BassTractor

The way I read it, Arbor made cheap lookalikes for beginners. Dunno how Hohner got involved.

Ah, but Stringrays do go cheaper than Stingrays. edit: @FDC484950 got there before me.

Maybe what follows is not interesting, as I didn't see it mentioned before, but: I come from a world of classical music where I'd record live, either as an organ player recording only myself or as a member of a constellation recording the whole group. No sweat whatsoever, great expressiveness etc. and the timing was as precise as one can get. Mucho transpiro however when having to record to pre-existing multitrack recordings or... shudder... to a clicktrack. I've never managed, and have lived with the thought I could never learn. Wondering if you multitrack guys have been through a phase like that.... in that it was indeed only a phase.

Strictly off-topic, but Dutch proto-prog band Ekseption at one point (maybe two points - the debate about that is unfinished) in time had no original members. In '76 some studio guys and some guys who'd been in the band for short periods, made a terrible, terrible album under the Ekseption name. Some say one founding member was in the studio; others say he wasn't. The record company kept totally silent about who was actually playing, essentially trying to sell a non-Ekseption album to Ekseption fans. In 2003, keyboard player Rick van der Linden was the band's leader and the only one who had been in Ekseption before, and he wasn't an original member. Though: it should be mentioned he had been responsible for their previous successes (mainly poprock reworkings of classical themes, with jazz impros - though half their output was of a different character).

Yeah, that be the principle. We sent hundreds of sea kayaks to all parts of the country, and the cardboard box factory of all people kindly advised us we'd be better off with naked kayaks in plastic tubes. We had a total of one damage, and the full price of that kayak was way lower than the price of hundreds of protective boxes. I guess we were lucky, but we did count on the fragile look, and it seemed to work.

Have always been slightly wary about playing other people's stuff, and felt way more at ease with writing my own material and letting famous people play it... as a tribute so to speak. Sadly, Bach, Beethoven, Strawinsky and others were not in line with my thinking.

Ha. 😀 In Oslo, Neil Young met up with the Young Neils, and then wore their t-shirt when he performed. Loved that. BTW, the Young Neils were known musicians in other bands, and certainly not the preying types.

Good idea, also because if you don't put on a value, then customs will decide on a value, and it might be high.

Ah. Incoming parcels to the UK. I was talking about parcels sent from the UK and handled by postNL - as per KiOgon's case. My guess is they have different routines.

Hm. I've not experienced that for maybe 10 or 20 years, and I'm both expecting it and being a stickler for noticing details like that. "My" numbers the last decade(s) in those cases have been new. Have one in my phone's postal app right now that I find slightly extra weird, again with a tracking ID that doesn't resemble the original one: Presumedly sent from the UK, postNL getting involved and sending me updates, some party generating a new number for it, and my Norse app saying that it has been delivered (correct) as well as copying the postNL bit that they are still waiting to receive the parcel from the sender. Anyway, I'm just hoping and trusting that @KiOgon's parcel will arrive.

Part of this might be that postNL, or one of their partners, sometimes generates a new tracking identity and track that one instead - for reasons unknown to me. In the mean time, the physical package just keeps toddling along. The Norwegian post sometimes does the same, with the same result.

Really, really comfortable. Fast neck with confidence inducing "grip". Fantastic 4-band EQ, of which the middle two bands IMHO are at the core of the sound shaping. Great looks. Nice colours available. EBMM's lim.ed. varieties sometimes are breathtaking. Can't fault them in any way. Bought most of mine untried from zee webz, and they all were flawless. (Same with the StingRays, BTW)

Not necessarily though, as many many sellers are indeed willing to send to the whole of Europe despite the ill-chosen text. Living in a non-EU country, I always ask, and have not gotten a "no" yet. Often, sending to non-EU countries costs the same anyway.

Shocking, and it's not only Hermes either. Here, our royal mail normally is very good at what they do, but an illoyal worker simply folded a poster tube in two when the box was not deep enough for the whole tube. 😱 Question is whether you trust the person who sent the photo, but it seems you do. Can you guys expect any form of compensation?

Agreeing with @Bankai, this kit is most probably overpriced. Even in expensive Norway, that amount would land me a new TD-11 with mesh in the January sales (I know, coz I nearly bought one). Edit: sorry for bad reading. I stirred at a kit without realising it comes with extras. Please disregard.

I done you a favour, but my "listen" is Fake News as laptop sound only works once in a while - not today. Will try again though.

Nonsense! 😡 It's not the amount of strings that counts. It's their length. Simply remove the dusty end, doing away with neck dive at the same time. Success! 😉

As to Soft Machine, there was also the nice little detail of a post Soft Machine band in one generation consisting of all the members of a previous Soft Machine generation. I think it was Nucleus - not sure. This tidbit at the time seemed unsupported by Wikipedia, but the guy who wrote about it seemed to know exactly what he was talking about. Not important, but I liked the thought.

Whatever you choose, don't make it "Ray Against The Machine". We don't need forrin capitalisation here. "Ray Against the Machine" is fine though. 😀

Yeah, I recognise the legacy bit. I had a second gen iPad that ran controlling software for an Akai synth, and had to let it follow the synth when I sold that, as the new owner wouldn't be able to buy the controller software anymore. It's one of many experiences that have commanded me to exclusively buy stand-alone keyboards with lots of knobs and buttons. IMHO as a former piano teacher (really an organ teacher but one wants to survive), I'd say that for your kid's fingers the M-Audio is far better than the Akai - provided someone guide her as to some technique.

Oh, that reminds me of the thing that was not an in-car record player, but a record player in a car: Twas a novelty record played shaped like a car, with a needle under and amp and speaker inside, and it drove around on an LP that was on a flat surface. It also existed in non-car-like shape or shapes. Speak of travel record player! It travelled alright, but I'm not too sure about the "record player" bit - probably more like "record slayer".

Your 10-year-old seems wiser than many adults in several aspects. "Amongst her weaponry" is that last choice. The Keystations are good boards that will also prove to have been a good bridge should one later decide on keyboards with full fat piano action. Can't help with laptop software, but if she has access to an iPad or iPhone as well, there are good apps with piano sound for little money. One only needs the USB-to-Apple connecter than can be had for a tenner on eBay.

Ha. 😀 I never contemplated that, but think you're spot on. Would've been typical of him.

Sorry, haven't read the whole thread yet, but may I ask: As like "Der Ring des Nibelungen"? As in: you're referring to the amount of sides to play? In case: that was one of my main reasons, if not the main one, to adopt formats that were not LPs. One day, I played Wagner a whole day without ever having to change a thing. My iPod did that for me. I hate it when somebody is dying on stage and has to suffer whilst I drag my behind out of the sofa to turn a record and let the poor bar steward die with some dignity.

Following is all written AFAIK and IMHO, and I just love to be corrected: For those interested, and bear with me please: I like whales. So far so good. Me liking whales is not imperative to me reading up about all whale species, write down the perceived "best" capacities of each of them and then "construct" a super whale species that incorporates all those exact capacities in one species so I can write a Save The Whales article where I present all whale species as if they all have all those capacities. (Yes, I've read that article and it made my stomach go round.) Same with vinyl. I like vinyl. So far so good. Still: the theoretically possible LP was not part of what we lived with every day. The regular LP in the 70s was not nearly identical in quality to the pre-mixing recordings or even to the mix (which could be stellar, as evidenced by for example the famous Decca recordings from around 1959). The regular shop vinyl would have an amplitude resolution comparable to a 12-bit to 14-bit recording, and the "sampling" rate, though theoretically limitless would normally compare to 24 to 28 kHz digital ( = you could hear up to 12 to 14 kHz sounds). IOW in practical terms, your average LP was a lousy product compared to the theoretically possible and perceivedly desirable, and also compared to a 16-bit/44.1 kHz CD. We liked the LP. Many voiced negative opinions about the first CDs, in part rightly so. After some time the regular CD outperformed the regular LP from a technical point of view - despite well-known limitations of digital recording, digital mixing and all the converting being involved. In this, the human ear (not every ear, but the ear that was important for manufacturers) was found to have a listening capacity comparable roughly to a digital 22 bit / 40 kHz (the latter written for direct comparing; it translates f.x. to being able to hear up to 20 kHz). BTW 1, the Nyquist theorem is right within what it says. It never said that a 40 kHz sampling rate (the one that was turned into 44.1 kHz for the CD) also gives a 20 kHz sound at the correct amplitude and in the right phase. This point may be unimportant in practical terms, but I like things to be correct so we really understand what we're talking about. BTW 2, and really unimportant, research showed that a tiny percentage of people somehow had a perception of sound well above 20 kHz. At the time it was not explained, and I've not since seen an explanation beyond the possibility it was something with the gear used to create the sound. Answers may be on the web somewhere. Anyway, when creating the CD, Sony and Philips were very aware of all of this stuff (false or true). They just created a product. I know for a fact that Philips was very occupied with creating a "Philips product" as a boss put it to me (simply put: with limitations and catering exclusively for the bottom line). But a "Philips product" being limited does not mean the vinyl alternative automatically is a god-sent. Since the analogue side of things is open on the quality side (can "always" be improved on), it's only in recent decades that vinyl has had the potential of really competing with the 16-bit/44.1 kHz standard. The digital side however, with CD-A, DVD-A and BluRay hit back with 24-bit/96 kHz or something (I forgot the specifics), and that format, if executed well, outperforms the human ear at any rate. I've willingly avoided the mixing part. Stuff is so awesome these days that IMHO it has little meaning in practical terms. If you start talking about mixing, you really need to talk about the other processing going on. TLDR: vinyl is fine, that's all. I love it, but as far I can see see it's far from a god-sent. Corrections very welcome.