My fourteen-year-old Ensoniq being borderline useless [it still has its uses, but few of them thrill me], I finally upgraded to a Yamaha DGX505AD. Meaning that I've been meaning to do that since before it existed: four years ago when I was looking at the DGX500AD at JestBuy [not that I mind not buying it there, all things considered]. But I put it off, the 505 came out, I put that off, and then stopped putting it off.

So:

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The good news is that, unlike the Warlock, the Yamaha is something I actually know how to play. Though the Warlock still looks somehow cooler. And, yeah: I've got various Vasquez comics sitting on the musicrest; I can read music, but it's faster to play by ear. Which is why I recomend Evolution^®.

The Ensoniq [not pictured; I'm not sure I've ever actually got a shot of it] is somewhere upstairs [my office is in the basement, where things stay kinda dark], waiting to see whether the Yamaha can fully replace it. But that's not a real issue, since the Yamaha isn't truly a synth; it's got that basic Casio ToneBank system, so I can combine any two of five hundred rommed sounds; but literally making new sounds requires the Ensoniq, or something like it. What counts to me is that the sounds in this Yamaha actually sound right without fucking around with them [the standard piano sounds precisely like the grand piano I always had as a kid, though no piano I've encountered since ever quite sounded like that]; someone figured out that a given instrument actually has attacks and decays, so the sax starts with a blowing noise and settles down to a sustained pitch, the violin starts with a whining scrape and settles down to a droning scream [the whammybar allows for vibrato, including expected fuckups], and so on. So this is much good.

There's the slightly annoying part where this thing is fifty or sixty pounds, and not easily dismantled for moving from place to place; and, being eighty-eight fullsized keys, it's five feet wide. So, at the least, the Ensoniq would be easier to carry along elsewhere to meet up with the rest of the band [I'm not bringing the drumkit here; it's bad to be annoyed by my neighbours; it's somehow worse to outannoy them]. It might be possible to get this thing into a largish car without ripping it apart; I haven't had time to fieldtest that yet.

Then again, I could just get the actual machine off the base by removing a couple of screws. I don't really mind doing the Schroeder thing with the piano on the floor; though stomping the pedal that way might be weird.

About the band in general: things are working out nicely. I think we've dropped the fucking around and giggling portion of the meetings to about twenty percent now. And our latest gutarist [probably the final guitarist] is not only good at what he does, but seems to get the concept overall. Naturally, he and I have wandered off into our own thing and figured out the timing and accents and all, while the drums, bass, and vocals are wondering why we keep sneering at them.

Not that it's really that warlike. It's more about geography. We tend to be separated from the rest by this pillar in the middle of the room, so communications just work out this way.

And, of course, this is one of those situations where no one's surprised when everyone trades instruments and starts over. Mostly. Though there's a slight shock in the change in voice and accent when I'm singing instead of talking. Also, all I can do with a guitar, dispite having the best one in the band, is kinda sliding up and down with powerchords and hoping all the other noise drowns me out entirely. Yeah: I'm actually that one guy who doesn't want to be heard over the rest of the band; it's very rare.

Anyway. Since I got the piano, and the PSP, and every other damned thing I've bought this month [and lemee just remind everyone to hit Wasted and buy lots and lots and lots of stuff so I don't die], Hunter went off and got her Cthulhu backpack. I've actually been telling her to do that for a while; but, now that I've got all new toys, she finally listened to me. Weird, huh.

More later....