Nord Stage 4 Keyboard Breakdown with Marcus Wiles

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Aerospace Audio

For this episode, we have a returning guest, Marcus Wiles to discuss the Nord Stage 4, including whether it’s worth upgrading from the Stage 3, keybed improvements like triple-sensor action, new faders and workflow, and faster preset building across piano/organ/synth sections. Marcus highlights major value in Stage 4’s dedicated per-layer effects, including new Cathedral reverb (with modulated “choral” variation) and a sidechain-style pump effect, plus extensive MIDI CC automation with Ableton for live touring. He shares go-to Nord piano choices (White Grand, Pearl Upright), explains why some think Nords don’t cut through a mix, and demonstrates tools like dynamic compression, EQ, and noise layering for realism. The episode also covers organ, Rhodes, synth/sample-based sound design, touring stories, and advice on practicing, learning gear, and staying versatile.

Marcus Wiles

Aerospace Audio

Transcript

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Welcome to the Worship Keys podcast. My name is Carson Bruce. We talk all things music theory, gear, industry, and ministry for your worship keys playing. I'd like to thank Aerospace Audio for being a sponsor of this episode. They create unique incredible high quality atmospheric drone pads to be used for your worship services, productions, songwriting sessions, whatever it may be. They have an analog physical drone pedal that they call atmosphere. There's actually a version three out. They also have a MIDI end capability, so you can work in tandem with Ableton Live or any other dog that you have to be able con to control everything through that ecosystem. Or if not the physical analog pedal. They also have an iOS app that you can run the pad straight from your iPhone or iPad. It's called Aero Pads. Definitely check them out, aerospace audio.com and let's get into today's episode. Guys, welcome back to the Worship Keys podcast today. Marcus wiles is back on the podcast. Good to be back. Last week you shared all about the Prophet Six Uhhuh. Incredible episode, all about synthesizers. If you did not catch it, definitely catch it and today. It's all about the red keyboard, where the Nord is, the Lord is. Yep. Nord stage four, y'all. King of Keys. The King of Keys and the Lord of Chords. Oh my gosh. I think I said that last time. Uh, hey, it's, it's good to say it again, man. Yeah, it's good to say it again, but welcome back. Listen, Marcus is the real deal and I, I want you guys to know that. Playing with Jordan Felice playing out with Danny Gokey last year. You're on tour with Matthew West, Riley Clemons. Mm-hmm. You've done stuff with. Kelsey Ballerini, which I know she's not like in the worship genre at any means, but I mean, not as far as we know. Not as far as we know. She not joking. I mean, you know, well, thank you for being on the podcast. Taking the time. He does a lot of writing, a lot of songwriting, a lot of producing, and he does it with quote unquote industry professionals, but he also, he does production for churches. So if you're interested in reaching out to him, his Instagram, Marcus Wiles, W-I-L-E-S. I appreciate the plug, bro. Thank you. Oh, man. Absolutely. Is it worth it to upgrade from the three to the four? Do you like the four way better? What are the pros and cons that you see? I don't think there's any cons. Okay. No cons. Some people will say, there's no that this is a economist combo, but for me, but do I think it's worth it to upgrade? Uh, if you're paying full price for both, everything and you are happy with your three, then no, I don't necessarily think it's worth it to upgrade. You heard it here first. The, the reason I upgraded was because I have kind of a specific use case where I was really wanting to get a second one and I had a 3 88. Okay. And actually what I did is I sold that. And I bought a three compact. And then I also, then I bought the 4 88 Sweet. And so this kind of became my main board. Gotcha. And the three compact it's more portable, obviously you can carry under one arm and it's like my sampler. Okay. You know, like I've got tons of sounds in there. I bring it to studio sessions. Like a lot of, uh, studios here in Nashville already have a organ. They got a grand piano. They got a upright piano. Rhodes, worldly. They got all the things. They got all the stuff. So if I'm gonna bring a board, it's just gonna be like for like the auxiliary stuff. Right. And, uh, it is also a really great feeling keyboard. I could have kept the 3 88 and bought the four compact, but they made a ton of improvements to the key bed. Oh, did they really? On the four. And so I wanted, I felt like I would take advantage of that mostly if I had the fully weighted. 88. Okay. I heard a rumor that they, they went, they took the key bed from the, the two and kind of implemented that back with the four. Is that true? So it's all the same model of like, they, there's this company called FATAR and it's all the same model of Key Bed, but Nord does calibrate them differently for each model. Got you. But the big difference is that on almost every keyboard you buy essentially like there's, a sensor on the bottom and it basically, and one on the top as well. So it tells the keyboard's brain when you're pressing the key and when you release a key. Right. Right if you talk to someone that is like, especially like a classical pianist or someone that pretty much only ever plays really nice grand pianos, they'll say, oh, I can't play on a keyboard. Because most of the time historically with keyboards, you can't stri the note until it comes all the way back up. So for things like trim lows or things that you're moving really fast, right? Right. it's almost impossible to play on a keyboard. But with the stage four, they actually have the sensor on the top and the bottom, but they have also have one in the middle. Oh, it's called triple Sensor, so it lets you, if I bring the key back up a little bit, I can res strike it. I'm not very good at playing tremolos. My technique has really suffered since college, but, really just allows. A lot more nuance and it really does feel a lot more like playing a grand piano. Absolutely. Um, it's got a lighter action than a lot of real pianos, but in terms of like the mechanics of it, it feels more natural and that's good. And you get that with all the stage four models. But having the fully weighted piano, uh. This piano centric action, I think you really filled out the most. That's good. So that's why I went to 88. So I have the three compact, I bring that most of the time to sessions. Yeah. And I'm doing mostly synth and ox and MIDI controller stuff with that. Okay. And then this is the, this is like my main stage board. And there's some other like, quality of life stuff. Like if you're familiar with Nords, especially this Nord stage keyboards, the faders will be new to you. Right. I like the faders look here. I, I do too. I love it because it's like. Before with the slot A and slot B, you kind of, if you load up a patch that you're not familiar with, you're like, what's going on? But this literally, you can see everything at a glance. I love it. You can see what's on. Oh, I'm layering panels. I've got layering. Since you also have a third synth layer you can do That's cool. The organs, you know, as good as it's ever been. Some people hate the organ. I like the organ. Oh, come on now. , but I am biased. I will own that, wear that on my chest, but, um, do it bro. Do it. Another really cool thing is putting presets together on the four is so much quicker than it used to be. Okay? Because , each section, the organ, the piano, and the synth has. Their own presets. Okay? So his, you used to have this with just the synth section. You could load synth programs and you could load them up. But now you can do that with anything. So like if, here's something, this is just a white grand, which is my go-to. I can just load up a pad. I can just hit synth and I can go to soft pad. See here already, but I also have my, I have my own stuff in here too. See, these are all just like little presets that I've come up with. Synth piano. It's a little quiet. That's a cool sound. It's so fast, you know? Mm-hmm. Right. And you can do that with the organs and so good. Yeah. So it's just like, it just kind of gets you where you're going a little faster. Totally. Uh, the reason why I don't necessarily know that it's worth upgrading because of the price of it. Yeah. Is that like a lot of the like these, this, this is a sample pad. I have this in my stage three. This is the same piano sample I had in my stage three. It's just the workflow is improved. Right. And if you're, if you happen to be wanting a second Nord, yeah, you know, then maybe it's worth it, you know, course. Or if you're stage three is just hanging on for dear life, like they, they're able to really expand the synth section, because now whereas like. In the three, you had pretty much all of your synth, your, like your filter controls were in the filter section, uhhuh. Now you hit this and the screen goes to it and now you have a whole envelope just for the filter. Oh, that's cool. You know, so like they're kind of using the space a little differently, which is cool. Yeah. All that is just not, it's not worth the upgrade. Right, right. But one of the things that is uh, definitely worth the money for me is the dedicated effects. Okay. Okay. So this was the first thing where I was like, okay, I'm, I'm paying attention now. Uh, if you make a lot of patches on like a stage three or a stage two, then you will know, like, like take your delay. For instance, like everyone knows the whole Nord thing is cool. It's like, oh, you just reach over, turn on the delay, and there it is. Like that's what we all love about it. Or we just love using it as a media controller, which I don't understand, but, oh, come on bro. Oh, that's another conversation. But like historically, like you've got this delay, you had one delay on the A slot, and then you would flip over to the B slot and you had another delay. So you had two delays. And like on the A side, if you've got like a piano and a synth, you have to decide which of those the delay's gonna get. Got you. But now literally organ A, B, piano A, B, synth A, B, and C all have their own complete effects section. Oh, that's good. So what that means is that when I'm loading up these presets, like I was earlier, if you look here, each preset isn't just loading the sample. It's loading an entire effects chain as well. Oh wow. So like EQ settings and everything loads up with that specific preset. That's good. Yeah, that's good. And so that's. That's a significant, um, increase in power. Yes. Because that means that you can have like a massive reverb for your pad and your piano is a smaller reverb. Right. Whereas before it was like all the same. It was all together, or you had to like put one onto different slot. Oh, okay. That's good. That's good. So, um, it's more control. Exactly. And with that, there's a bunch of new effects and I don't want to go into all of 'em. I think I mentioned this whenever we were going through the prophet, but like, I'm not being paid by Nord here. Yeah, yeah. I just want to talk about like some of the things that I'm using. True. Right. So, for a long time this is gonna be really valuable for church worship players, but for a long time I would use a big sky with my Nord. Right. And I would usually run the pianos through it. And then I would just have like a, another large verb, the built-in reverb for the pads. They added a reverb in here called the cathedral. Which sounds a lot like the cloud setting on the big sky. I'm not saying it's the same, but it's just a huge, uh, ambient reverb. And I'll show you. Yeah, that's fine. Um, let me just get like a dry piano sound. Let's just, you know, not no reverb or anything. Check this out. That's a lot of reverb, but they have, I added some other controls too, like you can, they have a bright or dark setting, so here's like a dark or bright. Yeah. And that's all cool. This is the best part though. Okay. This is what makes it sound, makes it sound like a big sky. Is this corral setting. Um, okay. Pretty much all the effects. If you look under here, it says variation. Um, you almost have like twice the amount of effects you can see, like they've got like an analog style version of, or a digital style whatever. With the reverbs, each one has its own variation. And for the cathedral, it's a corral setting, which means it's like a modulated reverb. Oh, wow. So check this out. So that's normal. I turn it on. That's neat. Yeah. So that's really good for obviously anything that's ambient. Right? Right. Like, uh, if you're using my favorite soft piano and the Nord stuff is the Bright Felt, or it's just called the Felt Upright, bright felt is one of my presets, it's like got some EQ on it, but this is the felt piano with that reverb. I'm trying to step a little bit. It's beautiful. It just, it, it kind of does what you want the big, expensive river pedal to do. Yes. Sounds great. On roads as well. I'll just switch to like a roads here. Like that is the worship thing, you know? Yes. So whenever I'm up at church, you know, and I'm coming up at the end of the message and I'm just supporting the pastor, right? It's, that's that bright felt. Um, it's just really good for that. Kind of a pro tip for Nord users, instead of turning on like if you want to like say, just do pad instead of like turning it down and then bring it in. I don't like doing that. 'cause sometimes you hear the piano fade in or fade out. Mm-hmm. What I do is I do this layer scene, which is on, it's the same as on the older nords of switching between slide A and slot B. Right. So this would kind of be similar to where if I had like my piano on slot A and the pad on slot B and I'm switching back. 'cause what it does is it kind of mimics more as if it was a. Two different parts. So I can play pad stuff and then bring the piano back in and I can, and the piano's still sustaining. Uh, you know, it's just, it's a more natural way of doing it. Yes. Um, that's just a little pro tip. If you don't have a stage four, you can do that by, uh, pressing, like the slot a. You can press one of the slot buttons and then press the other one to turn 'em to turn off, and whichever one you're holding, I think it's either whichever one you're holding or whichever one you press last is gonna be the one that it. Goes to. Gotcha. You can just messing around with that. Gotcha, gotcha. But that's how I've been setting up my patches for nor stuff for a long time. That's very nice. Um, love that. Let's see. Yeah, so the cathedral reverb with the corral is, it's big. Makes a strong case for having this board, especially if you are using like a big sky or something. Right. Some other stuff they added, which is pretty cool in terms of the effects is they added like a side chain pumping thing, which is sick. Mm. Chose man. Um, yes, I will, I'll happily show you. So this is, I'm gonna pull up a patch that I play with used with Jordan. Um, by the way, if you guys use a Nord stage four at your church or personally, let us know in the comments, tell us if you love it or not and what you love about it. Yep. So this is SLY. It's short for somebody Loves You. It was a single of Jordan's a few years ago. And there's a lot of go, there's a lot of things going on here. It's just piano, but you'll can see like utilizing the effects. There's a lot happening here. So basically, I've got two pianos here. When I hit the layer scene button, it switches. And you can see each piano has its own effects chain. So this is like my intro verse vibe. And then when I switch here, this is my chorus vibe. Oh, cool. And what's cool is that when I'm playing on live, this is synced up to midi. It does, it does all of my patch changes, but it also does some parameter switching as well. It doesn't just change patches. So this button actually responds to a midi cc and I automate this. So I basically have like, it switches to like the chorus node. I'll, I'll, I'll show you. I'll show you. Show me, man. So the song kind of goes like this and, you know, cut starts down. It's very compressed and I've got this on a filter. I, I can just kind of play it. That's cool. Yeah. When the chorus drops, uh, this kind of like pumping effect comes in and I'm actually sinking this over midi with our tracks. So it's BP Sy. Okay, let's go. But it'll, it kind of, it'll kind of go like this. Which I'm not set up to tempo, so I'm, maybe I'm a little off, but like that is cool. So I've got this pumping thing happening. I've got the filter, I've got a delay. And the delay, if you would see by this green LED here, is being turned up as I push the mod wheel. So when I turn the mod wheel up, the filter is opening and the delay is coming on. That's incredible. And uh, and it does that automatically over midi, which again, like pretty much every button I hear has its own mid cc. Right. And in our Ableton session for our tracks, I'm saying I have a midi midi chain for my pedal board, my ox keys and my nod. I'm also doing playback for Jordan. Okay. Okay. And I also play a little guitar, um, on about a third of the set. And so I got a lot going on. I hope he pays you well. I love my boss. There you go. So I actually kind of automate as much as I can and so I, I actually have like a midi chain that like first hits, my pedal board, does all the tempo BPMs Okay. Does patch changes, and then it goes like a midi through thing goes out of there into here. And then comes outta here into my ox keys. Okay, so presets change. Okay. I'm doing a little more with this just 'cause I am first and foremost a keys player and I'm right. I'm really comfortable with the Nord ecosystem, so I'm doing a lot of stuff here. Yes. Um, but. In terms of like mid CC automation, it's mostly this because I kind of think of this as like, here's my two versions of this sound. So this is intro verse, and then this is like the drop section. If you go listen to somebody loves you on Spotify, it's kind of like a sort of like ED mish kind of track. Okay. If that wasn't, if the. Side chain thing didn't give it away. Right, right, right. That's cool. Um, and it kind of lets me like go in and outta that really quickly. Yeah. And again, like, I'm not, I'm not going, like I'm just playing. Right. You know? Right. And I'm being a music director. I'm watching Jordan, watching my guys, making sure they're all good. Yes. You know? So the last thing I wanna be doing is anything like really nerdy technical on stage. Totally, totally. Yeah. So that pump, that pumping thing is super cool. I can just kind of play that all day, you know? Yes. Um, but yeah, there's a lot of cool effects. The, I think the amp sims are really cool. There's a lot of things that added with the delays, like the way you can filter it and stuff is super cool. But I will say the cathedral reverb and the side chain pump are two effects that are not on the three that I use quite a bit. That's awesome. Yeah. If that's worth it to you, then that's up, that's for you to decide. But I'm very glad that I have access to those effects. Take it or leave it. I would love to talk about like. What are like my go-to piano samples, because that's honestly something I get asked all the time. And if you didn't know this about Nord, whether you have an electro two from 20 years ago. Actually, I don't know if that goes back that, I don't know if you can do this, this on electro two, but pretty much any Nord, you have any electro piano or stage that can all load the same piano samples. Okay. And the same synth samples for that matter. Alright. Like, they're not all a full fledged synth, but they, if you have like a sample thing, you can load samples into it. Cool. Cool. So if you like these piano sounds, you can load them onto your Nord if you have one. That's what I'm trying to say, but my favorite, uh, grand piano for a few years now has been the white grand. Yeah. I just love it. 'cause it's like. It's colorful, but it's not too colorful. Right. It takes EQ really well, like it doesn't really get harsh. You can compress the crap out of it. Yeah. And it, it, it kind of responds nicely. Right. And so that's kind of my go-to. That's what I've been playing. We, uh. Turn that reverb off. Just a little bit of maybe a little stage. I will say when I started using this is when I started hearing from front of house guys that they didn't have any EQ really. Like they just crushed it with this. That's awesome. So I love the white grand. Something that I will say about these is, I don't know if Colton Dixon's gonna watch this. Okay. But he and I probably, probably not. He and I fight about this. Okay. Okay. Because he hates Nords. Why though? Because he, he, well, first of all, he, he like what you like, you know what I mean? Of course. Yeah. Uh, but he just doesn't think they sound good. And, and he's, uh, oh, wow. And he is not the only one. I've, I've been hearing that the entire time, ever since I. But my first Nord, like over 10 years ago. Huh? I've been hearing that. And I came from Yamaha. Right. The whole thing. And people are like, well, it doesn't cut through a mix, you know? That's what, that's the argument. That's the argument. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe you've heard that before. Let me let, I, I really wanna speak to that. Come on, speak it. Okay. So got a microphone right in front of you. It's the time to shine Marcus. Pretty much every other brand that I know of, that I've used, when you load up, a piano. Um, it's loading up the samples, but there's a certain amount of EQ and compression that's baked in to that sound. Yeah. And nord doesn't automatically do that. Like if you are in here and you go to like a preset that has, that's a piano, then it might have that. But if you just go here and you're like scrolling through the pianos, that's just the raw piano sample. Got you. Yeah. And I actually love that because it gives you more control. Right. You know, I come from, before I was a Nord guy. I was, I was on the, the motif for years. Okay. And I love my power grant. I love my full grant. I love my concert grand. Yeah. But as far as I know, those are mostly the same samples, but they have different EQ and compression settings. Right, right, right. And so what you have to do to get to the same, just baseline with the Nord, is you have to come over here. You know, or you need to get into here and there's some certain things. Another thing that stage four does is this dynamic compression, which I'll talk about. I have a patch in here called Piano Pad, which is my kind of like just basic church setting, you know? I've got reverb and I've got compression. And if I play, if I dig in with this ACT ability, you'll see it turn on. I turn that off. You hear the difference? Yeah, totally. And then also it's like this keyboard touch, you gotta get that dialed in. And then this dynamic comp, they added this for the stage four. This is massive. It's kind of like a cheat code. Oh, wow. All right. Basically, you know, we compress things so that they sit in a mix properly. Right. Or to give them character. But what this does is it essentially, if you were ever, if you ever use like keys scape or any of the like kontact piano plugins and you see like a No, this is like dynamic range. If you turn that down. That's essentially what this is. What it's doing is. It's compressing it, but it's not compressing the audio, it's compressing it by turning the quiet piano samples up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So if I turn this off, I'll try to demonstrate this. I'll try to, so I'm, I'm gonna try to play unevenly where this note is way louder. If I turn this way up. You hear the difference? Yeah, totally. If I play really softly, it's still playing the quiet samples, but they're just louder. Right. See, I'm playing softly. But those sounds are almost, those quiet sounds are almost as loud as opposed to Oh yeah. Big dynamic difference. I keep it on two. Okay. I just keep it right in the middle. Right. Um, and it just evens out your playing in a natural sounding way. It doesn't actually process the audio. Yeah. So that combined with a little bit of compression just for some color. Oh, that's good. Um, is what really makes this feel like a, a natural sounding piano, but also one that sits in a mix. Absolutely. Which is why people love this. Yeah. And you can go further with setting eq, but my point is that it really is the whole thing, you know? So that being said, like a lot of my favorite piano sounds like I'm dialing stuff up here, but I've also got EQ and compression and stuff like that. White grand with a little compression goes a long way. That's kind of what I've been rocking with for the last, like six years, I think for my grands, for, you know, grand is, uh, grands and uprights. You know, I, I'm doing a lot, a lot more upright stuff these days. So I will talk about that. My favorite upright piano is, let me find it. We love a good upright Yeah, I'm interested to know what that patch is that says fiery pad. Fiery noisy pad you have. It might be a factory preset. Let's see here. Oh, okay. Yeah, I didn't make this one. Oh, okay. It kind of sounds like that profit for earlier today. It does. It actually does. It might have sampled what you did like with the fuzz, the one with the fuzz effects on it. It soothing some filter drive, so it's driving the oscillators into the filter to create those harmonics. That, but uh, yeah, there you go. Anyways, sorry, that's a bit of a. I can't take credit for that one. That's pretty nice though. I love that. Uh, worship upright. So can't get more worship than this. This is my favorite, um, upright. The funny thing about this is when the Pearl upright came out, I did not like it, but then I actually started getting with it, started tweaking it, and, uh, it's not my favorite now. It's enough character. It's where it's definitely an upright. Oh my. But it's not so detuned, right? So I love that. Um, this is like my kind of go-to worship thing. Hey, why don't you play for us some more, bro? Yeah. Um, woo. I dunno. I love that. Uh, anyways, um, love it. Mortgage. I'll, I'll play some more, I'll play some more later, but yes. This upright, it just covers a lot of ground. I find, again, like what I look for in a good piano sample is something that responds to processing well. Yeah. Especially for like pop stuff, because you want to compress it, you wanna EQ it, you want to add distortion, right? You want to and you want to add reverb, but you don't want it to get lost. Yes. And so like this piano sound I use even for kind of happy pop stuff. So this is, yeah, this is just the little hook from King is alive. And so it goes, oh. Um, but that's, it's the same sample. I've got this bright EQ on it, and I've got medium touch. And quite a bit of compression, and I've got some EQ on it as well. It's one of those things that in my ears, I use a similar sound for another Jordan song called Can't Lose. That might even, that's even more compressed. Um, do you write these progressions or does he or who does? Depends. It it depends. I mean, I, uh, it's a good, I actually did track the keys on, can't lose for the record. Um, love these man. And then, you know, it'll change a little bit for the live version. It just depends. Whatever you'all feel. I'm happy. I'm very lucky to be involved on some level with some of the songs, but Awesome, man. Not all the time, but this, this is one of those things that in my ears, it almost feels like it's too much compression. Got you. But like when I started dialing that much in, um. The front house, our front house guy was like, yes. You know? Yes. Yeah. Because it just sits in a mix really well, Uhhuh, and again, like this is similar, if you see, you might see a preset like, you know, like bright. Upright comp or something on a montage uhhuh, and you are loading it up and it already has this, but the thing is it might, that might sound great, but you really couldn't use this as much for the really delicate stuff, but I can, I can just turn that off and turn that off. Or back to it. That's why I love the Nord stuff. It just, it just gives you flexibility. Um, you just gotta take the time to kind of figure out where you're at. I realize that like, if you're not used to using it, it is intimidating, right? I don't blame people for not wanting to use it, but. I That doesn't make it not a great keyboard court, right. It just means that it, you haven't taken the time to learn it yet. And that's okay. 'cause we're all busy. Um, everything's hard when you don't know how to do it at first. Yeah. Which, yeah, something. Let's see. Uh, something else while we're on this upright sound that I would love to share is, I don't see a lot of people doing this, but you know how, this is another Jordan Felice patch. You know how like on fill in the blank kontact library, how you can like dial in. Uh, like mechanical noises and stuff? Yeah, yeah, totally. I'm doing that here. Okay. Now the, yeah. You know, Arturia key lab, the, You can adjust the hammers, the let off. Yeah, exactly like that. That kind of quality. Yeah. The Nord doesn't typically do that, but if you look in the synth section, this is like, I'm using noise to get that, and I'm only using it if you look on the key zones. I'm only using it up here. Okay, so I'll play this for you. This is a song called Joyful Noise. It starts out like, but then on the pre chorus, this piano comes in and the, the, the chorus is, um. And so on. On these higher notes I've got, if you hear this little, the little noise. Oh yeah. And I, and I can actually solo that. So I'm just, yes. I'm just layering those in. And it kind of adds Yes, bro. It adds to the quality. 'cause this piano is like squashed. It's super compressed. Mm-hmm. And if you're actually miking up a real piano and you dime a compressor, you're gonna hear all that stuff. Wow. And this is more of an effect. That's why it's only up here. 'cause when I'm playing that slab, I'm, I'm also going at, so I really only wanted that on the octaves. Right, right. That's kind of like, Hey, I get rid of that whirly. Maybe I'll do this full range. So, yeah, I love that control, man. I know on the fly like that, and this thing is like, it's um, you think, oh, well this is a synth section. This is for like bleeps and blobs. But this is incredible. This is all one instrument. This is incredible. You know what I'm saying? Okay. So for the people they don't have access to actually feel it like we can right here. Can you describe what these faders feel like? Are they light? Are they heavy? They're light, for sure. They're light. I don't want to, I bet I could blow on it. I'm not, I'm not gonna though. In case it can't, then everyone's gonna think I have weak lungs. Right, right. Okay. Okay. Okay. No. Do you like it being so light? Do you wish it was a little more. It's not a big deal to me. Okay. They don't feel flimsy. Okay. They just feel light. It's just light. Easy to control. Yeah. Now the organ, the organ drawbar, do they feel like organ drawbar? They don't feel Yeah. They're, they're cliquey, which is not all ham. Just like notches. Not all Hammonds I've played have this little notch feel. Right. They real smooth, but it, it does feel like the other nods that have drawbar. Okay. Okay. Curious but what is cool about this is that you've got drawbar and the LEDs. Ah, that's nice. So like on, on my three compact, it's got the draw bars, but it's just draw bars, right? So what's cool about that is like if I have a patch that has organ in it, like I'm just gonna do like a random, like drawbar setting. I'm sure that sounds great. Um, but like, I'm gonna load up this worship upright. This is actually like a split keyboard patch. So the use case for this is, um, I would have a keyboard up here meeting in, and this is playing the organ. Oh, sweet. But you see how I've got my drawbar settings here, but I can still see the drawbar setting that loaded up with the patch. Okay, cool. And I can hit preset and it just jumps to whatever that setting is. Oh, sweet. I like that. Yeah, I like that. That's neat. So it's cool and you can still like automate this, like with the mod, we'll say, you know, like, say you wanna start, like, I, I start a lot of times here as like my sort of like chill. I mean, if we're talking about organ, I'll just make it where I can actually play organ, if we're talking about organ, I usually start here like, do you like the Nord organ? Yes, you do. It's not the most realistic, but it's certainly better than it's the best keyboard. It's the best ul keyboard emulation. It's not as good as the real Leslie. Uh, this going into a real Leslie is probably the best you can do. Okay. I think. But. This is like my, my starting position, you know, and, uh, you know, it's just, you can kind of get in, get in personal with it, but like you can even just like have another setting on your mod wheel. Oh yes. Um, you can throw some slap on there, which I think I already have. And then I love to put spring reverb 'cause some Leslie tanks have spring reverb on them. Oh. I should say at home when I'm tracking organ, I don't use the Leslie. I have, I use the quick plug, I use the UAD Waterfall speaker. Yeah. And I run the raw. Organ sound into that so you can actually turn off. Oh sweet. The rotary speaker and it's just, so I track that into a really good Leslie. Oh that's nice. And I'm controlling that over midi, so. Oh, that's cool. It kind of, it's the best of both worlds, but yeah. That's amazing. I mean, I don't play organ on this board a lot 'cause it's weighted. I mostly do organ on the compact 'cause it's got the waterfall keys. Do you ever get, when you're doing production for people and you add an organ, do people ever say, Hey. Was that a real organ? Yes. That's awesome, man. No, look, no one's ever said that when I'm using the Built in Leslie, but uh, yeah, there are. That's awesome. The UAD organ is very good. Another one that's really good is the one by IK multimedia. I think it's called B three X. Okay. Both of those are what I actually use when it's like serious and it's go time. Okay. Yeah. Okay. But in terms of playing on stage, like this is better than any other stage keyboard, in my opinion, like by a long shot. That's great. I should say my favorite roads on here is the Nefertiti. Okay. Um, and I love to do the dyno filters. So this is just the base, the stock sample. I like to do this dyno one. It's a little brighter, which is important for cutting through a mix, right? And then you can, if you throw the dyno setting with some chorus and some painting that is. Is Michael McDonald? Hey, that's Luther Vandross. Yeah, that's Michael Jackson. I have I think I've got some distortion too. Yeah, a little drive. Yes. So I love that play markets. I usually have chorus going on. Uh, uh, just in a mix. It does the thing. It just is a good be, it's a little, sometimes it's cheesy, but Right. Right. Sometimes cheesy is good. Yeah, sometimes the cheese is good. Yeah. That's amazing. Um, yeah. And with the chorus, they actually improved this as well. I told you about the variation thing. If you hit here, if you look on this screen, it says analog or normal. So you can choose between like a digital style or like a analog style. You're how That's more of like a, yeah, I don go, what's that? CE two pedal nostalgia. There's just some Easter eggs in there. You know I have Easter y'all. Yeah. Happy Easter. Um, let's see. I guess we haven't really talked about the synth section so much. Um, it's a really usable synth if you have any experience with the wave two. It's another one in Nord synth. It's basically a stripped down version of that. But, but again, you, you usually carry the profit six with you 4 cents stuff or some other synth. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I did do a tour recently where I had the four on the bottom and the three on the top, and that was fun. Okay. And I was kind of switching back and forth between. Oregon and sent stuff on the top. Very cool. And he used to, guys, if you, if you've been following Marcus for a while, you know this, but you said you used to have two ultimate stands and it was then the delta. The Delta wings. The delta wings, yeah. And you would have your main 88 keys as your main board and then up top left and right faced inward. Uhhuh was like a V-shape. You had your two ox keys. Yeah. So I was playing like a T-Rex. That was crazy, man. Yeah, that's, I love that. That was a lot of fun. That I had the Nord, the compact usually on my right hand side, and that was pretty much just organ. Okay. Again, just that has the organ style keys, the waterfall keys, and the drawbar. So that just really made it nice. Wow. Yeah. I really don't play a lot of organ on this. Not 'cause it doesn't sound good. It sounds the same, but it's just the weighted action for me. Yeah. I have alternatives. I will say for years, like for like a decade, I just had 180 8 key Nord and I played Oregon stuff on it. I wasn't complaining. There you go. There you go. But you know, now I've got options, so I don't typically go to this for Oregon. But yeah, with the synth section, man, like it does a lot of things. It's, it can load samples, which a lot of people, hate on the sample loading because it doesn't have like velocity layers and stuff, and I will agree. When you say a lot of people, do you mean like Colton Dixon? No, I'm just kidding. I'm just keep a, I don't know. I mean, he probably would if he didn't know that he does now. He's definitely gonna bring it up to me. But no, like a lot of people, like on the forums and stuff will be like, why would I spend however many dollars it costs to get a stage Nord stage X fill in the blank. Right. If it can't even, you know, if I can't do like a multi round robin velocity, whatever, and that's a fair question. Yeah. But my rebuttal to that is that it's not, a deep sampler. It's a sample-based synth. Got you. Okay. Like this does have all like the deep sampling stuff in it, like the pianos. Yeah. This is for loading up a sound source and making it a synth sound. Got you. And I'll demonstrate that with this. Um, show us the way, man. I recently made this for our last tour. So this is a piano sample. So this is just a piano sample. This is no velocity. Yeah, I, I have velocity. It's turning it, making it louder and softer. But in terms of the samples, there's no like soft samples or loud samples. Yeah. But I have a piano over here. The, what I did with this was I turned it into like almost like a synth patch. You hear that it's got that little pitch chirp thing? Yes. It's filtered down. It's got some reverb and. It'll just sustain as long as I want it to. I have to go through, but it's a synth sound. That's based on a piano. And you can't tell me that that's not musical. That doesn't have nuance. That is so beautiful. It is kind of like the Keys scape creative library. I don't know if you're familiar with that. I'm not. I'm not. Um, it's an omnisphere and basically like they took, at Spectrosonics, they took all the keys scape library, and they just used them as sound sources for new s synth patches. Okay. That's kind of like what the idea is with, is with this patch, but you know, you can do that to, you can load up a string sound and filter it down and make it a pad. Okay. That's kinda what the, what my use case is for typically. Wow. Because the reality is that if I need. Like if I need like a really, uh, detailed like horn sample for like a wedding gig or something, uh, I'm gonna have a second board anyways. Right. Or I'll have Mainstage. I understand the argument that, well, this board is so expensive, it should be able to do everything. But that's kind of a fallacy in and of itself. That's like saying like, my F-150 is way better than this Ferrari, because, do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it's just two different things. And this is a stage keyboard and I would argue that it does stage keyboard things better than pretty much anything else that, that I've used at least. A couple other things that I like to use, that I like to do with the synth section is like, it just makes layering really cool. 'cause everything's right here. So see if I go to, uh, that's Matthew West patches. He's great too. He is great. I love Matthew. So next to me, this is the patch. It's just kinda like a eighties polys synth. And I can sew these like. This, it's this kind of super saw bass sound and then this for the transient, which, you know, I was doing stuff like this on the stage three, but just having it in front of you and being able to like quickly mix between the two or like say I could have like. These is my verse chorus, and this is another thing that I need for the bridge. I can just hit that and go to it, you know? Yeah, yeah, totally. But there's just a, a fidelity, a sound quality that you get. And I'm not just dialing up some sample. I could do that, but I made these from scratch. I love it. I started with like a raw oscillator. Crazy man. And, uh, there's not a lot of stage keyboards that let you do that. So, yes. Um, that's kind of where it comes in is when you start thinking of this thing as an entire instrument, you know? Totally. Like, uh, here's another example. This is another Jordan Full song. Okay. This is George Flee. I, I've, I've, I've just spent the most time on these patches. Yeah. Because I've been playing them for like six years. Which, by the way, I don't know if everyone knows this, but you can import stage three patches into the stage four. Okay. So you can always, they recently did that, like last year or something. Oh, nice. Very nice. Yeah, so this is a patch that I already had in my stage three, and then I just kind of tweaked to using some of the new features. Very nice, but this is like a kind of like really washed out. It's for like a slower song. No, it's a bridge. So it's like, oh, it's the Bridges. Yeah. So it's like the main song is like a. And then the bridge goes like, oh, sparkle man, I love the sparkle. There's a lot of things. Yeah. So I wanna show the, I love that. I wanna show how I got that. Okay. Come on. Because this is kind of like using pianos in it's more of effect kind of way. Yeah. So I can actually solo each track. So this is the same, this is a Rhodes. I've got some vibe on there. Oh. Got the good vibes going. Okay. Yep. And then some reverb. And then if I solo the piano B, this is that. Mm. So this is just a piano that I've. It's, it's like going up an octave. And then I actually have a ring mod on there. Okay. If you, if y'all watch the episode with the prophet, I talked about cross modulation frequency modulation. Yeah, that's a, this is a form of that, but it very nice. It's more of an effect form of it that you can get, you can get a ring mod pedal. Love that. So it's just like a really fast tremolo, essentially. And then just those two together. And then moving on, I think this is a sample of an electric piano being used in the synth way, and I am getting that delay by going a hundred percent wet reverb or delay. You do a hundred percent wet, no feedback. You can just kind of make it come in later. Oh, nice. Does that make synth? Right. Yeah. Right. And then I've got this pad. I really do feel like you can kind of get kind of analog with the stage four. Yeah. And then lastly, I've got, this was, this is like on, this is something I. Be playing up here. 'cause this, there's like a, I'm playing these chords and it goes like, but I don't have the other board right now. Right. So it's really just these four tracks. So good. It all kind of comes together, you know. Sounds so good, bro. Thanks bro. I love this. Um, let's see. Shout out Jordan Felice. where's there's this other one I like. A lot of times if you go to my Instagram and you watch my videos, like of some live arrangements, people will be asking me about this bell sound that I have. And it's something that I made and it's really easy. It's just two super saws that are like spread out across four octaves. Okay. And I recreated that on here. This is a. I am giving away my secrets today, man. Uh, you don't give away too much now. So these are. This is essentially a, we wouldn't be able to recreate it if we tried, man. This is essentially a piano pad plus some bell stuff in the right hand. So I'll play that first. This is just that. But then I've got these, which is just a great, like in a live situation. Oh yeah. Which. It's just the same patch, different octave. So like if I just solo those, it's just that little sparkle, man. Sparkle. Exactly. Sparkle. If you got like a nice little band uni Oh yeah. It's a great way to just kind of cut through a mix or add something on the top. A lot of times, as Keith players in like a modern sound, we're really just kind of filling in all the space. Right? Right. We're the, we're the visceral fat of the band, you know? Yeah, yeah. And so it's like. You're not always wanting to compete with the guitar. You're wanting to add something. Yes. You know, and guitars can't do that, so. Right. You know, like that. It's great for that kind of thing. Yes, sir. Yeah, so I've got that. And again, that's on a preset. Like I could just hit synth and scroll over and. Bright stack. That's what I call it. That's incredible, man. I don't, I don't know what else I could say though. Right? You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. Like, uh, I have my reasons to use it. Do I think it's, worth the money? That's completely subjective. Absolutely. Give some encouraging as we wrap this episode up. Yeah. Which by the way, thank you again for, uh, for one, just taking your Nord stage four out of wherever you had it. All the way here to film and go to the effort, , for us to see and hear this, soloed out. I mean, a lot of times you're on stage with Jordan Felice or with Danny Gokey or other people, and people might come up to you after the show, Hey, what were you doing? So that was for those wanting to know more of, uh, these sounds soloed out and up, close and personal. Yeah. Hope this episode has been great for y'all, but give some encouraging words to to those who are starting out with the keys world, as you are going through these patches, you're obviously so proficient and so amazing on the keys, bro, just playing wise. What's your best advice for learning to be proficient and learning your gear? Like do those two things. How do those. Marry. Yeah. Each other. And how, how have you been able to get more gigs because you know both gear really well and the theory, I don't know if I could tell you how, I mean, it's, it's, it's, or how important is it? It know, know, just remind us. It's, it's God's grace that allows, come on. That has allowed me, but I will, praise God. I do believe, I do believe it's important though. Yes. Yes. You know, um, I think part of it is take advantage of what you have at your disposal. For a lot of you guys that's playing in church, right? Like I grew up playing in church and I cut my teeth playing in church. Yeah. And uh, also embrace that everyone has blind spots. Embrace your own blind spots. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, say, you know, like, man, I really need to work on this and make it, if it's something that. Is important to you, then you will do it. You know? Totally. Um, you know, like at a certain point, like, talk is cheap. Yeah. You know, it's the things that you actually do, the things you actually make time for that define your priorities. Even to you, you might not even realize that something is important or is not important. Preach. You know, maybe that show is more important than learning how to dial in a pad. Yeah. You know? Preach it. Um, yeah, so just kind of embrace where you're at and enjoy the journey. You know, I, I'm learning new stuff all the time. The past 12 months, I've really like dedicated myself to learning guitar and I've had to really embrace like my, where I'm. Um, deficient in that, on that instrument, you know? And, but that's really fun for you though, learning. It's, it's extremely fulfilling. Like I've, I've, I'm still excited about keys of course, but like, uh, you know, the longer you do something, the, the less often those wins come. Yeah. And it's important to stay excited about what you're doing. That's good. For keys, I man, just like, go somewhere that you haven't, like, try a different, like try to learn a new record that just came out, you know? Right. Try to play along with it or, uh, recreate the sounds. I remember. Uh, yeah. Uh, like I remember I, I once did a session, um, here in town and the artist was like, uh, Harry Styles record had just come out. Okay. Yeah. I can't remember the last one. I don't remember. The sushi restaurant. Yeah. And she was like, I'm just loving that record. And so like, the week before the session, I recreated every since done on that record, I made them in Ableton and that's fun. And then at the session I just dragged them in and I was able to like tweak them. She's like, that's the vibe, you know? And it, that's awesome man. But it's, but it's because you just pay attention. Absolutely. And take the time. Totally. Um, I also played back in the day a lot of like corporate gigs, wedding gigs and stuff. And so yes, learning how to play those different genres, how to like dial in sounds for a lot of different things is a great way to not get pigeonholed. Yes. You know, like, yes. I don't know. I don't know if anyone would really call me a worship keys player. But yeah, I do play worship keys, but I do a lot more too. Absolutely. And I do think that like it's good to not be know what your thing is. I think I said that a year ago. Yes, yes. But also like always be, you know, like trying to grow. Totally. You know, and like Yeah. So don't, don't pigeonhole yourself. I love it. Yeah. Like if, like when a player's like, I'm mainly piano guy, I'm like, well, why? Yeah. Why are you just a piano guy? Right? Why not Like, not do it at all. Yeah. Or, or, or try to, or at least be knowledgeable. Right. You know, like, you don't have to be an expert, but like trust someone new. Yeah. What if there's a time comes and you need to like know how to build an 8 0 8 sound? Then you need to watch the last episode of this podcast. That's right. That's right. I love it. I love it. You know what I'm saying? Exactly, man. I mean, in college I was mostly piano. I was doing, I was studying classical music, I was studying jazz. And I would tell people I am, I'm a pianist. You know? And you went to Lee University Battle. Went to Lee University. Go flames. Go flames. Uh, but dude, like I didn't know how to make an 8 0 8 patch back then. Yeah. Fortunately , I discovered since, and I fell in love with them. And there you go. I don't even, I, I say I'm a keyboardist now, you know? Um, but, uh, imagine if I had just been, spent the last 10 years stuck in the same mindset that I was when I was 20. Yeah, yeah, totally. You know. Totally, man. It's all about that growth. What I loved from our conversation last year was the story you shared. You were out on the road, I think Travis Dykes was playing bass with you. Mm-hmm. And you were playing keys at some festival with Danny Gokey. Yes, we were. And something didn't work. Right? Right. And for soundcheck, are you late, the fly date or something? Yeah. That was one of the days that Ragnar Rock came to the entire airline industry and, it was like Armageddon and like nothing worked and everyone's flights all over the country, like, oh my Jesus. It was that same weekend and yeah. So I, me and the guitarist we rolled up like an hour before the show. That's crazy. Yeah. And you played like an hour and a half set or something like that. Yeah. Right. And I want, I want people to, to hear that. I think the point, and I want you to speak into this before we're concluding this episode, I promise, but, speak to the heart of. How when you get to a certain level of musicianship, there comes a point, and I want people to hear this, especially in the church world, because in the church world, it's things are almost over rehearsed. Yes, things are almost like we're spending three hours on a three song set list. And I want people to be encouraged, but also be challenged by hearing from you, knowing that people like you exist, that where you can roll up and obviously you're prepared, but it's not, it's not that you prepared and memorize the note by notes stuff as much as, you know, mus like music's oozing out of you and with others, that when y'all get going, you feel it, you groove, you go with it. Yeah, speak into that. Speak into that whole thing. Sure. And I can actually talk about gear and norge there too. Come on. So, um, talking about that day specifically, like, you know, I got sent a board tape to learn the music and I, I did my homework. This is my job. Yeah. So I was listening to it in the grocery store, at the gym. I was playing along with it at home, building some patches, whatever. But at the end of the day, like. I know just that's that show specifically. Like the dudes that were playing on the board tip that I got are not the same people that are playing at that show, right? It's a bunch, just different people, so it's gonna feel different, right? There's not a lot of merit in just like learning like, and unless it's something, unless it's really tight, like unless the part's really sick and well, I want to use this for later. Or, oh, how did they do that chord? That's valuable. That's extremely valuable. But in terms of just learning it for the sake of like regurgitating it on stage. Very little merit in that, in my opinion. It's really just more about knowing where your spots are, where everyone else's spots are, the main things, and then just having the biggest ears on stage. Come on. Like Travis is a good friend of mine, but we've only played together one time and it was that one show. But like I Travis' reputation precedes him. Absolutely. And like, I trust him. He's incredible. And it's like, I know that like. Not only do I not have to hold it down, down here for him, but he might throw something at me and I need to be ready. Yes. And, and no amount of like memorizing note for note what I'm hearing prior is gonna premier prepare me for that. Yes. I trust myself so good. I trust myself, uh, when it comes to playing, like I trust myself more than anybody. That's incredible. You know? Um, just 'cause it's like, I know, I don't know. 'cause everyone, everyone messes up of course. But like, I, I have confidence that. Um, even if I play something that I didn't intend to, that I'll be able to recover or that it might not even be, it might not even sound bad. It's just, it's, it's just, it's always gonna be different when you play live. Right. Right. And the other thing along that, since we're talking about gear, this is more gear specific. Yes. Um, episode, I remember for that show specifically, I don't know why I can remember this, but I remember they provided me the, just the dinkiest stage two. Oh no. Which is like I think that came out in like 2010 or 2011. Like the mod wheel didn't work. Oh, no. Like the screen was going out I had some, I also back lined a media controller and I had some sounds, some synth stuff on my Ableton session that I was gonna mid up to. And then in my, and then in my head I was like, okay, I'm gonna get up and with whatever time I have, I'm gonna program some sounds onto the stage two, and that really didn't happen. I had like maybe like five minutes. My goodness. But the thing is, is like I know that if I can get a good sounding piano, good sounding roads, and a good sounding pad, I can get through a show. Yeah, that's good. So you know, like I've been playing these Jordan Fel patches the entire time, right? There have been shows where I show up and it's like. This is a motif. Yeah. Well you need a Nord, you know, and, uh, well, this is what you got. That's what you got. You know? But I know how to, I know how to use a motif too. Right, right. So, um. I can get through the show and it's like, but like with the Nord specifically, it's like I just trust that the piano sounds solid. The roads sound solid. The, the pads sound solid. I can dial in the effects. Oh, if it's too much compression, I don't just have to deal with it. I can turn it down. Right. Totally. Or control. Or if I show up and literally have no time to do anything, this is actually, this is gonna ter that story about the story that's kind of a scary, this story I'm about to tell you is actually terrifying. Oh no. One of the top three most stressful experiences of my life was with Jordan. We were playing Red Rocks in 2022. Sold out crowd. It was a lot of us. It was a K-LOVE event. Okay. Um, and, uh, there was a big issue with our back line. The issue being that it wasn't there. Oh no. And it just wasn't there. No, we had no back line. No. And we didn't know that until we were literally on our way to the stage to soundcheck. Oh my goodness. So it was just this whole snafu, huge breakdown in communication. But basically we ended up having to like delay our soundcheck all day. And we almost didn't get to play, but we finally secured some back line. We just kind of borrowed from other people graciously loaning us some stuff. Oh my goodness. And then we soundcheck after doors had already opened, so it's like a full crowd at Red Rocks, we're sound checking in front of them. Oh, wow. And then we play immediately, pretty much. Oh my goodness. I don't remember if I had a stage two or stage three, but literally, I think Red Rock's capacity is like 15,000 or something like that. It's a sold out show. Mm-hmm. And like that's a bucket listing for a lot of people. I'm making patches during the show. Oh my gosh. And soundcheck. Oh my gosh. Um, and so I'm literally like playing and like tweaking, like, but, and, and like that was so scary. Right? Right, right. Because all, it's like, what if you like, you know, whatever. Yeah. What, what? You can use your imagination. It was all going through my head. Oh gosh. But the thing is, is like I am very confident in my ability to, to use these boards, to get around these boards. Right. And if honestly that's the best endorsement I could give any keyboard is the fact that like, when it really mattered and like one of the most like, critical moments of my career up to this point, I was able to literally make patches in real time. Wow. And it's, it's a combination of, yeah, the board is great. I know the board really well and it's just like everyone kind of working together as a team to give me the space to like put my head down and like, you know, it was just like this whole thing, that was terrifying. But like, because I know the gear I was able to prevail that day. Wow. Wow. You know? That's good. Same thing with that Danny Goki show, like mm-hmm. I pull up a piano and a roads and a pad and I had my ox keys and that was, that's go time. You know? Um, and I just feel more confident doing that with the red keyboards than Right. Doing anything else. So, yes. Dude. That's so good. Well, Marcus, thank you for sharing, um, these stories. Thank you for sharing. Your knowledge on the North stage four. Hope you guys enjoyed it over on YouTube or Apple or Spotify. And, um. By the way, guys, y'all should go check out Travis Dyke's YouTube channel because there's actually some keys related content coming now. He's a bassist and there's all kind of great content there. There's one where they did, they did a blind test for bass, so they, they, they put like cheap, cheap bass guitars all the way up to the most, like some of the most expensive ones. And I love the videos where he hires, um, random. Uh, from Fiverr or something. From Fiverr. Those are funny, dude. Those are great. I hear that they are, uh, making some content about blind testing, some keyboard players and, um, where'd you hear that? Marcus may or may not be involved with that, but, um, anyway, I, I feel like I'm gonna make a complete fool on myself, but it's gonna be great guys because it's like, Hey, look, I know my keyboards really well. Okay. It is like. Hey, is this cheap keyboard really? Does it really sound that cheap? That'd be, I'd be hilarious if you actually think one of those cheap keyboards is like, the Nord is like a Nord stage 4 88. That's, it's gonna come back to haunt you here, bro. It will. Yeah. But guys, thank y'all for being a part of the Worship Keys podcast today, and hopefully Marcus, I'd love to get you back sometime again in 2027 if you're willing. Um, it's been crazy in Nashville the last few months ever since the, the snow and ice came through at the end of January, but, power eventually did come back onto the whole city. Mm-hmm. And it's slowly but surely and lots of trees are still clearing out. Yeah. I got stuck in Miami for all that, so I So you're light. I wasn't, I was chilling. You were chilling? Yeah, dude. That's what's up man. It was like 80 degrees. You're like, I'm just gonna stay here. Yeah,