[sdiy] My Best buy ever...

[Christopher Randall]

> I remember being so jealous of Doug Firley's Matrix-12. He was only 
> using it to trigger samples... so much synth not being used...


Not so much, no. Of their first 47 shows they played, 45 of them were 
opening for us. On that tour Doug had a JV-1080 that went in to a bass 
amp that he "triggered" with the Matrix 12. However, he generally only 
used one sound, and it wasn't coming through the house PA at all, and 
wasn't doing anything _period_ until the last 7 or 8 shows. I often 
wondered why they bothered to bring in the bass rig and JV-1080. The 
Matrix-12 was on, but you can take it from me that it didn't work at 
all, other than having the ability to light up its displays, and even 
then only barely. If you guys never saw Gravity Kills live, suffice it 
to say that Matrix 12 took a _beating_ every night.

We managed to get it to spit MIDI for the last week they were with us, 
and Doug actually had keyboard bass noises coming out of the bass amp 
on stage, but they had little to do with the songs, so it's a good 
thing the bass and keys were coming off the ADAT. Doug's sole purpose 
on stage was entertainment value. (Which is not to knock his 
musicianship; he did the majority of the production work on the GK 
albums, and actually is quite a talented keyboard player; it just isn't 
what that band was about live.)

Other funny GK trivia: when they started out the tour with us, they 
didn't have a case for that monster of a keyboard stand, which weighed 
in at about 280 pounds, and was covered with little laser-cut geegaws 
that would just fuck your hands up when you tried to move it. Our crew 
complained mightily day in and out until their tour manager/sound guy 
got around to getting a case made for it.

Now, this case was designed to hold the entire keyboard stand, and was 
about the size of a baby grand piano. _It_ weighed another 200 pounds. 
So the keyboard and case together were just shy of a quarter of a ton. 
And here's the kicker: it didn't have wheels on it.

Our crew came up with a name for the combo which stuck to the end of 
GK's touring career, and apologies to sensitive people out there, but 
they called it "The Lord Of All Gayness."

Par for the course with that band. I could go on for days with stories 
of their ridiculousness.

Chris Randall
http://www.analogindustries.com
http://www.audiodamage.com