Hi All,
While I still do my solo act, most of my play-for-pay gigs these days are with a seven member BEACH-SOUL-R&B-VARIETY band ( www.thecollegians.com ). The notable thing about this New Year's Eve gig was the fact that I used an "arranger keyboard" with the band for the first time. I usually use a Kurzwiel K2000 on the upper tier and an Alesis Quadrasynth +Piano on the lower. The Alesis has a decent "leslie" simulation and some very usable organ sounds. I use the K2000 for most other sounds (pianos, clav, strings, brass, harmonica, sax, etc.) We use a midi file on one song and I normally set up a Roland hardware sequencer to drive the Alesis. I say to myself, the X1 has all the sounds I play on the K2000 and I could play that one midi without setting up the sequencer. Plus, I could utilize the organ sounds on the X1 to compliment the Alesis and add some variety. So, that's what I did. I replaced the Kurzwiel with the X1.
How did it work out? On the one midi file song (Brick House) the X1 did just great and it was super to simply insert the disc and press play. I had customized the one touch voices to what I would need with the band and thus was able to call up the sounds as need even faster and smoother than with the K2000 which I've been using for over 6 years. Beyond that it was a mixed bag. The X1 harmonica was not as good as the Kurz and the strings, while adaquate were not what I really needed on some of the passages. Of course these were all the factory default patches. I'm sure if I tweaked them and saved them I'd be more satisfied. In all I would have to say the X1 worked out very well. But, I ended up staying with the Alesis for the organ sounds. In fact the X1 pulled us out of a small hole. A group of folk kept asking for a polka and did not want "BEER BARREL" which is our default "token" polka. So, I told the guys to smile and act like they were playing and flipped to a polka registration. I laid PENNSYLVANIA POLKA on them with the arranger function and an accordion voice. It worked out very well.
The gig was for a local Moose lodge with about 350 in attendance. We did our usual "east coast beach music" along with some 60s & 70s soul and R&B. "I Swear" was a favorite slow song and our sax player knocked them out with "Song Bird". All in all it was not a bad outing for a "Beach" band from the mountians of Virginia - West Virginia playing for a Moose lodge on a wintery night with an outside temperature of 12 degrees F and 5 to 7 inches of snow on the ground.
DVJ

[This message has been edited by deatonent (edited 01-03-2001).]