No, still gigging with the BK-9, but back at the house still making do with older gear other than the VSTi’s. Kurzweil K2500S (still a very amazing sounding keyboard despite its age!), Korg Triton (again, bit of a classic!),

Only thing bought recently (the cancer treatment pretty much chewing up most of my discretionary spending!) has been the SWAM software horns and strings.

But this works for me, as I’m pretty old school in my tastes. Not really interested in sounding contemporary, I’m a bit too old to go chasing trends! The goal with my sounds is not to impress, but to have them be indistinguishable from the real thing, to the point it’s not even noticeable. There aren’t a lot of acoustic sounds in most arrangers that can do that, IMHO

And I definitely don’t use the ‘blocks’ approach, the music of my era is too complex (mostly!) to be able to do with repeated chunks of anything! I am pretty dismayed with how relentlessly diatonic and simplified most pop has become. Even the Beatles start to sound like Tchaikovsky compared to today’s four chord kiddy songs!

Bottom line, I’m not writing much, always been more of a session player for other people’s music. And there is where getting your sounds nailed is mostly appreciated. Nothing worse than having a great part pushed back a bit in the mix because by the time it’s brought to the forefront, you can hear it’s fake!

Keep on being you… just try to get the tools that achieve it best. Nothing stifles creativity more than having to slow down your flow to accommodate older gear!