NAMM Show Top 3 Hot Items: Pianos
Premium Products: Yamaha CVP609
The new Clavinova series from Yamaha comes with much improved sounds and greater expression on the individual instruments so the easy play orchestration is realistic. Actual wave recordings, of say a Brazilian percussion section playing together, are used in the easy play accompaniments for astonishing realism.
Mid-Level Cost: Weber W121 Upright Piano
Piano designer technician guru Del Fandrich was on hand at the Hyundai Development Corp booth explaining the re-design of the Weber and Young Chang uprights providing wider tonal range and expression, employing the finest in woods and premium performance but able [...] Read more
And it has begun! Here are a few things we've spotted so far today: Elton John among a group performing live (and you can watch it), Fender basses and a whatchamacallit, Jackson Guitars, Peavey's next generation, Sennheiser & Shure launches more wireless, Pigtronix pedal, Digitech JamMan SoloXT, Korg MS-20 Mini + more goodies, M-Audio, Akai, Numark, Levy’s straps, Eventide H9 Stomp re-thunk, Kala Banjo Uke, Presonus, DW Drums, from the floor and pre-NAMM Suhr party pics (and breathe).
Yamaha’s 125th anniversary
To commemorate Yamaha’s 125th anniversary, a concert featuring Elton John will be held at the Hyperion Theater is Disneyland California will [...] Read more
From August 1st until December 31st, 2012 you have the opportunity to purchase a Korg Kronos 61, 73 or 88 and receive $700 worth of Goodies which include:
Kronos-Upgrade-Kit $375 MSRP, which includes a 30GB SSD drive, bringing the total up to 60GB of storage
2GB DDR2 compatible memory $75 MSRP, now access to appropriate 2GB of PCM RAM (doubles it)
Samson Studio-GT monitors $259 MSRP, so you are ready to start recording
Being musicians ourselves, we know, through experience, that there are a few gadgets necessary to help make practicing more efficient:
Metronomes
Or, as most people know them, “the things that goes tik-tok”. If you’ve been using one, you’ll call it your worst/best frienemy. Whether you like using it or not, metronomes are a necessary evil when you’re practicing. No matter how accurate you think your toe-tapping is, you can’t beat the accuracy of a metronome. Like my teacher says, “Practice without accurate rhythm is worse than not practicing at all.” You can get an easy-to-operate metronome like the Yamaha ME-D1 that gives [...] Read more
There are times when a keyboard is so incredibly powerful that you keep discovering more and more useful things inside.
Last week I played a concert of original songs accompanying singer-songwriters. I used to carry a 30” rack full of MIDI synth modules and 3 keyboards to get all my sounds. With just the Kronos and one Combination per song, I could split and/or layer up to 16 different keyboard sounds, played sampled background vocals and was able to turn any of the sounds on or off with a switch and the sliders controlled individual volumes. The best was that the [...] Read more
Hi its Fred here - giving you an update that we have received 1 Korg Kronos 61!! We have it on display for you to check it out and see if it fits into your musical journey! This piece definitely fits into mine very well! You may be hesitant if you own a DAW for Mac or Windows but let me tell you…this adds killer sounds, ease of use and truly a great musical experience that has to be used and heard to be appreciated! If you are a songwriter, composer, sound designer or whatever, the breakthrough Korg Kronos may [...] Read more
Just back from NAMM and the big keyboard/recording news was from Korg - it’s the very cool all-in-one workstation called the Korg Kronos! It's available in synth touch 61 with fully weighted graded hammer 73 and 88.
I attended the 30 min demo from both good friend Steve McNally and specialist Rich and it sounds awesome! It can do everything including 16 tracks of midi recording with 9 different synth engines including both analog and digital sources.
16 tracks of live audio all in the same instrument without the need of a computer. If you want to burn a cd you can [...] Read more
As seasoned gigging musicians, we decided it was time we shared our thoughts on a couple of the new keyboards. Specifically, three relatively new keyboards that are designed primarily to cover the “bread and butter” keyboard sounds: Piano, Organ, Electric Piano and Clavinet. We have all three here on the floor at Cosmo, so a side-by-side comparison is pretty easy. Here are our thoughts on the new Korg SV-1, Nord Electro3, and the Roland VCombo VR-700:
Korg SV-1
Action: available in 73 or 88 note versions and has weighted action, great for acoustic piano, not ideal for organ
Sounds: out of [...] Read more
Hello fellow drummers and the drum-curious.
I’m happy to announce that we have the new Korg Wavedrum and I’ve been having a blast playing it.
I’ve long been intrigued by it but could never seem to find one of the original version that my drum hero Danny Carey plays…and I couldn’t afford what they were charging even for used ones online. I think they only made a few hundred of them at the time. However it’s back and better then ever.
What sets this instrument apart, and it really is an instrument and not a toy, is how dynamic and expressive it [...] Read more
Check out the very cool Korg SV1 piano line in both 73 and 88 key models. Based on modelling technology, they sound and feel great. These instruments have a real tube to warm the sound especially with the electric pianos. In stock at Cosmo!
Synthogy announced Ivory 2 now with 18 levels of samples and modelling technology to improve the sound with resonance of the strings, lid positioning etc.
For the orchestral composer check out the VSL Ensemble Pro app which bridges the 32 bit and 64 bit worlds and allows software plug ins inside the VSL environment!
Roland has updated [...] Read more
