Hey seamus;
Sorry for the delay in replying. It's seems you went a week at least. Sorry.

For 500 bucks there are a few bare bones synths out there. I know of two in your price range that come to mind. Roland RS-5 and Yamaha S-03. Both have 61 light keys. Neither has aftertouch. Aftertouch adds modulation or other assignable effects by pressing down on the keys harder. A cool effect for playing strings and organs. But this effect can be accomplished with the mod wheel (yamaha) or joystick (roland).
Neither board is expandable. So what you get is all it will ever have. Which isn't necessaryliy a bad thing.

The RS-5 has real-time control knobs. This means there are a few dedicated knobs to edit things like attack, decay LFO rate and cutoff. Personally I never edit my sounds live, but many people do.

Both of these boards would probably be considered performance synths. workstations generally are equipt enough to compose on. Most new workstations also have samplers. Also the lighter keys generally come in 49, 61 and 76 keys. 61 and 88 are popular. I don't thing you'll have any trouble with 61 keys since you are not a pianist, or a long time keyboardist. It's hard to tell if you'll ever need more keys. If you find you've become really good at the keys, and want to continue, you'll probably be like the rest of us and have a few boards, so then you get a larger keyboard. It's a tough call.


I think 49 is not enough. 61 is tough for someone used to playing piano. Like me for instance. I had an XP-50 which has 61 keys and I kept looking for those bottom bass notes for B, A and G, and they weren't there. I've played 76 keys and never had any problems. However most weighted keyboards come in 88 keys. but of course, generally more keys = more money. added sequencer = more money. added sampler = more money. expandability = more money.

Both the RS-5 and Yamaha S-03 have user patches. this is where you can edit an existing patch and store it. To be able to store 128 of your own is the norm. (aka 1 user bank). Nearly every synth allows this. I really can't speak for which of the two is easier to edit sounds in. No board is really hard. Yamaha offers a sound editing sofware package for free to help edit the S-03. which is way cool for editing! Roland does not.

I own the RS-9 which is the RS-5's big brother. I also own a Yamaha S80 which is like the S-03's older cousin.

The RS-5 has an arpregiator but i don't think the S-03 does

I think Proteus also makes a very bare bones 61 key synth but I'm not certain.

Another option for you is you might consider a used board. You can generally get the next level of board used for around 500. Like a Roland XP-30 (61 keys, expandable). Alesis QS6.2 might be options for you but the price is more like 600 new. It can be expnaded (with a Q-card).

All the boards I have so far mentioned are 64 poly, multi-timbral and GM compatible.

Multi-timbral meaning it can play more than one part at a time (through the use of an external sequencer such as a computer).

GM (General Midi) compatibale is a standard that manufactures can adhere to. It basically means there is at least one bank of 128 sounds in the synth that is arranged to a standard. Where program 1 is piano, program 17 is an organ, program 74 is a flute, etc (1-128 are used). I just rememberd those 3. This way if you download GM midi files, the'll play correctly on your GM compatible machine.

So for 500 bucks you can get a decent bare bones synth. Generally, 61 keys, no sequencer, no sampling, no expandability.

And by no means are my comments comprehensive. There may be a few other boards out there. I'm just not aware of them.

best wishes
<><
Bob

[This message has been edited by RW (edited 06-02-2003).]

[This message has been edited by RW (edited 06-02-2003).]