I’ve made it 10 weeks straight! That’s something to celebrate! Sorry this week’s podcast got posted a little later than usual. Thursday was Yoko and my 9th annversary so we’ve been sort of celebrating over the past few days. I used the following songs this week: God Of This City, You Said, and All for Love. The R-09HR seems to be picking up certain frequencies more so than the R-09 when I have it positioned on the piano music stand. I’m not sure what’s causing this – could just be the difference in the internal mics. I did EQ a bit so the end result isn’t too shabby. Next week I hope to spend some time finding the “sweet spot” for the R-09HR so hopefully Week 11 will sound better. Also, I think the cooler weather is starting to affect my piano. The lower register is beginning to sound out of tune. What do you think? It was tuned March of this year and I normally can go a year between tunings, but I figured this would probably change once I started this blog. I’ll see about having the tuner over sometime in October after we get a couple of more cold fronts.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:58 — 31.8MB)
The guts: I do something very few live keyboard performers do, but more and more are moving toward. I trust a standard computer to produce live, real time sounds as I play. I use a program called 
The computer: A very solid Apple MacBook Pro with a 2.4 Ghz Intel Dual Core proc, 4 Gig of RAM, 160 GB 7200 RPM HD, and a high res 1920×1200 display. Even with this much power, Main Stage can still buckle if too many sounds or effect plugins are layered so there is still a balance to maintain. Part of the problem with processing power is the USB audio interface built into my VX8. If I were to move to firewire, this would help substancially, but so far I’ve been able to work within the constraints.
The Bottom Stack: My main controller is the 
The top stack: A Korg Triton Extreme. Ever since Korg came out with the Triton over 7 years ago, I’ve owned one. It started with the standard Triton Pro x, then to the Trinity, then the Triton Studio Pro, and now the Triton Extreme. This keyboard makes up for the heaviness of the VX8 weighing much less, but only providing 61 keys – enough to play organ riffs all night long! My favorite thing about this product line is the synth pads you can create. This also can be used as a backup if my laptop decides to stop working, which has happened once or twice when I first made the move to this rig back in December of ’07. It also has a USB midi out so I have it configured it as a controller in Main Stage as well.
The Sound: I prefer to use my 
The stands: For the keyboards, I use the 
I went ahead and got the Roland Edirol R-09HR for recording the Music To Pray By blog. I’ll also be using it as a stereo mic when I use in-ear monitors during live performance in order to hear the room since the Westones block out everything. I currently do this with the R-09′s and it works really well. I’ve already recorded some of this week’s posting with the R-09HR, but haven’t had a chance to compare yet. I hope it’s an improvement in sound quality over the R-09. According to Roland, the mic pre’s are supposed to be better, and it records at 24 bit 96k, which is double the sample over the older version. I’ll be listing the R-09 on eBay this Tuesday to recoup some of the costs. Why Tuesday you might ask? Ask me in a comment and I’ll elaborate…
Because of hurricane Ike, I decided to pull my antenna that was mounted on the side of my house and move it inside, and surprisingly enough, Windows Vista Media Center is reporting better signals inside at a lower altitude than what I was getting outside with it mounted much higher. It must have been the attenuation of the added cable and grounding required. On a side note, my family is in the path of this hurricane so please be in prayer for them as they ride it out.
