SumOne

Nice one, that's very useful.

I've been doing some nerding on Nord Electro 73 prices new vs second hand: V1, 2001, ? Now £600 V2, 2006 £1,400. Now £900 V3, 2008 £1,500. Now £1,000 V4,2012 £1,600. Now £1,300 V5 2015 £1,700. Now £1,400 V6 2018 £1,900. Now £1,600 It doesn't seem to make a whole lot of financial difference to buy new or second hand if you plan on owning for 10 years then selling as they start to de-value more once they are a few versions old. If fact, buying new is perhaps financially better in some ways. e.g. a 13 year old V4 today = £1,300, in 10 years it'll be worth roughly £700 (if it is ballpark equivilant to a 23 year old V1 price today), so that'll cost £600 for 10 years use. V7 is quite overdue, if history is any guide then it'll be about £2,200 and would be worth roughly £1,700 10 years later, so that'll cost £500 for 10 years of use. A selling point of the Nord is how well known they are and how well they hold their value. I think the Viscount Legend One 73 is still my favorite though (and is a bit cheaper at £1,555), but I imagine that if I went to sell it after 10 years there would be a much smaller market and probably more devaluation than a Nord. But in an ideal world I'll still be happy with whatever I get and it'll last me longer than that.

Don talking about something that has also annoyed me for a while - the often repeated online misconception that Reggae Basslines don't play on the one, and that the 'one drop' is referring to Bass. "you can play on the one, you can play off the one, it makes no difference when you're playing over a one drop, the one drop is the drum pattern"

I did do a board of Boss compact pedals, it was quite addictive tryting to get the colourful collection. The Boss compact hardware is really good and I found there are certain pedals that Boss do really well: Tuner, compressor, limiter, chorus, flanger, octaver, space echo, and the BB1-X. .....but then I wasn't such a fan of things like the AW-3, SY-1, GEB-7, ODB-3, there are better (often cheaper) alternatives . So once I started using some other pedals (e.g. MXR envelope filter instead of the AW-3, Sine FX parametric EQ instead of the GEB-7 ) the whole idea sort of went out of the window.

Although no one wishes they spent more time at work I do think many might think 'I wish I lived in a nicer place, had more holidays and saw more of the world, eat better meals, retired earlier, financially supported my kids better'... all of which unfortunately require £ which you usually get more of the more work is done. Don't get me wrong though, I'm no fan if spending time at work just for the sake of it. Work smarter not harder n'all that. But I do think it's an alright means to an end. I sort of figure 'fair enough', it is a balancing act.

I'm 'only' 46, but recently had my first proper health scare and these things tend to focus the mind on what to do with your life. I've come to the conclusion that everything is a balancing act and if it was completely 'live for the moment' I doubt the moments would could carry on being good and the living would probably get cut short! Many of the best things in life have to be worked at and have delayed gratification.... but just doing things in the moment for fun is also needed. With band stuff I did consider if it is actually worth my time and effort, the life balancing act means that is time I could spend with family, friends, fitness, career etc. My conclusion has been that it is worthwhile while it is fun and fulfilling as it isn't a £ earner to pay for other things in life. It doesn't always have to be the most fun ever though, sometimes it needs effort and pressure, highs and lows, bandmatres are humans and it is fine if they get moody every now and then - everyone needs to have a bit of slack. Likewise with things that initially seems very worthwhile e.g. Commit to 1hr of Piano a day, but really is it the best use of time/life? The delayed gratification of stuff like learning Piano is often worthwhile in the long-run and it is impressive that people have perservered with that long-term commitment but every time you see a great musician there is a real time cost and that time available is a finite thing. I have to say though, having mentally done this time audit, I don't think I'll ever look back and think 'I wish I watched more daytime telly alone', or 'I wish I spent more time on Basschat in my work from home hours' (sorry!). So I think both will get a bit of a cut-back. But again, it is a balancing act - just taking it easy, going easy on yourself and thinking 'that's enough effort for now' is often a good thing rather than constantly feeling like everything is strive and hussle.

"Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think. Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink. The years go by, as quickly as you wink. Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think"

I've put my Yamaha CK-61 and MPC Key 37 up for sale and bought a Kawei ES-60 as a 88 weighted key home piano (£295 Thomann sale). That'll hopefully leave me with about £700 towards getting a stage piano. Perhaps a Studiologic Numa X 73 (£849 from Scan) if I don't want to spend much extra, or something like Viscount Legend One 73 (£1,555) if I can save up and justify all that extra ££.

Although I love the MPC Key 37 I am going to put it up for sale as it doesn't quite fit with the things I need (home piano, stage piano, large midi keyboard for production). I am hoping I'm able to keep all of the licensed software though as I think there are some great sounds, I'm pretty sure that's fine as it is linked to my inMusic account rather than hardware and I already also have it all on the Laptop and you get 3x licenses. My plan is to get some sort of 73 key stage piano (f or live stuff. I've tried the Laptop + midi keyboard for live stuff before and it was a liability so I'm not going to do that again) and an 88 weighted key home piano (with speakers, simple, tough - to stay in the front room for the kids to learn on). And for home production the stage piano should work fine as a midi interface to still play the MPC plugin instruments via a Laptop. I've found that I actually usually have the Laptop hooked up to the MPC for production stuff as I prefer to do a lot of things like sample edits and Library management and sequencing via Laptop. I will definitely miss some of the MPC interface but it'll pay for the home piano and partly towards the stage piano.

In my view the green is the better colour (I owned one and it is a decent Bass), I guess most other people think the same so shops can sell the green ones for for more £.

Side note: I met Van once and he was friendly. Me and my Dad saw him in a park and my Dad said 'I've just been singing one of your songs' and Van said 'are you in a band' and my Dad's response was 'no, just singing it to myself' and there was a bit of a laugh and friendly small talk.

I think it was the first one out in 2025 so I'm not even gonna attempt 2026!