From sevush@rcn.com Thu Jan 23 07:32:16 2003
Subject:The Red Devil

Totally agree about playing vs. whining. After one night of playing at home
w/the Electro, brought it to our weekly house gig. It's very loose, we often
try a new song, a cross between practice and a real gig.

First reaction from everyone in the band - they liked the color. Guitar
player liked it because it matched his red Strat (yeah, that's exactly why I
bought it:) and the drummer gave it a nickname that stuck - the Red Devil.

My first step at integration was to use the Electro ONLY as a replacement
for my CX3 - I use a Yamaha S30 for the other keyboard sounds. Set it up,
sounded great. Added a little warmth using the Speakeasy but I didn't have
much time to play with it. My quick impression is that the Speakeasy is not
as necessary with the Electro as it is for the CX3.

Many aspects of the UI are not as intuitive as the CX3. Under the pressure
of the band playing, I was annoyed at how many button presses I had to make
to set things up to my taste. Certainly having presets ready to go would
take care of this, but out of the box, the CX3 wins here.

As for the sound.. well, it's great. The highest octaves sound less shrill
and seem more "balanced" with the rest of the keyboard. I've heard about
some inaccuricies in the foldback implementation for the Electro, but to my
ears it sounded great.

I find the swell pedal does not cut out at lowest volume completely. Since I
use the pedal to control how much organ I'm using when I double a piano
w/the organ, it's annoying. But in a single keyboard configuration, this
won't be a problem.

I then started to use the wurly, rhodes and acoustic piano sounds. I was
amazed to hear how much better these sounds are *in the mix* - wow! I've
heard a lot of complaints about the acoustic piano, but it cut like a knife
without being tinny at all. The wurly barked and I'm starting to LOVE this
little Red Devil!

Back to the bench for a few days and when I go back, just one keyboard. No
mixer, less setup/teardown time and away we go.