DEAR PRABHUS,

     The Lotus Band, which was assembled to entertain the Deities during Their Lotus Boat ride, has not been meeting due to my heavy work schedule.  For a few years, the band met periodically to prepare for festivals like Janmastami, etc.   The bhajans were mostly ISKCON melodies with the support of more elaborate percussion with orchestrial overtone.  The use of live sequences was a bit tricky but very educational. ("Live sequences" is a misnomer due to sequences being a prerecorded musical information file.)

STUDIO UPGRADES

First, the Roland SPD 11 got set atop a couple of Gibraltar stands and a crash ride and splash cymbols were added to it.  We purchased a first class throne (drummers seat) also.

A QS 8 was purchased early in the summer and this piano weighted synth is really impressive. The action has been long overdue and the sounds of this Alesis product are my personal favorite. The piano is the greatest composition tool ever invented.

In order to be able to record via hard disk, a compatible PCI based motherboard was purchased. A K6 233mhz with 64 mb ram, 17" Idek Iyama and Matrox Millenium II with 8mb onboard was added to the studio.  This computer should support any audio I/O converter card I choose.  I will add a storage device later for incomplete songs.   I plan to master to CD directly. Although there are many plugins available to add needed reverb, echo, flange, chorus, compression, expansion, etc., they use valuable processor time.  The studio has several high quality effect centers already which will be used to free up the host computer's processor. This means my I/O system must have many I/Os active simultaneously.  These cards cost from $1,000 to $4,000 depending on features. I have not decided which company to go with yet.

An AX-1 atop a JV 880 synth, both by Roland are seen here mounted on the temple room base which is made of carved wenge from Africa. I made this setup for any special event performance within the temple room.

The old workhorse SY77. Although my first synth was a 2 note Maxi-Korg, this is the poly which proved itself in the devotional realm.

The studio rack was built as a live performance system originally but now many of its parts share duty in the studio. The rack components are: 1)Samson mixer MPL2242,  2)EV wireless system MR2000A,  3)Digitech Vocalist II,   4)Digitech TSR24S,  5)ZOOM 9120,  6)Digital Music's GCX Ground Control System,  7) Fisher Studio Standard Cassett Recorder,  8)DOD Sterio Crossover,   9)Pevey 4C 400watt sterio amp,  10)another Pevey 4C,  and on the bottom of the rack is the  11)Pevey CS 800X 800 watt sterio amp.

After much study on the subject and lots of technical help I built two of these cabinets with the idea of amping small outdoor concerts.  With more than 100 lbs. in magnets and weighing in at a lean 400 lbs. each these speaker cabinets are loud, clean, and clear.  All specs. are from the books.  The cabinets are sonically divided into 2 sections. The mid-high range and the bass.

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