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Korg - wrecking keyboard performance?
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Kevin Nolan
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 12:11 am    Post subject: Korg - wrecking keyboard performance? Reply with quote

What with Korg's obsession with mini and slim keys, the removal of aftertocuh from all of their instruments, the appalling RH3 and the debacle of the Kronos 1 Keybed, it seems to me that there is serious, deliberate intent from people high up in Korg to remove all semblance of quality keyboards from their products and to disassociate themselves from being a quality keyboard company.

I'm serious in this. It looks to me that there is some sort of IKEA / LIDL type move in Korg to make everything cheap and tacky.


Worst of all, any new / young musician who buys a Korg synthesizer as their first keyboard will have their chances of developing proper keyboard / performance skills severely hampered if not destroyed altogether.


I'm frankly shocked at the deterioration, and rate of deterioration of Korg keyboards and their commitment to keyboards. And from Korg's presentation of some young gun as their "chief engineer" of late - one can see that the company is being run by people with no sense of history, quality, legacy or musicianship.


It's an appalling state of affairs; and incredibly sad to see a once great electronic technology company sink to such depths.
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Koekepan
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 3:24 am    Post subject: A little counterpoint Reply with quote

Kevin Nolan sees a plot - a conspiracy, founded in deliberate intent, to slip away from the sunlit uplands of quality keyboards, to make everything cheap and tacky, and to thus (whether deliberately or no) wreck an entire generation of musicians.

He comments neither on the twirling of moustaches, nor on cackling.

Somehow the promotion of an apparently talented designer and engineer (considering the products with which he has reportedly been intimately involved) is a signal confirming this sinister malevolence in their activities.

Perhaps he does not mean it quite so literally, and by dint of hyperbole he hopes to suggest that the current heads of KORG are foolish, incompetent and benighted.

Unsurprisingly, I come to a slightly different conclusion.

The keyboard market, as such, is rich and varied. We can obtain top flight keyboards from any number of sources, or even rather decent ones for quite fair prices. Go to any major music equipment retailer's website, and look at the options. Hammer actions abound, aftertouch is yours for the asking (given the cash to lay out) and wonderful alternatives from companies such as Roli (or for those with the taste for them, Eigenlabs) afford us even broader possibilities.

Controllers are a crowded and competitive market.

Students of the piano can get adequate options for low prices from companies such as Casio, and even Yamaha's entry level digital pianos are quite decent - good enough for a child's first attempts at any rate, and frankly a good bargain.

So, it seems unlikely that KORG is choking the universe of expert pianists or organists.

Their "young gun", as Kevin describes him (I assume he means Tatsuya Takahashi) is not their god of all things engineering-related, but one member of their team. He has designed some popular equipment. All credit where it's due, but it is not a total reflection of all things KORG any more than Roland having an engineer in charge of their AIRA line. Nothing about this suggests an abandonment of legacy, so much as a willingness to look forward. After all, this is also the company that has provided a new version of the Odyssey, has a workstation legacy going back to the '80s, and a highly regarded analogue synthesis line as well.

If KORG suddenly ripped every MS20 from the shelves, sent out updates bricking the Kronos, the KingKORG, and the SV-1, then trashed all their software synthesisers I might believe the tale of malevolence, but they have done no such thing. The Kronos is a worthy flagship, and available brand new. The MS20 line is doing well, and so on.

KORG clearly recognises a few points:

Master keyboards are a thing. People use them and use them well. Perhaps KORG could produce one - but would it be epoch-making? Probably not. So instead, KORG makes devices that a master keyboard can easily use. For the relatively impoverished such as myself, there are Volcas, and for the wealthier there are devices such as the desktop Odyssey. As long as you don't actually run over the Volcas with a steamroller, or get an ex-marine roadie with ill-suppressed rage issues to play football with them, they actually stand up pretty well. Solid little devices.

As for the "appalling RH3", I know a few musicians who find it perfectly usable, adequate and desirable. It might not be everybody's cup of tea, but somehow it doesn't seem to be a tragedy on a par with the release of rabbits in Australia.

So what is this really about? No tragedies, no heinous conspiracies, no fundamental gap in the market. KORG is just going a different way, doing a different thing. One can't even say with justice that KORG is neglecting musicianship, because they are providing so many, varied and powerful sonic tools for musicians to use. They just don't happen to be tying them all to premium keyboards.

And what is the consequence? Have Fatar gone out of business? Has Roli vanished off the scene? Have snipers brought an end to the Continuum, and bombs an end to the Eigenharp?

Far from it.

Have minikeys prevented even a single child from learning to play a keyboard instrument? No - most emphatically not. In fact, many children have started on smaller keys for decades now, just as young guitarists start on smaller instruments, and violinists likewise.

Moreover, we can look back into the history of keyboards to find quite a bit of variation. There is no iron law about the size of a keyboard, the feel of a keyboard, the heft of the device itself nor the response of the keys themselves. Every design question is a compromise. The width of a key makes it easier to strike, but harder to reach past. The weight of a piano's hammer striking a string contrasts with the plucking action of a harpsichord. Spinets have helped people learn and practice over centuries and yet their construction has been far from uniform. Was that a musical bloodletting in the eighteenth century? No.

If the exact dimensions and responsiveness of a keyboard were a matter of such delicate precision and vital importance, we might expect guitarists or cellists or tympanists to be reduced to tears at their frustrated attempts to adapt to the world of ebony and ivory, but instead we find multi-instrumentalists cheerfully moving from one to the other as occasion demands.

If KORG is somehow taking a wrecking-ball to musicianship, then the Linnstrument must surely be the instrument heralding the apocalypse.

But no such apocalypse appears to be on the horizon.

KORG's keyboards have not ruined musicians, or musicianship, any more than Ford's horrible steering wheels have ruined a generation of drivers. Instead, drivers furnish their steering wheels with covers, or replace them outright. So do musicians use controller keyboards and sequencers to achieve their performance goals.

The proof of all the above lies in the continued existence of pianists and organists of astonishing virtuosity. Alkan's works are in reach of more and more pianists, as skills and ambition grow. KORG has not stopped this at all, despite the fact that they achieve substantial sales, including sales to educational groups.

Perhaps, Kevin Nolan, what you are airing is your own preferences and prejudices, and not an iron law of the universe?
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Kevin Nolan
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 10:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Koekepan: Don't accept any of your points.

- There is no way that starting on smaller keys can be OK if then migrating over to larger keys. I suspect you're not a 'player' if you feel you can argue that.

- There is no doubt that there is a systematic removal of keybaord quality by Korg in the past 6/7 years. Look at the quality of say, an M1, a Triton, the OASYS - and then look at what they are exclusively doing today. You're either in denial or blind

- Any argument of flooded controller market is utterly beside the point. anyone who has actually leaned, worked, demanded from a synthesizer knows that the integration of performance controls with synthesizer function is not only a special combination when it is 'gotten right' - it is necessary. From the Minimoog to the CS80; From the Jupiter 8 to - yes the Monopoly or OASYS - anyone who pushes themselves in any sort of artistic transcendent way knows that the linkage to controllers, keyboard, synth features and synth control surface is utterly vital.

There IS a valid 'space' for THE synthesizer as a superlative artistic device.

I'm afraid you are arguing for MIDI controller mediocracy, the generic / vinilla "we can all make music is we wish it hard enough" mentality that leads to Minikeys, Gadget and other devices that are a pale shadow of Korg's former realizations.

I don't know you, but you read like you work for Korg's marketing department, and that you are clueless when it comes to synthesizers - or what a keyboard performance means.

It is razor sharp to me the Korg have gone the way of Casio - consumer instruments - long since abandoned their traditional user base; and the abandonment of quality keyboards is central to that abandonment - maximize the profit, reduce the quality: "Make the Pringles smaller; put less meat in the burger, make the Toblerone Triangles further apart; make rubbish quality keyboards - it's for the masses - we'll have made our money before anyone notices and even if they do there are plenty of dumb people who know no different to lap it all up into the future..."
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Kevin Nolan
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 10:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Koekepan: Don't accept any of your points.

- There is no way that starting on smaller keys can be OK if then migrating over to larger keys. I suspect you're not a 'player' if you feel you can argue that.

- There is no doubt that there is a systematic removal of keybaord quality by Korg in the past 6/7 years. Look at the quality of say, an M1, a Triton, the OASYS - and then look at what they are exclusively doing today. You're either in denial or blind

- Any argument of flooded controller market is utterly beside the point. anyone who has actually leaned, worked, demanded from a synthesizer knows that the integration of performance controls with synthesizer function is not only a special combination when it is 'gotten right' - it is necessary. From the Minimoog to the CS80; From the Jupiter 8 to - yes the Monopoly or OASYS - anyone who pushes themselves in any sort of artistic transcendent way knows that the linkage to controllers, keyboard, synth features and synth control surface is utterly vital.

There IS a valid 'space' for THE synthesizer as a superlative artistic device.

I'm afraid you are arguing for MIDI controller mediocracy, the generic / vinilla "we can all make music is we wish it hard enough" mentality that leads to Minikeys, Gadget and other devices that are a pale shadow of Korg's former realizations.

I don't know you, but you read like you work for Korg's marketing department, and that you are clueless when it comes to synthesizers - or what a keyboard performance means.

It is razor sharp to me the Korg have gone the way of Casio - consumer instruments - long since abandoned their traditional user base; and the abandonment of quality keyboards is central to that abandonment - maximize the profit, reduce the quality: "Make the Pringles smaller; put less meat in the burger, make the Toblerone Triangles further apart; make rubbish quality keyboards - it's for the masses - we'll have made our money before anyone notices and even if they do there are plenty of dumb people who know no different to lap it all up into the future..."


Korg may be making popular devices these days - but so is McDonalds popular and why there are more fat people with Type-2 Diabetes in the world today. It's easy to make something popular - making something with character and quality is what I'm talking about and Korg have lost their vision, personnel and will in that regard in recent years. Their junk-status keyboards is the clear indicator of that.
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Koekepan
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 4:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You claim, by implication, that no player could believe that children could start on smaller keys and then migrate to larger keys.

I believe (my memory is hazy of events lo these decades ago) that at the age of six I was introduced to a Yamaha keyboard. It had small keys, suitable for my hands, and those of other children in the same class. I moved on to other instruments, but to my certain knowledge at least one learner in the same context moved on to professional keyboard playing. On regular size keys.

I moved on to the classical guitar, and started on a children's size (I believe that it was three quarter size) where the frets are nearer each other, the strings are more closely packed and the body is smaller. I then migrated to a full size guitar as I grew and my hands grew. I know not a few guitarists (one of whom is now a professor of music, specialising in the guitar) who made that same transition.

As it happens, I'm not entirely unfamiliar with the field of pedagogics, and there is no reason whatsoever to believe that starting on a small size will actually harm development. However, starting on a frustratingly large size, inappropriate for small hands, can certainly lead to problems, frustrations and would-be musicians quitting the field in disgust. My old guitar master was glad to see that I had a small guitar on which I could attempt a full bar, or a four fret stretch, rather than simply giving up.

I don't know what your criterion is for being a `player'. Receiving money for a performance? I have done so. Playing to a packed performance hall? I have done so. Recording a performance? I have done so. Playing as part of an ensemble, rather than solo? I have done so. Playing all of Liszt, Chopin and Alkan? I have not done so; and frankly, I doubt that you have. Most people, even most pianists, have not. However, as an educator I can tell you with absolute certainty that starting with practice tools is not only not harmful, it is frequently the only plausible approach.

I don't dispute that KORG has not aimed for the ne plus ultra of keyboard controllers. Given the wide variety of keyboards in the market, I surmise that they don't feel the need to. I do not regard this as either tragic or evil. I regard it as a market opportunity for the makers of fine premium (and alternative) master keyboards and input devices.

As for control surfaces, I actually agree with you. At my last gig I used a master keyboard to manage my Volcas, but I also laid them out in such a way that I could directly tweak their knobs (and did, as part of the performance). Similarly, I used one hand on my Blofeld while the other played a melody line on the master keyboard, adjusting timbre as I played. This is not a bad thing. Could I have mapped MIDI controls? Absolutely, but I did not need to. Would it be nice if everything were on one surface? Certainly, but it's rarely true.

Your argument for THE synthesiser as a superlative device suggests to me that you should invest in an Eigenharp Alpha. Its capabilities are nothing short of astonishing. Does KORG have anything comparable on offer? Perhaps the full-bore Kronos is close (but you don't like the keyboard much, apparently).

For myself, being apparently much poorer than you, I'll make do with the knowledge that when I can afford a QuNexus my Krome and Kross will both respond to its aftertouch signals. Is this a filthy garret in which I huddle, shivering, never able to aspire to the glittering heights of device magnificence that you stride across so effortlessly? Perhaps. My ambition is constrained by my horizons.

A propos KORG's marketing department - I wish. With an employee discount I might well have a Kronos. But I'm not. And I don't.

You keep comparing KORG to Casio. This seems strange on a couple of fronts. I'm familiar with Casio's offerings, and I'm frankly impressed with how well they're arranging a sort of stealth re-entry. They have very credible digital pianos at this point, and their arrangers are improving with every generation - at prices that put serious pressure on the competition. Are they a brand to mention in the same vein as Nord, or Kurzweil? No - not yet. But they are getting there, and I would not be surprised if in the next five years they offered some serious competition at high levels. KORG on the other hand is not stepping backwards in the market, but sideways, and doing so well. Yamaha offers their Reface DX (with minikeys!) as a four operator FM synth, while for the price of one you could pick up two Volca FMs (six operators!) and have something left over for lunch. KORG is offering serious value for money. Speaking as someone who has used the Volca range for live performance, as well as studio recording, those Volca FMs sound much more expensive than they are - if you know how to use them. They're not flimsy, they're easy to set up, they load old DX7 patches, and the ribbon keyboard is mostly there if you want to do step entry for patterns, rather than live performance on them. They're desktop synths, and do that job well. No complaints here.

What I hear from your final paragraph is that you are upset that KORG is no longer offering you what you might consider the acme of performance synthesisers. This may even be true - your opinion is after all your own. If this is the case, may I propose that you save your pennies until you can afford a mansion full of Moog and Buchla, Nord and perhaps even Wersi?

Leave us behind - we who are so uncultured and blind as to appreciate what KORG has to offer. I'm sure you wouldn't miss our music either. It's far too unsubtle for your elite tastes. While you reach for the stars playing your custom, bespoke, five manual pipe organ, I'll get a QuNexus to connect to my Krome and wipe away a tear.
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 1:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Koekepan wrote:
said:

I don't know what your criterion is for being a `player'. Receiving money for a performance? I have done so. Playing to a packed performance hall? I have done so. Recording a performance? I have done so. Playing as part of an ensemble, rather than solo? I have done so. Playing all of Liszt, Chopin and Alkan? I have not done so; and frankly, I doubt that you have. Most people, even most pianists, have not. However, as an educator I can tell you with absolute certainty that starting with practice tools is not only not harmful, it is frequently the only plausible approach.



Wow... what's your real name so I can look you up?
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2017 8:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree with Kevin.Though its not just Korg of course...
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Joe Gerardi
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 27, 2017 1:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A lot of it is the "musicians'" fault.

Too many people DON'T play any more. They use these stupid multi-colored pads to trigger pre-programmed chords and sounds, like a DJ, only worse. The adverts show that people can "make" (not "play") music, so the keybed becomes redundant.

No factor in the use of sequencers...

Now factor in arpeggiators...

Now factor in Karma...
(No offense meant, Stephen.)

How much playing the the average garage band player have to actually DO?

Lastly, the overwhelming amount music today doesn't NEED a player- they need someone that can press a key or two every once in a while, whilst some gravelly-voiced "singer" whines about badly the world in general, and his girlfriend in particular is treating him...

There's hardly any vocal range, there's almost no harmony parts, and we have to listen to some gorilla on drums constantly banging on the Crash Cymbal, because the drummer has no musicality, and doesn't understand structure.

In this mix is some clueless boffin, who has his little mini-synth, making bleeps and blangs, and it's enough.

In order to sell said boffin something, they put mini keys on it. And some pads. And he thinks "I can be famous!"

And we devolve just that little bit more as he DOES become famous.

Is this every case? No. Bands like Snarky Puppy, many Jazz musicians, the Classicists among us, et al, keep the technicality alive, and thus we have a demand for lager keys, but as synths are relegated more and more to a backline instrument, there's less and less need for excellent keybeds.

..Joe
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 16, 2017 5:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is it really an issue if things become easier to perform? I'd think if anything the simplification of performance technique could open up avenues to further creativity. It may not necessarily always pan out that way, but the door is wide open, is it not?
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes. Because there's no tuition there. Does it really make it easier? No. "No," because you can't get that person who's gotten used to playing pads to play the Bach Invention in F; because they can't tell you why the music went to V from I, because they don't what they did; because there's now fundamentals in harmony or structure.

We have excoriated guitarists who learn 3 chords and think they're capable for decades: now, the keyboard boffin knows less, and thinks they are a "keyboard" player. They're not, any more than someone that writes a letter in Word is a computer engineer.

..Joe
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 7:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Korg has full-sized controller keyboards available in varying key-counts and control needs. Perhaps a deliberate move to give those who want full-sized key for their mini-key synths full-sized keys. Definitely not an obsession with mini-keys. Small keys are cheaper to include and make the product more accessible.
Tats has moved on. Perhaps a deliberate move to a company who is completely focused on analogue and not spreading their products across 4 sectors of the music world.
Moog are taking to releasing a make-it-yourself module with every Moogfest. Perhaps a deliberate move to get out of needing to provide a warranty.

Korg have always made "consumer" products, btw.

If you want to blame anything for the industry wide trend towards cheaper products, blame computers, DAWs, and plug-in synths. You try surviving as a musical instrument company when all a young person interested in learning needs is a laptop and a knowledge of filesharing.
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow. Thank you guys for a very interesting read. I feel like both sides have valid points but being a professional musician I am disappointed with Korg's quality drop and new direction. I can accept the fact that they need to produce a whole line of useless toys really, in order to survive or grow as a company but they shouldn't forget the real musician who needs a pro level instrument on which he can rely 100% and feel comfortable to really play music.

I absolutely dread auditions because my Kronos X randomly refuses to boot, reboots in a middle of a performance, detunes due to a faulty joystick, has screws falling off due to loud bass/vibrations on stage, etc. I think it's just plain wrong. Never had the same issue with my 14 year old Triton Le (except for the lousy joystick). Never heard similar stories from Yamaha, Nord or Roland users.

Anyone remembers what happened to Oasys? People payed huge money to support that ambitious project only to be abandoned by Korg for whatever reason.

What's even worse is that because of this new gadget trend people doubt me when I show up to a gig with just a Kronos. Everyone prefers the guy with a couple of iPads, Macs, useless controllers, pads, pedals, triggers, etc. Of course once I show them that everything can be done with just one Kronos they go "wow" but it just shows that we ended up in a world where people will opt for the "cool guy" rather than a player and someone who can program a workstation and really play.
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 10:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't mind if Korg makes keyboards with small size, or cheap 'toys' ... as long as they keep making high quality products like the Kronos.

Although I think many people buying toys with small keys will have a very hard time getting better musicians.
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megamarkd
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 11:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay, y'all keep blaming Korg for what the electronic musical instrument world is becoming instead of recognising that they are all selling what the buyers want. All the big companies do more than just synths and drum machines, with Korg the only one that doesn't do real pianos. Like I mentioned in my last post in this thread, Korg are spread over multiple facets of the music world. To pick on one part and say it's destroying musical instruments and ruining people's ability to learn to play well is very ignorant. I am still told, by people younger than me(!), that synths aren't musical instruments and any git with fingers can make music on them. Same sort of ignorance really.

Korg isn't making "toys" to keep the company afloat. They are making "toys" because that is the logical follow-up to dumping the Electribe box-per-function range and doing one for analogue modelling and one for sampling. They replaced the VA Electribe boxes for for real analogue boxes (and a sampling box). There is a guy who performed under the name Like-A-Tim who did a whole album with the original two Electribes ("Red and Blue Boxing" if anyone want's to chase it down). No doubt if he was still active he'd have done an album purely on Volcas. A project based on doing tracks purely with the MC303 came out around the same time. The Electribes are still going, unlike the MC range. They were pretty fun toys but sounded terrible.

The "cool guy" has always around in bands. Remember a guy named Jim Morrison? Average voice, too cool to look at his audience, no talent at writing, completely the "cool guy" up front. His super cool behaviour got him and his band dead. Whatever happened to the guy on the organ? Everyone always comment on his solos making the Doors.....
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 11:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Really? The world wanted a Jupiter-50 with a keyboard with AT. They didn't get it, and the synth is already discontinued; Korg releases the Krome, and the biggest issue with not buying one is that it has a crappy keyboard; Sequential releases a new Prophet 6, and people run away in droves because of a 4-octave keyboard.

No one's blaming Korg specifically, but the MI companies in general. They're cheaping down the boards to sell cheaper, and eliminating the features that real musicians want for the sake of pad-pushers who can't play a C scale.

They don't see the downward spiral that creates whereby the real keyboard musicians can't buy every flagship synth because of cost, so they buy used, therefore they sell fewer high end products, hence there's less demand for then, hence they make fewer, and we get more synths with crappy keybeds.

The analog is to selling guitars that have only ridiculously high actions- how many people are going to buy them?

And Kurzweil doesn't sell "real" pianos, Roland doesn't do "real" pianos, Nord doesn't make "real" pianos, etc. In fact, it's really only Yamaha that DOES makes "real" pianos. They've been doing that for more than a century.

So, to me, THAT sounds like the "ignorant" statement.

Okay to be a fanboi, but be accurate in your facts.

..Joe
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