Posted By Scott on March 26, 2010
It took a year but I do think I have my keyboard stand, tier, sheet music holder with light and a boom mike stand all figured out. My new drummer throne seat is on back order so I’ll save that for another post. The stand is a OnStage Platform stand with the add on On-Stage Stands Deluxe 2nd Tier. Both items were purchased at SweetWater Pro Music. The light fixture I got at the local Andersons hardware store. That fixture has a base with holes that make mounting it a snap. I fastened the top of an old sheet music stand on one set of the tier arms. I don’t know if I will but I may place my DR-880 on the tier arms in the future. I’m also interested in that new Roland VP-7 voice effect box but I got to think on that for a while. The Roland PK-5A bass pedal unit needs a lot of room and that’s why you need a platform table like stand with legs that angle out a bit.
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.
Category: Keyboard Rig |
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Posted By Scott on March 26, 2010
The Degage Jazz Cafe had Steve Richko playing on a Thursday evening (a no cover evening) so I dropped by to hear a couple songs. Steve was playing with his bass player and was making that Yamaha piano sound oh so good. Jazz is cool and Steve was cranking it out, I’m just amazed how good so many people are at it. The only downside was I think everyone was home watching the NCAA basketball games as there wasn’t much of a turnout to hear piano that night. Even so, I enjoyed watching some fast fingers rip across the keys and still made it home in time to watch a double OT time game.
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.
Category: Around Town |
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Posted By Scott on January 30, 2010
Until recently I had a home kite building business so I just happen to have an industrial strength sewing machine. That machine has came in very handy for building dust covers for my amps and keyboards. I use that plastic tarp material you can get at a hardware store. A big 12 x 12 sheet of it maybe costs $15. I get the silver colored stuff which has a black colored backing. For edging I used 1″ wide nylon strap webbing in black also. What I do is fold the webbing around the edges of the material and sew it down. On the cover ends I do the same thing then sew the pieces together. I figure a cover maybe cost me $3 verses $2o for covers I’ve seen in music stores.
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.
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Posted By Scott on January 21, 2010
One reason I blog is to tell people about the mistakes I’ve made in hopes they don’t repeat them. Over the last year I’ve managed to purchase I think seven stands for my three keyboards. I’ve now got some work to do selling the stands I don’t like on EBAY. One thing I don’t like about any of the keyboard stands I’ve purchased to date is the height adjustment isn’t very micro. Usually it’s about two inches between settings. One Z stand had almost three inches between settings. If necessary the Z type stands can easily have extra holes drilled between the setting holes to fine tune it to your desired height. The basic scissors (ironing board) type stand I don’t like because those big X bars underneath don’t give much leg room to reach pedals and space is limited as to where you can place pedals underneath. The Z type stands have more leg room and space for pedals. I thought the Z stands were the ticket until I got a Roland PK-5A bass pedal unit. You need a big space for that device.
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.
Category: Keyboard Rig |
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Posted By Scott on January 9, 2010
I’ll really miss my Yamaha YPG-235. I sold it on EBAY for a reasonable used item price. This is the 76 key keyboard I practiced and learned on for like six months before I got my Roland Juno Stage. Even after I got the Stage I still played this guy almost daily as I really liked the built in metronome, simple boogie drum beat number 83 and the default grand piano sound for playing Boogie Woogie type tunes. This unit also does a bit of arranging and recording. For someone just starting out any of the Yamaha YPG models are a great first keyboard choice. It even has a nice detachable sheet music stand built into it!
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.
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