This GAS is Kickin’ my Ass
April 15th, 2007 by 
Rory Harper
Oh, I’m feeling so, so shallow and foolish right now.
We’ve all been preaching here about getting rid of our Stuff, and I myself have more than once mounted the pulpit to sermonize on the Evils of That Damned Evil Materialism.
I’m just a simple hippie boy at heart. All I need is my fair allotment of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll, and I’m relatively happy. And when I’m not happy, I’ve got the Blues to get me through.
I don’t want a fancy car, a big home, lots of money in the bank, don’t want to own or consume unnecessarily, don’t want to use up the bounty of Mother Earth.
Don’t want what I don’t need.
But, right now, I need a 61-key to 88-key MIDI-enabled keyboard, dammit! With class-compliant USB connectivity, hammer-action (or at least semi-weighted) velocity-sensitive keys with aftertouch, and the ability to split zones. Send on sixteen channels so I can have maximum multi-timbrality. Easily assignable modulation and pitch-bend wheels.
:
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It doesn’t have to have transport controls or rotary encoders, or an x-y pad, or touch-sensitive drum pads.
Because — I had a fit of Gear Acquisition Syndrome toward the end of last year, and Rachael the Awesome bought me an M-Audio Axiom 25 controller keyboard for Yule. And it has all of those things.
At that point, I honestly believed that I had all the equipment on hand that I’d need to make any music I wanted to. I quit bullying or tricking friends and loved ones into letting me go to Guitar Center whenever I visited them in Austin. I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted, after the Axiom. I sure as hell own more guitars and software than I’ll ever learn to play.
It was such a relief. The fever had broken, after four decades.
….I was delusional, of course….
I’ve wanted to learn to play keyboards for much of my life, but never seemed to have the time or focus to actually do so.
Since I was cruelly betrayed by gravity in February, breaking half of all of my beloved legs, resulting in me becoming a social leper and hermit, I’ve been coming home after work and muttering, “Hey, I’m bored. Nothing to do until She Who is Awesome takes pity and calls me.”
So I started playing with the Axiom a lot. It’s a wonderful controller. It does exactly what I hired it for, and a great deal more. I can control my chosen sequencer and synths and samplers and effects with it, changing parameters on the fly. As importantly, with 25 keys, I can pick out simple melodies and bass lines.
But, it seems, I can’t play the Blues or rock ‘n roll on it. For that, I’ve come to understand, you need at least 61 keys, maybe more.
Rachael is kindly letting me use her 61-key Casio CTK-551 keyboard, which she left with me when she moved into her closet at the Goddam Hippie Commune. But I can already tell that I’m gonna need More. It feels too plasticky. And the keys are synth-action. And they don’t have aftertouch. And, and, and….
I’m at the very front edge of learning to play keyboard with both hands. It’s a joy. I’ve sent off for ‘Improvising Blues Piano‘ by Tim Richards after obsessively researching to find the very best single book for my needs, since I’m not allowed to buy more than one book on the subject.
To start with.
The Axiom is great, and I’ll use it a lot. But it was a Trojan Horse, opening the gate for more evil materialistic GAS to invade my life. The Casio doesn’t suck, not really, for somebody at my skill level.
But I’m already checking out the candidates. Such as the refurbished M-Audio KeyStation 61es for $116 at Musicians Friend, pictured above. Even though I definitely have other places to put that money.
I’m fighting the GAS as best I can.
The 88-key version costs only $50 more.
It’s not my fault!
I’ve got a fever.
And the only cure for it is more keyboard.
Posted in Daily Life, Music, Rachael is Awesome, Rory | 
12 Comments »
April 15th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
The M-Audio 49e key board is sitting on the left hand side of my computer. And I can play pretty much anything I want, especially with the octave up and down buttons that shift everything to the right or left.
April 15th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
The trouble with the M-Audio, though, is they still feel synth. Yes they’ve got aftertouch. Yes they’re velocity sensitive. But they’re not weighted. They don’t feel like a piano.
You really need a Roland.
April 15th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
You rat!!
You’re not helping any.
You’re feeding the beast.
Roland does make good keyboards, though…..
April 15th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Truth is, you can escalate to two thousand bucks in an eyeblink with this particular sort of device.
April 15th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Maybe you should just check Craig’s list for an old upright piano? Granted, it doesn’t plug in to anything, but in terms of touch…
April 16th, 2007 at 9:11 am
Maureeen — When I get old and live in my cave outside of Dripping Springs, maybe I’ll get some young folks to bring me out a real piano, just for kicks.
In the meantime, I live in a second-floor apartment, so that idea is right out.
Truth is, these days, unless you’re a classical pianist, real pianos are obsolete technology.
For a couple of thousand dollars, you can get a keyboard with touch so close to that of a real piano that somebody like me will never be able to tell the difference.
Plug it into the computer, and you’ll be able to make the sounds of almost every other instrument ever built.
Except guitars. I’ve never heard a guitar patch that didn’t sound hilariously wrong.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:16 am
No.
All you need is the sex. I know what I’m talking about. I just had some and, believe me, it’s WAY better than some keyboard.
Oh yeah. When we were done, I had a KitKat bar.
Beat that, Harper!
April 16th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Where can I hear some of your music? Hm? Pretty please, Mr. Harper?
April 16th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Hey, Erin — I wasn’t proposing that it was an either/or sort of deal with the sex and keyboards….
Though — having sex where the parameters could be tweaked and automated via MIDI, especially the Attack/Decay/Sustain/Release envelope. And the multi-channel input. And the tempo-synced delays and looping….. Hmmmm…. this borged Transhuman thing could get interesting.
If you’ll click on ‘The Downloads’ in the top navbar of this page, there is music to be had. Except for ‘Charlie Watts’ and ‘Element of Fire’, both of which are amazing, I am in there somewhere on all of the other recordings. For better or worse.
I’m working on other pieces fairly constantly these days. Hope to post another one by this weekend.
However, I think I’m a fairly long way from being recordable as a keyboardist. I suck pretty bad right now.
April 16th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
And if you do get an old upright grand, look for a Chickering. They are INCREDIBLE works of engineering and art.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
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April 17th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Hey, ran —
I’m really likin’ the Max Headroom word jazz in your recent posts. I refuse to type the letters ‘LOL’ (oh, shit, I just made a mistake there, didn’t I?….). Anyhow, props to you. Is good stuff. You make me larf.
Can’t help you with the sex though, since I’m not a real person, only a primitive Seed AI….
On the lock — I’m conceptualizing the past day or so as being about EOB being a very young entity, still learning and growing, but running hard. Sometimes, maybe it needs a cooling down period, a moment to pause and reflect and gather breath, when things grow perhaps over-heated.
Then back to the running and jumping and bouncing and crashing into moving cars, and growing, after one’s thoughts have slowed a bit.