Keyboard Magazine

Smashing Pumpkins Seeking Keyboard Player

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:35:00 GMT

With the news that THE SMASHING PUMPKINS bassist Ginger Pooley has left the band to raise her new baby with her husband, BILLY CORGAN has announced that he will look for a new bassist in the same manner as he

Roland Ships KC-110 Battery Powered Keyboard Amp

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:50:00 GMT

The latest addition to Roland’s industry leading KC Series keyboard amplifier lineup, the KC 110 Stereo Keyboard Amplifier (http www.rolandus.com products KC 110), is now shipping. It combines two industry firsts for a portable keyboard amp—AA battery powered operation and

Joey De Francesco on the KeyB Organ and Touring with David Sanborn

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:00:00 GMT

During a recent three night stint with chart owning sax slinger David Sanborn at the premier jazz club on the west coast Yoshi's in Oakland, California jazz organ great Joey DeFrancesco spent his sound check with executive editor Stephen Fortner,

ALICIA’S KEYS by Native Instruments

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:15:00 GMT

New software instrument provides the exquisite sound of Alicia Keys’ own grand piano, developed in collaboration with the acclaimed artist Berlin, March 1st, 2010 Native Instruments today announced ALICIA’S KEYS, a new software that recreates Alicia Keys’ personal grand piano

AmpliTube 3 Now Shipping

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:50:00 GMT

March 2010, Modena, Italy – IK Multimedia is proud to announce that AmpliTube 3, a massive upgrade of the leading guitar and bass tone gear modeling software, is now shipping AmpliTube 3 raises the industry standard of sound variety, realism

Doug Bickel: The Student Becomes the Teacher

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:00:00 GMT

Jazz pianist Doug Bickel never planned on a career in music — much less returning to his Alma mater, the legendary Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, to direct the jazz piano department where he once studied.

On Our iPod . . .Music For Our Future

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:00:00 GMT

We’ll never know what music will be like in the future, or on other worlds — but this set offers some inspired guesses. Curated by Keyboard columnist and CreateDigitalMusic.com blogger Peter Kirn, XLR8R magazine, and Pitchfork.com , and inspired by the new SyFy Battlestar spinoff Caprica, it’s a free 13-song MP3 download. Included are tracks by Richard Devine, White Rainbow, Untold, and other computersavvy acts. Lusine’s “Gravity” sets the pace with sliced-up vocals over a mellow beat. Devine’s high-energy sound collage in “Matvec Interior” is both riveting and unnerving. Hudson Mohawke deploys Celtic inflections to spice up a lead synth track in “Fuse,” and the beat evaporates into a thick, dark cloud of echoing sounds in “Toward Water” by Christopher Willits and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Some of the tracks are drawn from CDs released over the past few years, but Kirn’s “Anaxagoras” is new. It wraps up the set nicely with a rhythmic curtain of high-pitched piano-like tones.

Spectrasonics Trilian: How Low Can You Go?

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:00:00 GMT

Every recording needs bass. Well, maybe not flute duets, but everything else. So every virtual studio needs a soft synth that delivers strong bass. Spectrasonics Trilogy, released in 2002, provided great sampled acoustic and electric bass, and became the go-to virtual bass in many studios. Trilian takes the Trilogy concept into the stratosphere.

Page McConnell && The Joy of Phish: The Planet's Top Concert Draw Reunites, and Fan Jump for Joy

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:00:00 GMT

To the uninitiated, Phish is hard to explain. To their core fans — even harder. How do you describe Phish to someone who has never heard the band or worse, has the wrong idea? Misconceptions usually boil down to some post-Grateful Dead narrative, where a quirky cult jam band picks up where the Dead left off after Jerry died. This grossly misrepresents what Phish is all about. True, like Deadheads, “Phish-heads” will follow the band anywhere, but as a musical entity, Phish is light years beyond what the Dead ever aspired to.

Vocoders: Beyond The Robot Voice

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:00:00 GMT

Say “vocoder” and most producers will immediately think of classic Kraftwerk or ’80s funk and rap, but this tool has far more uses than simply generating robot voices. In essence, a vocoder is a highly specialized filter bank and can create exotic effects that are almost impossible to achieve otherwise.