Well, I guess if using the Zynthian as the brains to control external synthesizers is probably not going to happen, I probably should still look into just using the Zynthian as a normal synthesizer to be controlled by my Alesis Vortex 2 wireless keytar. That would align more with how it’s meant to be used. It should be able to do that much. But it really really needs that VESA mounting solution which was mentioned to make that physically practical for me. Did that ever get finished?
Yes. It’s finished and ready, but we have to shot some pictures for the shop and open the sale. It should be on sale before September.
If you are really in a hurry, tell me!
Regards
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Honestly, I’m not in a “before September” level of hurry on that. I’m actually moving apartments at the end of the month. Also, I’m not sure what I could even attach the VESA mount to once I get it but I’d be wanting to look into that for my new apartment soon.
VESA mount idea/example 
:- K&M 19685 Adjustable VESA Screen Mounting to Mic Stand
Thanks, I will definitely look into that one. I’m a little nervous about stability on this thing. I don’t know if a mike stand would adequately prevent this thing toppling over by itself but I’ll see how it goes.
You’re right, particularly in the stage environment but adding a mic arm to the keyboard stand might be an option.
I might try to get back into this stuff sometime soon, but I think I literally lost some hair when trying to depend on the complicated multi-keyboard rig I had constructed last year to actually play music. (it’s all in boxes right now because I moved apartments) Most of what I have to say in this post isn’t about the Zynthian: it’s about my whole fundamental plan of trying to connect multiple MIDI synthesizers together into one system with USB that I had thought of before ever knowing about the existence of the Zynthian. I was foolishly trying to fit the Zynthian into a larger scheme that was poorly designed and conceived on a fundamental level and the fact that it didn’t work isn’t the fault of the Zynthian.
I think the real lesson I learned here is don’t ever buy hardware MIDI synthesizers that lack sufficient onboard presets for your use case. While you can theoretically store presets in external gear and send them live, because all the computer science is there to make that possible, it’s not practical. You are in fact limited to the onboard presets in practical reality and this is a universal rule of all synthesizer gear. Trying to do anything else is inherently unreliable. Also, one expensive keyboard is better than five cheap ones. I just wish it hadn’t cost me almost three grand over a couple years to learn all of this the hard way.
Those issues should be addressed on a hardware level in the gear you choose to buy, not solved in software after the fact using Linux. I had assumed while collecting them that the Yamaha Reface series lacking onboard presets (or having relatively few in the DX’s case) was not big deal because I could hook up some kind of Linux computer to store the presets externally, but despite being technically possible that is just fundamentally not how any hardware synthesizers ever work really on a practical level. You can try to use them like that because it is technically possible, but you shouldn’t do so because it is unwise. The Reface series are bad products and I should probably sell them all and get something actually good.
Also anyone who says, “It works fine for me” should be kicked in the teeth. They’re wrong. Whatever they have working is by pure luck: not reliable.
And that’s not about the Zynthian: that’s about the fundamental idea of wiring different MIDI synthesizers together. Don’t try to connect different cheap devices together: Get one expensive integrated device that does everything you need out of the box and then don’t hack it at all because you’re not allowed to change things. Musical instruments are not like game consoles: you can’t just hack whatever extra feature you want into them. It doesn’t matter if your hacked game console crashes because you’re not performing with it in front of an audience so it’s OK to mod it however you want, but the use case for music gear has a far lower tolerance for any problems at all. In the case of a musical instrument, just getting any given feature to work isn’t good enough: it has to always work, all the time, every time. This is a whole different mindset than I had towards music gear last year. It’s making me understand for the first time in my life why car companies don’t want you to mod cars: it just directly attacks the Hacker Ethic on an apolitical, pure engineering basis. Facts don’t care about your feelings. And that’s a lot like losing faith in my religion for me.
If you’re a software developer trying to play music as a side hobby, your computer science knowledge is useless in the world of music gear. If you need something reliable enough to actually work live then you need to use whatever exact same dumb idiot-proof closed proprietary stuff the pros use with no changes and get screwed over by every megacorporate malpractice in how the gear’s onboard software was programmed just like as if you didn’t know anything about software development. While it’s technically possible to change this, you’d need to dedicate your entire life just to that, with no time to actually compose, learn, practice or perform music. It won’t save you time. It won’t save you money. It won’t save you headache and it won’t be a better quality result. Life is too short.
I know that goes against a lot of the ethos of the Zynthian community and I don’t mean to attack anyone here with that take. Like I said, this isn’t the fault of Zynthian: it’s from my attempts to connect the Zynthian together with other devices to try to turn multiple devices into one unified but still open system instead of just going the obvious route of buying one unified closed proprietary system that I should have done from the outset. That was my very expensive and maddening mistake, not the fault of anyone working on or selling Zynthian devices.
Now I think, adopting this far more cynical attitude, that if I change my use case for the Zynthian v5 I’ve got to something it was actually designed to do, then I might get some OK use out of it, at least in the interim before I manage to save enough money to buy one high end musical keyboard that does everything I need. What I should probably do with the Zynthian v5 is connect only my Alesis Vortex Wireless 2 keytar to it as a MIDI controller and then use that to play only sounds the Zynthian v5 can produce by itself, with no other external gear involved: just plugging its quarter inch audio out into either a mixer or directly into a speaker. That, at least, should work without too many significant problems, at least for now. At least I hope.
I am also going to have to base any decisions about future live music setup design on the fundamental premise that MIDI connections are not like audio connections, in that every cable which transmits MIDI signals is inherently unreliable and can lead to disaster, so in addition to having an instantly reachable MIDI panic button, I need to minimize the number of USB MIDI connections involved in the system to the absolute minimum possible for the sounds I absolutely need for a show. Any synthesizer involved in the setup beyond having just one device needs a massively compelling use case.
Having one synthesizer and one external controller with one USB MIDI connection between them, like in the setup of having just the Zynthian v5 and the Vortex to control it, is already one too many but I like keytars and I don’t think I can afford one with good onboard sounds or at least not right now so I think I am going to be stuck with that one connection at least for now.
Part of the true joy of the mini moog and many seminal early synth is that they didn’t have presets.
OK I know feelings are really subjective and I can understand how someone could appreciate that a lack of presets forced them to really learn the internals of a synth. In their garage. At their house. But not in front of an audience who don’t understand or care about synthesizers and you hope to God you can get to care about your music at all based on the practice you’ve done in what little time you have while working full time in a field unrelated to music, in just the few minutes you get to impress them. In front of an audience like that, in a world where it’s hard to even get anyone to listen to new music to give it a chance even for free because there’s so much of it everywhere, most performers need presets. We’re not all Keith Emerson.
I feel like I have really let myself get caught up in “Bad Gear” traps (he’s a great YouTuber) where I have bought so many devices over the years that I never actually used to produce any actual music. I’d buy them because they seemed cool but I could never get into the actual intended workflow for them once I got to trying it. I’ve got to get past that somehow.
Whats the difference between practicing to learn an instrument like a violin, or a shamisen, and practicing to learn an analogue synth without presets like a minimoog though? You seem to consider them different things. Along a similar idea my VR-09 has a boatload of presets, but I still had to practice using it to be able to manage it smoothly, decide how to store them, decide which splits and layers worked. These days I never play with a synth unless it’s one of mine, precicely because I’ve been rolled out infront of audiences with an unfamiliar keyboard and it’s gone badly.
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This also doesn’t reflect the existence of things like rack mount gear which is explicitly designed to be controlled via MIDI.
I am talking about that stuff. My conclusion has been that the modular route is the wrong way to go for reliable live performance. It can be fun to experiment with in a very low-pressure situation but I can’t rely on it in a high-pressure performance situation. Arguably OK for the studio but bad for a show.
Because to a large extent, that’s like trying to tune the piano and perform on it at the same time. And I know there have totally been some real wizard performers like from the early days of synths who can literally do that but I definitely don’t have time for that.
Note about tuning: I actually bought the Behringer Model D years ago trying to learn how to do all that fancy live-dialing the synth stuff with it and it turned out I had a God-awful time tuning the thing. It would sort of get tuned for a few minutes but wouldn’t stay tuned long enough to perform an entire song. It would go noticeably off-key within three minutes of playing – a lot like a broken guitar in need of maintenance – so that it could sort of be used for noise but not for actual music performed with other musicians. A massively frustrating ordeal because apparently the electronics in it were super sensitive to temperature and humidity or whatever in a way they shouldn’t have been. More recently, I bought a cheap-as-dirt battery-operated Stylophone and I had no problems tuning it and it would stay tuned reliably as well, which to me was crazy that this cheap little toy had none of the problems of the expensive analog synth and seemed to just work way better overall. Crazy! Anyway, I have learned the hard way that real analog synths aren’t for me, at least not at this stage in my life.