OK, here's the problem: Many years ago I learned to play piano. My Parents and Grandparents chipped in and bought me a gorgeous upright piano (Zender, if anyone's interested!). Trouble is, although I enjoy playing the piano, it never captured me in the way that guitar now does. Therefore, I think it's probably wasteful to have such a good piano sitting there getting played only briefly once a fortnight or so.

What I would like to do is sell it and by some form of electronic device (I'm careful not to use the word keyboard, as I may be talking about an arranger, a workstation, a synth - who knows!).

My requirements for this would be as follows:


1) An amazingly good piano sound. This is my main requirement.

2) Good drums.

3) The ability to 'do' many music styles i.e. rock, dance, trance, drum 'n' bass, hip-hop etc.

I would also like the following, but they are not essential:

Weighted keys.
A sampler.

I'm really not sure what I need. When I first started looking, I thought 'Yamaha' and gravitated toward the PSR3000 (with it's 'Live! Grand Piano'). However, I worried that this may be limiting as it revolves around built-in styles. I then had a look at a combination of the Motif ES Rack and an M-Audio Keystation 88ES. My problem with that is that it would be lacking control surfaces, being a module.

Finally, I've been looking at the Roland Fantom-XA and the Korg Triton Le. I found the Fantom easier to use, but I seemed to make nicer noises with the Triton.

Anyways, I'm confused, so any help much appreciated!!!

If you're wanting sampling, good acoustic sounds, good drums, ect. I'd suggest you go with a synth such as:

Yamaha Motif (original) or ES
Korg Triton (Extreme) or Le
Roland Fantom

All these models come in an 88 weighted key version.

Good Luck,
Squeak

Thanks Squeak. Would you reccommend any one out of the 3, or is it purely a matter of personal taste? Also I heard that the Triton Le 88 has a Bosendorfer Grand piano sample. Do you know if this is features on the shorter (cheaper) ones?

As far as I know, the best acoustic pianos among all the workstations are on the Yamaha Motif ES and the Fantom X, while Korg is more geared towards synth stuff (I am leaving aside Kurzweil because it's more expensive).
Maybe you should check out the Music Player Forum; there are a lot of threads dealing with questions like the one you asked here.
Good luck!
http://www.musicplayer.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum;f=18

E-

As a former Korg Triton Pro-X-88 owner, please stay away from Korg's if a quality piano sound is important to you.

I tried the stock pianos, the misc. for sale enhanced piano cards, even auditioned a 3rd party piano sound...NONE sounded as good as a Yamaha piano.

Specifically, the bottom and mid ranges sounded very acceptable, but the upper octaves were so thin they were unusable.

I play a variety of styles within my work ranging from jazz, standards, country, oldies and some pop.

Good luck,

Bill in Dayton

I have to agree with Bill about Korg pianos. They leave a bit to be desired.

As Dreamer stated you're going to get a great quality piano sample on a Yamaha Motif ES or a Roland Fantom.

Also you may want to wait until Alesis cleans all the bugs out of the OS of their new Fusion synth comging out soon. It too comes in 88 weighted keys. This models is supposed to have the acclaimed "HOLY GRAIL" piano sample. It's supposed to be really good.

Kurzweil makes some nice ones but they will put a HUGE dent in your wallet.

Squeak

Yamaha Motif ES8 or Roland Fantom X8. Korg has sucky acoustic piano sounds. Just terrible. Korg has good drums, organs, and synthes, but piano, no.

Fantom X piano. It's nice and acoustic sounding. It doesn't have as much low end as I wish, but some EQ can fix that.
Yamaha ES. A little more processed sounding. Like a piano you'd hear on a pop recording. Brighter than roland, and maybe a bit more compressed sounding. Good for country or rock, not classical.

I heard the Alesis Fusion at Namm, and quite frankly, I was not overjoyed with that Holy Grail piano. I don't know why, it just seemed odd somehow.

Drums, Yamaha has good out of the box drum sounds. Roland Fantom has bad acoustic drum sounds. Good electric drum sounds. The SRX-01 expansion really helps Roland out in the acoustic drums department. With expansion Roland surpasses Yamaha in almost every respect IMO, but straight out of the box unexpanded, Yamaha might have the edge.

I own theRoland Fantom X because of the expansion. But I was close to getting a Yamaha Motif ES.

I also agree about the Piano sounds of a Korg keyboard, not good compared to Yamaha or Roland. In currently available models I would (and have) pick Roland Fantom X8. Excellent piano sounds, good drums (especially with Dynamic drums expansion board), excellent key feel, most powerful sampler out of any workstation in the market today. With the recent software version 2.0 upgrade it has 8 track digital audio recording capability. It's all done on a compact flash card.

[This message has been edited by harosha (edited 04-07-2005).]

Unless anyone knows a good way of getting lots of money for an acoustic piano, then things like the Fantom-XA will be nudging the top end of my budget.

For our American friends, exchamge rates do not really work between US and UK prices. In other words if something is $1000 in the US, chances are it'll be near enough £1000 over here. Obviously this is more money (of which I always seem to be short)

I discovered this when I was last guitar shopping. I managed to get an Ibanez Jem 777 from Arizona for $900, and they go for well over £1000 over here.

I meant to add to that a question: Does the Fantom-XA include the good piano you all speak of? I tried one in a shop and the man (who didn't seem particularly knowledgable) set it up for a patch called "so true" which he said was Roland's top piano sound.

...It sounded a bit weak to me!