From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Sat May 10 20:59:29 2003
Subject:Re: Calling Bruce Wahler and List Content

Hi Brian,

>How's that bx3 treatin' ya? -b

Sorry for the delay. I almost missed this one, despite having my name on it. (More on that later.) The BX3 is doing fine. I got the furniture/finish issues out of the way, thanks to some help from Jerry K., and it's all programmed up and doing what it's supposed to do.

I've kind of given up on the idea of gigging with the legs, except for a really special gig. The look of BX3+legs is much better than sitting on a stand, and the "wiggle" factor is still there a bit on a regular keyboard stand (it's much better with the BX3, but bolted down on the wooden stand, there's absolutely NO wiggle); but the legs are big, a bit heavy, and prone to getting scuffed up. Short of buying a second ATA case for the stand, I can't see any way to keep them looking good over time. I guess they'll stay home.

Am I glad I traded up from the CX-3? Absolutely. Is this move for everyone? Not at all. The BX3 doesn't sound any different than the CX-3, in any way. It PLAYS a little different, but that's mostly because of its bulk, and the fact that it has second, identical set of keys in the "right" place. So, the reasons for trading up are not bang-for-the-buck related. Plan to spend around $3200 (US) for the organ itself, plus at least $400 for a decent case: There are much cheaper ways of adding a second keyboard + mod and pitch wheels.

However, there are much cheaper ways of doing almost everything in life, and sometimes the extra cost seems justified. I felt so in this case. I've come to the conclusion that more than anything else, I'm an organist. Yeah, I play piano, synth, Clavinet, whatever; but if I came into a studio and was only allowed to play one instrument, if there's something that resembles a Hammond tonewheel organ in there, that's my choice. I don't play pedals, so I guess I'm not organist in the purist sense, but having a portable version of a double manual organ with drawbars makes sense for me. YMMV.

Now on to other topics:

Can we get back to discussing clones a bit more, folks? The noise level on the list has grown a bit in the past few months. I'm not the only one noticing it; I've had several veteran list members mention it to me lately on their own. I'm finding that I skim the digests way more that I used to, because there's so much OT, or barely on-topic, content. There are about 750 members of the list, many of whom probably have no opinion on the vast majority of OT subjects. It's ironic that a discussion of something like band names brings so many responses, while questions about gear or technique sometimes go completely unanswered.

I'm sure there are different opinions about how the list should be used. From my PERSONAL point of view: I've never felt that the CWSG needed to fill dead air to continue to exist. It's not a case of "use it or lose it." I belong to a couple of other lists that have about the same number of members, and some of them only have 5-10 posts per week. One of them has even less than that. That's fine by me; I still consider them useful when I have problems or questions, and I'm glad they're around.

And finally, the perennial favorite of us digest members: Can everyone try to trim the fat from your replies? Other than a few cases, there's no need to copy the entire original post in a reply. I've been collecting the digests in a Zip file and posting them on my CloneWheel website for a couple of years now. The monthly Zips used to be under 100K; now they're often approaching 500K! That's a lot of sifting to do if you're a digest subscriber, or if you are a new member trying to find an archived topic. Trimming the length of the replies can help.

Regards,

-BW
--
Bruce Wahler
Ashby Solutions™ http://music.ashbysolutions.com
978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@ashbysolutions.com