I am a keyboard player for a church that plays contemporary music (modern). I accompany a singing congregation.

Which arranger keyboard is the best out there for my situation ? (Korg PA80, Solton X1, Yamaha 9000, Technics 6000, etc)

I currently own Korg i30 and use it as a one man band as follows:
Left Hand - Manual bass
Right Hand - instruments such as piano with String as the second voice
Rhythm - play without auto accompaniement

In my opinion, i30 is a little weak in the quality of the instrument sound and styles compared even to cheaper models such as Yamaha 740.

Let me know your opinion.

Dave, this is the most extra-ordinaire superlative I have ever seen for a keyboard, I really even saw angels flying by LOL

Note;
By the way luckythough , Uncle Dave is right about this.
on top; the Natural acoustics of most churches will enhance the sounds of the X1 a bit further.
Fred

luki,

I have an X1 as well and I have recorded some church hymns for my grandfather (he is a Pastor and wanted some music tapes done for playback) I did him some hymns using the styles recorded via the sequencer and I was even amazed at the results myself !!..

I would disagree with you with regards to the I30's styles, I used to own one too and I thought the styles on it were excellent, especially the Dance stuff.. I am sorry but the PSR740's styles DO NOT compare to the I30's (even though the 740 has some good styles i think they are in a different league). I agree though with the sounds on the I30 are weak, this was the main reason for selling it as well poor user interface and (i hated the touch screen) and the lack of amplification (in a church scenario i think a keyboard with an AMP built in is essential). I have used the PSR620 in church before (many moons ago when I was a regular goer) and i hated it when lugging the extra amps but it was required because the 620 has weak amplification.. The X1 will blow you away though....

DannyUK

I agree with Dave and Danny that Solton X1 is the best if you have only one keyboard setup at your church. I like some of the easy control with Roland G-1000 especially with the Zip disk style links. However X1 really rules in styles. I also like Korg I-30 for some of its styles and its excellent intros/ending (though a bit too long for some scenarios), I wished it had the dedicated buttons like X1's. Since I have to use some Chinese instrument sounds I usually also use a Roland XP30 with SR-JV80-14 Asia Collection expansion board to accompany the X1. Just like Danny said on board amplication (speakers) is a must in church setup to ensure you can monitor your own playing. A one-man-band setup at church is very difficult if the song leaders do not have very good sense of tempo. I finally have become a drummer now because it is much easier to play drums than to play arranger keyboard tryiong to keep up with the poorly paced song leaders.

The type of music in our church is modern contemporary(very few hymns). I uses styles such as 8Beat, 16Beat, Rock, Shuffles, Country and Discos and also Latins

i30 seems to be weak in the styles - maybe because I got tired of it. Even some of the variations are not different from each other.

Sounds: the elec/digital pianos, brass to name a few are inferior compared to Yamaha 740. But the good thing is I can get sounds from other keyboards (Solton) and load it to my keyboard. Yamaha could not do that. But it is a hassle. The same with the styles (I can download)

Also, the memory registration function does not allow to save the volumes of each parts (left hand, right hand, 2nd voice). It memorizes the styles but not the volumes. You have to adjust them with a slider everytime you change your settings.

I want to change to another keyboard but do not want to spend big $$ and make another mistake.

lukitoh,

I do not remember Korg I-30 has the capability of importing sounds from other keyboards since it does not have a sampler built-in. Perhaps you meant some sound sets that alter the preset sound setups of the I-30. A new Solton X1-HD costs the vicinity of US$3K and surely is too expensive to make a mistake at this price for most people. Have you been able to test a Solton X1 yet?

Paul

Paul you are wrong:
The Korg i30 can import everything, as long as there is someone converting it!!

Lukitoh:
Very strange to hear you about the Korg i30 styles! The sounds could be much better indeed, but if you are going for the styles only you will be disappointed i think.
You can even buy the USB CD and you have ALL the styles of the other arrangers.

And who said you cannot save the VOLUME LEVEL of the different parts? Did you read the manual? In the Arranger Part: menu Mixer and then "write setting" .

Good luck!

Ilija

Luk, what about new Roland VA7? I also play in church and I've found good orchestral sounds in VA7 (pipe organ, strings, choir) as well as modern styles to play with the choir. I usually use 8 or 16 beat styles (the drum is excellent!) - sometimes also light rock-styles are OK - or I play in layer mode using guitar tones with soft pad or strings. I'm really satisfied by this keyboard, tell me if you want to know more, I'll be happy to help you.

Ilija,

Forgive my ignorance. I still do not know how Korg I-30 can import any other keyboards' sounds. Can you tell me what sound format(s) does Korg I-30 understand for importing, like AIFF, WAV or sample formats from Akai, Roland, or Kurzweil, or as simple as MIDI dump? My understanding of Korg I-30 is that it has 18 MB of sound ROM. Users can change the programs (how the ROM sound samples are retrieved and processed with different effects, not new sound samples since ROM is Read-Only Memory) but not importing sound samples like the ones from Solton X1 or Yamaha PSR9000 to I30. According to Korg's I30 specs: "The User area is RAM, allowing you to store 128 programs + 8 drum programs that include your favorite edits to sounds and drum kits along with your own programming efforts." On the contrary, keyboards with sampling capability can import new sounds if the conversion of format is done correctly.

Paul Ip
from Texas

Paul is correct.