Yamaha DX7 and Fractal Audio FM3 soundscape improvisation

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"I think I'm getting worse at playing keyboard. Anyway, a friend wanted me to fix his DX7, but I can't find anything wrong with it so I tested it out for a little while and just made this brief piece.

Yamaha DX7
Fractal Audio FM3"

Sequential Prophet 10 REV4 and Rhodes Piano | ambient improvisation

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"My family and I went on vacation this week and had a great time. Some things came up at work and frustratingly, I feel I wasn't entirely as present as I'd have liked to have been. Kind of ruined a lot of things for me, but, despite that we had fun.

My oldest daughter, as usual, wanted a stuffy. We went to a store and she decided she wanted to wait to get something at a different place (because she usually liked the stuffed animals there. So later that day we drove down and - to her dismay - the new stuffed animals there were for little kids. We asked how she could tell, but she said she could. She did not want them. But we didn't have time to go back to the other place (since this was a restaurant and we were going to be eating dinner and the other place would be closed). I drove back up afterwards, looking for any place that might sell something similar, but nowhere did. The next day we knew a snow storm was coming in, a huge one. So she was very sad that we wouldn't be able to go back - but I was proud of her for two reasons: 1) She was able to hold off getting something now for the hopes of something better. 2) She didn't just grab something at the second place, because she knew she didn't want those. And although she cried and was very sad, she did not get something there. I was proud of her for that.

The next morning, we decided to go out in the storm and we did end up getting that stuffy for her. I got her something extra too because I was proud of her for waiting.

As for this track - well, I'm trying to see - do I really need that SX-240? Just because it's pretty? Basically, I have found the Prophet 10 actually does sound almost identical to the SX-240. As cool/nice as it is, I can't just keep all this stuff. There's just too much stuff here and I can make the same or better stuff without some of these synths in my studio.

Sequential Prophet 10 REV4
Rhodes Electric Piano MKI
Fractal Audio FM3 for FX"

Roland Jupiter 6 lush pads and Rhodes Piano soundscape

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"I'm convinced the Kawai SX-240 should go, if only because I can trade for something else (Yamaha CP-70b?). But what can take its place that's already here? The Jupiter 6? The Prophet 10? The Prophet VS? They're all similar, but different. Guess that's why I stupidly have so much stuff. I can hear interesting tones from one that I can't hear in another. They're all interesting.

The Jupiter 6 surprised me here. I have learned some tricks about keeping the filter from sounding so harsh, and I think that's helped. It's for sure an unusual synth - and not entirely my favorite. In fact, I'd say generally the SX-240 sounds better (and looks better). I think the SSM2044 filters really make that synth shine, and nothing I have is like that. The Polysix had these filters but it never sounded as good. I think the Prophet 10 probably is the closest, but it also lacks reverse saw waves that I really like for LFOs. I don't know why they omitted those on the P10, but they did.

Track title: When our sighs collapse

Roland Jupiter 6
Rhodes Electric Piano
Fractal Audio FM3"

Unending | Sequential Prophet VS improvisation

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"I was playing the Kawai SX-240 against the Jupiter 6 tonight and started to realize "wow, the Jupiter's filter is really quite 'thin' compared to the SX-240. It's impressive how much better the SX-240 sounds to my ears... so then I pulled out the Sequential Prophet VS and was kind of blown away by how good it and its filters sound. Certainly it is in a class all its own. I found this patch and just really enjoyed improvising.

And this patch was just really inharmonic and just fit these notes…

Sequential Prophet VS
Fractal Audio FM3 for FX"

Missing | Fender Rhodes Electric Piano and Kawai SX-240 improvisation

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"The other night - I learned about the Yamaha CP-70. Now I want one. They sound so good. I can't usually play acoustic piano on my main floor because my kids are around and I'll be distracted. I can't play at night because they're sleeping - so I kind of wanted an acoustic piano in my studio... Of course, from what I hear, the CP-70 is very big. It seems like it's about the same size as my rhodes, but deeper. I would probably have to part with my Rhodes to get the CP-70. I'm not sure what to do....

On another note, yesterday I started to realize that I'm embarrassing my daughter. I was dancing with my younger daughter, and my older daughter wanted nothing to do with it or me. It was a realization that those fun days making her laugh, dancing with her, playing with her, are coming to an end. It made me really sad.

Rhodes Electric Piano
Kawai SX-240
Fractal Audio FM3 pedal for FX (for both instruments)"

Kawai SX-240 soundscape V - Gone away

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"Tonight, my daughter called for me after I put her to bed. It's unusual that she calls for me now as she's gotten older. I used to find it so irritating to get these calls, sometimes 3-4 times a night ("Papaaaaaaaaaa... uhm, I love you"). Now it seems to happen once every few months and is usually something more serious (at least to her), so I run up. She's sitting up in bed telling me about how she was terrified I had "gone away." I think she was just afraid I was going to die (of course, we all are going to some day), but it was hard to get that out of her. Usually the harder days are the days she has the most fun, I guess (maybe creating a lot of memories?). I know we're slowly descending into fewer and fewer days to be together, fewer chances to snuggle before bed, to tell 'Kwazii stories.'

I did tell her that some day I will die - and that I hope that day comes long before her time comes. That I won't be feeling anything when I'm gone, and that I would be happier if it were me and not her. That, of course, didn't really make her feel much better. Me staring at her boogery nose and making a face did. She started giggling, and I knew I had cracked the sadness, which faded, and we could say our good nights.

If you remember me saying the other day I had a financial problem - well, it was that I plugged the Kawai SX-240 back in to play it and it was dead. Nothing would happen. I was miserable, because I was planning to sell it and of course it would die before I could! Well, I managed to fix it. If you ever look up the service manual for this thing, it's horrible. I didn't realize how bad it was until I messaged Bob Grieb about his Tauntek eprom update (thinking maybe a bad eprom was the problem). He said it wasn't likely the problem, but sent me his version of the service manual and you can actually see the traces on it (the online version is so bad it didn't even pick up half the traces!). From there, I could see there was a bad solder joint between Pin 3 of the EPROM (I was right, something was wrong with the EPROM!) and Pin 2 of an adjacent IC. And - well, I brought it back to life. Another successful repair.

Kawai SX-240 and Fractal Audio FM3 for FX."

The new sorrow | A Rhodes and Minimoog somber track

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"Too many things to describe. Too many things pointing to a future of horrors.

Rhodes Electric Piano with Fractal Audio FM3 + looping
Moog Minimoog with Strymon El Cap
Native Instruments Raum for reverb
KDEnlive for video editing
Reaper DAW for audio editing
Moved over to Linux"