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IN CONCLUSION - After 34+ years of travelling all over the world, I have performed in a thousand cities, met thousands of people and spent tens of thousands of dollars on different configurations of keyboards and modules. The older I get, the simpler I want things to be. My current setup is by far my favorite both in sound quality and portability. I expect to soon be downsizing even more by using my laptop (or iPad) as my sound generator. But I will always want 2 tiers of keyboards in front of me. I have contemplated many times over the possibility of incorporating a Steinway D in my setup. But that will have to come when my own band takes to the road. - TOM SCHUMAN
 
2008 to present day
Today I use the smallest most portable setup ever! I have no choice because our road crew is down to a sound man and a road manager who also is the lighting director. We would rent a Yamaha ES8, XS8, S90 or Kurzweil PC88 and a 2 tier keyboard rack. I carry my 3 space soft rack with me on the plane which houses 2 Roland XV-2020s, a Roland Fantom XR and a Yamaha Motif Rack ES. I bring my Korg X50 everywhere and hope it does not get lost by the bag handlers (I have a backup X50 at home just in case). Here is a YouTube of this setup. I used the Yamaha Motif Rack ES just in case they didn’t have an ES8 (which I prefer). Now the ES8 has been pretty easy to find everywhere so I now just bring the 2 space rack with just the Roland modules in it.
 
1990
I saved the Multimoog until Korg released the Prophecy in 1995 (no more oscillator drift problems). Soon I replaced the DX7 with a Korg M1. When Kurzweil came out with the PC88, I replaced the Roland RD1000 with that just because of the piano sound. You can see this setup here. This is the setup I had during the making of “Road Scholars”. The rack on my right went through a lot of downsize changes as well. I started my sampling experience briefly with the Emulator. The 4 space rack version was the E64 soon to be replaced by the 2 space ESI-32. My rack eventually whittled down to the Korg Wavestation SR, Emu ESI-32 and Korg M1-R replacing the M1 keyboard. I brought back the DX7 to control the M1R. The Kurzweil PC88 controlled the Wavestation SR and the Roland D50 controlled the ESI-32. Mixing all those sounds together was the challenge, so I had three Yamaha MV-802 line mixers which helped organize the stacks and send them to front of house and monitors as three stereo pairs.
 
1988
After the advent of midi technology, once again I found myself changing gears by downsizing and incorporating more sounds as midi “stacks”. I purchased 4 Yamaha TX modules and placed them in a rack. They were controlled by the ever famous Yamaha DX7. I got rid of the Fender Rhodes, Yamaha CP80 & GS1 and went with the Roland RD1000 midied to a Korg Wavestation SR. On top of the DX7 was the Roland D50 midied to an EMU sampler.
 
1982
After the success of Morning Dance, the band quickly expanded its equipment list and crew. I even had my own keyboard roadie! So the keyboard setup kept growing as well. I was approached by Moog Music and Rhodes with endorsement deals. Moog started toying with the portable keytar called Liberation as well as polyphonic synths like the Memorymoog and Polymoog. Fender Rhodes supplied me with all the tines, hammers and neoprene hammer tips I would ever need. I expanded my footprint considerably by adding a Yamaha CP80 electric grand with Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 on top. A Yamaha GS2 over the Dyno Rhodes 88 stage model and a Yamaha GS1 behind me with the Moog Liberation on top of that. I also remember adding a Moog Opus 3 over the Clavinet and Oberheim 4 voice.
It’s difficult for me to remember all the stages of growth. However, I do remember the largest and most complicated setup I ever had. Here is a diagram:


I’m pretty sure this was the setup I used for our first live record “Access All Areas” in 1984.

 
1978
When the Spyro Gyra band first formed for extended road travel, Jeremy Wall, who was the original keyboardist decided to stay off the road and pursue other interests leaving the keyboard work exclusively to me. We hit the road in a small truck and Winnebago Brave motor home.
I owned a Fender Rhodes suitcase model and a Minimoog. The company (Cross-eyed Bear Productions) purchased an Oberheim 4 voice synthesizer for me to play which I learned to program myself. You can see this setup in the YouTube video of Spyro Gyra on Top of the Pops in London 1979 here. The steel drum sound you hear at the beginning of Morning Dance was my first programming experience with the Oberheim. It was a great synth for its time because of the modular design and 16 total recall presets. I was able to call up my strings, horns, steel drums, bells, warm pads, basses and other solo sounds as needed on the fly.
The Minimoog was an analog monophonic synth with three oscillators which had to be programmed in real time. I used this mostly for soloing and legato lines. It had a tendency to drift out of tune so I was constantly using my ear to fine tune it as I played it.
A year later, I added a Hohner D6 Clavinet (with wah pedal) and a Multimoog to this setup. The Clavinet was a great instrument for funk rhythms which is what I used it for. You could also mute the strings for that mute guitar effect. The Multimoog allowed me to play on one synth while setting up the other Minimoog for the next tune. I also liked the force sensor on it allowing me to add modulation to the oscillators using key pressure freeing up my left hand (these days we call it after touch). You can see me play those two synths together on this YouTube video of Shaker Song here.