alan_lavender's Reviews

solid midi controller at home: stage piano out and about

I love the built-in Steinway and have hired this kit out several times to trad/folk Irish/American singer/songwriter visiting acts (I live on West Coast Ireland). I love the fact there's one button you can hit on stage to go direct to this sample. No matter what layers/splits/general farting about you might have, you always get a Steinway with one button hit. I call that bacon-saving, dunno about you??! At home I use it USB'd into GarageBand, where the input sensitivity from the weighted action is more than adequate. One feature I've never got round to using but also is a star quality: the middle selector pedal, useful for Debussy/Ravel type classic stuff to define a melody over chords which IRL, with a proper acoustic concert grand, would keep on sustain underneath the delicate lead riff which is damped, building up the resonance inside the real piano's iron frame. I don't think Avid make this puppy any more, but if they brought it back I'd only have one wish: make it a ton lighter - it's a two-man lift when you're on union rates, or else a one man lift plus free hernia if you're on your own!