From wrtlake@colfax.com Sat Mar 04 15:44:45 2000
Subject:Micro B "The good the bad & the ugly"

Hi

After cooling down from the Hammond/Voce fever and considering the facts ( I'm not a pro musician,don't gig and am just beginning at keyboards) I decided not to get a V3 or V5 just yet and purchased a Micro B and a Rpm 1 for a good price instead. I figured that even if the micro isn't in the same league as the other two it would at least be better than the fonts I've been using.

I received the Micro B yesterday, hooked it up and lo behold disappointment raises it's ugly head.
I should say before going further that I don't have a keyboard amp to run the unit through so for the time being it has to go through my stereo, Kenwood 65 watt into 2 Sansui SP 500speakers w/ 12 inch woofer 2 4" speakers a 3" tweeter and a horn in each box.They sound nice and the volume at about 4-6 will blow ya out of the room 16 x16 with no distortion.
Another note about the B3 fonts I was using, I would use my A-33 controller board to audition them using the keyboard in the Audio HQ of my SBL Platinum card which is linked to my stereo as well.
Although the fonts were not as realistic as I wanted they sounded full and somewhat warm through the stereo setup but had one other problem, the notes had background noises after the keystroke, above middle C they fizzed and crackled and below they echoed faintly and drove me nuts. This was explained to me as a looping problem, anyhow that's how I decided to try a module.

So I received the Micro And run it into the 1/4" mic jack on the stereo, sounds terrible, harsh and sterile. If I push the volume past 2 the units noise becomes real apparent and I get nasty clicking noises at each keystroke. ( Not keyclick, that is turned all the way down for the time being) So the lush room full of B3 tones is still a dream. Next try will be the 1/4" mic in on the live drive to my sound card and on to the stereo setup but I haven't figured out how to get the signal into cakewalk express and onto the stereo .

I'd appreciate any 2 cts on how to get even a reasonable sound with the setup I have as this is beginning to be like all those years of fussing with guitar gear. No thanks.
To bad the Sweetwater samples were only good with the Kurzweil keyboard, they were pretty nice and no moving parts.

At this rate I may get desperate and try to drag my M3 upstairs and hook it up to an amp/pro 3T and call it good even though I like the A-33 better.

Sorry about dragging this out,
John.

PS anyone using an A-33 as a controller board??? I have some programming questions and would appreciate a private reply if you'd be willing to answer them.