and a theater.    My instructor Dr. Lynda Dunn had decades of experience and got me going on some great books from Alfred’s publishing called Alfred  Piano for Adult Beginners.   

Owens Practice Room

Something I found hard was playing the acoustic Yamaha piano which the practice room had.   Between a different chair height and keys that pressed harder than what I have at home I had troubles warming up each week.    Of course  just playing for someone else (the teacher) wasn’t so easy for me either as I just get nervous and the brain stops working.    The big thing about lessons is they make you practice hard because you don’t want to look like an idiot at the next lesson.     I’m continuing on with the sight reading practice a bit every day.  I’m also doing better at  finger type exercises now as  I’ve found I can now sight read and play the notes in those long exercise riffs.    In all the lessons were a good experience.   I think I’m pretty good at learning on my own but as I mentioned a little pressure to practice hard sure helps speed the learning process.

Boogie Beau's Stand Rig

 The mike stand is an On-Stage Stand MS9701TB and I love how it adjusts.   I had planned on mounting the mike on a goose-neck via an attachment that went right on the tier bar.   However that didn’t work.    When you get playing hard there is a thump when you hit bottom on the keys and that sound vibration gets transferred to the stand and to the goose-neck arm and to the mike.   So a mike arm not attached to the keyboard stand is the only way to go.

A couple miles from me on Briarfield Blvd. is a newer place called Vino 100 I had never been to.   I saw in the Blade’s Club line up an acoustic guitarist Calen Savage was playing there so I checked it out on on my way home from Degage.    Vino 100 is  a wine shop and bar combination and appears to me to be a  yuppie hangout which isn’t quite my glass of wine.   From the street you just see a wine shop but once inside right behind the wine displays is the bar area.  It’s not a large place by any means however there was a  noisy crowd there for a Thursday evening filling most of the seats around the bar and tables in the room.   The music was ok but unfortunely the area they had the entertainment at wasn’t on a raise stage and was tucked back in  a  corner not viewable from much of the main room.    I listened for a bit and left, maybe someday they’ll get a piano player.

A few weeks back I finally made it over to check out the new Shawn’s  in Waterville.   This place is basically Shawn’s Backdoor South and even looks the same inside and has plenty of big screen TV’s.   What’s nice is there is a ton of standing area around the bar and people seem to really enjoy hanging out there.    When I was there Johnny Rodriguez was playing  for a packed house on a Saturday evening.    I went back a few weeks later and got my Jigg’s dinner on St. Patty’s day there.    

Of the three of the places I mentioned above I definitely like Shawn’s the best.   It has a  home town friendly atmosphere to it.

Consew 199R sewing covers

On the Roland RD-700 the output cords and power plug stick out the back side so I make a little flap there so the cover fits down nicely.

RD-700 protected by a Boogie Beau made dust cover

 The covers really help keep the keys clean and in this case the sun off also as the keyboard is next to a window.

Table top stand, with mike, sheet music and light

 I have now switched to a table top type stand as seen in the picture above.    The legs angle out on it and I’m happy how quick it folds  for transport also.   I’m going to be adding to this table stand a bit as I want to put an add on bar on the back for a microphone goose-neck and a full length sheet music rack with lights.    As you can see in the picture I now have a mike stand and  sheet music stand on the floor plus a light which is mounted on the table next to the keyboard.    Those three items I hope to make disappear into my table add on.     The only downside of the table top stand is it is not near as stable as the other types as the legs are not very wide.  I would only want to use it for sit down playing.    If you had kids running around in the house then a Z stand would be a better choice.    I’m also looking into how I could make my Z stands a bit wider.   If I could do that I’d be a bit more happy with them.

There is more to a stand than just the stand.  I didn’t mention that most companies sell teir attachments (sometimes called risers) so you can add another keyboard or two on the same stand.   Other attachments include mike booms and sheet music racks.    A type of stand I didn’t mention so far is the column stand which is one big support column with feet and stand arms that fold in for transport.   The column stands sure look cool on stage but run in the hundreds of dollars range in cost.   Yet another type of stand I’ve seen I call the swing set stand known as an  A-Frame stand.  They literally look like a kids swingset and are big and strong for supporting multiple big heavy keyboards with attachments.

In summary just let me say that you probably will never find the perfect stand.  But surely you will have fun trying too.   There are several companies selling keyboard stands however currently I like the On Stage brand of stands the best. 

Yamaha YPG-235 - sold

I’ve had a couple emails from people thinking of buying one asking me why did I sell mine?   Well mainly because I just only have room for like two full size keyboards in my little play room.   Also I want to practice most of the time on the keyboard I plan to perform on and that is the Roland Juno Stage.   One person asked if they should get the 88 key version instead of 76.   Well for someone starting out 88 keys  surely are not necessary.  This keyboard only splits two ways so you still have a lot of keys for each hand to cover.   More expensive keyboards will usually allow you to split the keyboard into 4 parts or even 16 parts like my Roland Juno Stage does.   Those 16 parts by the way are each a separate MIDI track.     There are plenty of songs where the keyboardist can use a piano and an organ and one a 88 keyed keyboard split in the middle can easily cover that.     That is something someone in a performing band might really need but it’s not something a beginner would use.   The internal speakers on any of these portables are a little weak for my tastes.   I had the YPG-235 plugged into a Roland KC-60 and a Subwoofer and it sounded fantastic.