Hi everyone, first thing this morning a parcel arrived, within that parcel was my brand new E-MU XBoard 61 Keyboard controller :woot: , which I ordered last friday from Thomann.
First impressions are very good, although im well out of practice (not played in 7 odd years, and i wasn't that good to start with), but being able to play the piano and hammond by hand is just a lovely feeling, and it the amount of options it has available are just brilliant, like the velocity sencitive keys when using the piano is just lovely.
Here are a couple of pics i just took of it, and maybe as my hands warm up on it i'll record a little something using it :)

Congrats Jamie,

You definately made a great choice there mate, they are lovely boards with plenty of control. Hope you have major fun with it, and you may want to get a sustain pedal for it a bit later, for piano work etc. Enjoy Bro....:thumb:

Congrats Jamie,

You definately made a great choice there mate, they are lovely boards with plenty of control. Hope you have major fun with it, and you may want to get a sustain pedal for it a bit later, for piano work etc. Enjoy Bro....:thumb:

I did mate, i got a Sustain pedal and a vol/expression pedal (although i don't think the latter is working to well atm), i got it to work with everything via Muzys, which is the most ideal situation for me since i build everything in there, so i was chuffed about that :)
Thanks for all your help picking it too mate, it made the choice very easy in the end, and im really really pleased with it :yourock:
Cheers :thumb:

Lovely bit of kit. And it also has a PlayStation controller interface as well I see. What's that for then ?

:toothless:

Lovely bit of kit. And it also has a PlayStation controller interface as well I see. What's that for then ?

:toothless:

:D 1st thing i noticed was the Playstation controller too:D

anyways lovely piece of kit Jamie, enjoy mate:wavey:

lmao, that bit is actually for playing Jedi Knight with, sadly it wasn't included with this purchase :lol:
Thanks guys :)

:lol: LMAO....sorry had to laugh at the playstation controller comments. Sorry Bro's...:)

Jamie, That's good you've got the sustain pedal and expression pedal. The expression pedal will come in hand for all sorts of things, volume control for one, very usefull to swell pads and stuff into the mix. You should try everything out with hyersonic or the Proteus LE that it should have come with, I think if my memory serves me right, there is an XBoard editor for easy midi assignments and stuff. You should check out the EMU site if you've not already done so Bro.

:lol: LMAO....sorry had to laugh at the playstation controller comments. Sorry Bro's...:)

Jamie, That's good you've got the sustain pedal and expression pedal. The expression pedal will come in hand for all sorts of things, volume control for one, very usefull to swell pads and stuff into the mix. You should try everything out with hyersonic or the Proteus LE that it should have come with, I think if my memory serves me right, there is an XBoard editor for easy midi assignments and stuff. You should check out the EMU site if you've not already done so Bro.

Well the Expression pedal doesn't seem to work, i can hear something shaking about inside it, which doesn't sound good lol, but i'll have that to pieces later, the sustain pedal is working, im just having abit of trouble with it ona couple of assignment, but im very bew to this midi-controller stuff, so its probably something im not doing atm.
It really plays lovely though, the piano is especially sweet to my ears after all this time, i just got to refresh my playing now :lol:

Thats great, Av. Was looking at the smaller version of that keyboard on Thomann myself. But I dont know enough about the supporting software to know what I need. Its not a standalone keyboard in its own right, is it? I thought it was just a midi controller and you need software like Fruity Loops to go with it?

Thats great, Av. Was looking at the smaller version of that keyboard on Thomann myself. But I dont know enough about the supporting software to know what I need. Its not a standalone keyboard in its own right, is it? I thought it was just a midi controller and you need software like Fruity Loops to go with it?

Well is comes with quite a few programs, Proteus X being the most relevant as far as sounds go, but im not actually using that as i have other VST programs i use my with sequencer Muzys.
As you say its not standalone, without a computer it can't make a noise, but i think Proteus X looks good too, if you comp has the chops to run it, it would be very useful i think (it certainly would to me if i hadn't already been using my B4 etc).
But as a keyboard its brilliant so far, if its reliable in the long term, then i'll be happy as a pig in *cough* :lol:
Definately worth a look though mate :)

Awe man, that should be one HELL of a fun toy to play with! Can´t wait to listen to it! The only thing I ever played on a piano was a Neil Young´s tune, LMAO! I sure wish I could learn it, as I´ve always said, keys are second to none for a musical instrument. Having both hands free for playing notes is the ultimate. Of course, if you play naked while standing up you may even have an eleventh finger to pound some rhythm note :notme: :p. Post some lil thingie here, I wanna listen!

Awe man, that should be one HELL of a fun toy to play with! Can´t wait to listen to it! The only thing I ever played on a piano was a Neil Young´s tune, LMAO! I sure wish I could learn it, as I´ve always said, keys are second to none for a musical instrument. Having both hands free for playing notes is the ultimate. Of course, if you play naked while standing up you may even have an eleventh finger to pound some rhythm note :notme: :p. Post some lil thingie here, I wanna listen!

lmao, yeah i will do mate, im just remembering some Queen atm (the intro to Take My Breath Away) thats a nice little piece, i might record that later and stick in here :)
I've got the expression pedal working now too, the thing rattling around inside was the cog that was supposed to be on the end of the pot, popped it back on and its alive and well now too :)

Right, here is a little sample of me playing it as a Piano, alittle of "Take My Breath Away" for you to enjoy, im still alittle rusty though i warn u :)

Sweet!!! Sounds great Jamie, congrats:thumb:

Sweet!!! Sounds great Jamie, congrats:thumb:

Thanks mate, i've been fiddling with this ever since it arrived nearly, maybe i've found that inspiration i was after :)

Right, here is a little sample of me playing it as a Piano, alittle of "Take My Breath Away" for you to enjoy, im still alittle rusty though i warn u :)

Congrats Jamie! That sounded beautiful!:)

Yeah! That sounds really cool! One question, did you make the brakes on it on purpose or is that due to the midi timing?

Yeah! That sounds really cool! One question, did you make the brakes on it on purpose or is that due to the midi timing?

That was on purpose mate, last time i played that i was still at school :lol: , so im still abit slow atm, and well out of practice, i was actually very suprised how little (if any) timing issues there are.
My comp isn't the fastest by a long shot, so i was wondering how it would manage with me bashing the hammond, but i was very pleased to hear that its not an issue, not yet anyhow, it might come into play on bigger projects maybe though, only time will tell, but so far so good :)

Thanks again everyone :)

Right, here is a little sample of me playing it as a Piano, alittle of "Take My Breath Away" for you to enjoy, im still alittle rusty though i warn u :)

that sounds brilliant Jamie, you will add a whole new dimension to your music compositions now:thumb:

that sounds brilliant Jamie, you will add a whole new dimension to your music compositions now:thumb:

I hope to mate, it will certainly give me some space from guitaring and thats quite nice atm, maybe with abit of time and effort i can get my keyboarding skill level up enough to actually work on some songs with, but for now its practice time :)