Hi, all,

Does anyone of you use an 88-key controller
or stage piano with your arranger
workstations? George Kaye already
recommended Yamaha P80, a 64-voice, 37 lb
contender with good piano sounds and keys.
Kurzweil recently came up with SP88, a
32-voice, 2 ribbon controllers, 30 lb stage piano. Has anyone tried both of them and compare their sounds, feel and usability?

Thanks,

Baby member

Paul Ip

I own the K2500, and in my experience, Kurzweil has always had a great sounding piano in its ROM. I havent yet heard the SP-88, but I have heard the Yamaha piano simualtions and to me they have always sounded overly metalic, tinny and over-processed. But everyones ear is different. But there are many others who agree with me so my suggestion would to defintely check out the SP-88 when it comes out. Kurzweil has never taken a step backwards when it comes to their products, so its safe to assume.

Thanks for replying to my posting and sharing with me your opinion on Kurzweil products.

This afternoon I went to a local music store and tested Yamaha P80, S80, and Kurzweil SP76 (the 76-key version, only difference between the SP76 and SP88 models is number of keys). I only spend about 2 hours on these 3 keyboards and so my first impression may not reflect the keyboard's capabilities correctly.

Kurzweil SP76 has semi-weighted keys and it is light. Overal its sound is a bit tiny and the piano samples seemed very short. I am sure that its bigger K series brothers are much better in sound quality. Yamaha P80's weighted action keys are very impressive. Among the built-in sounds, I like the classical piano patch the best. It really has one of the best mid-low range piano sounds whereas the treble is clear but very short. Yamaha S80 has slightly less impressive piano sounds but a lot more other sounds to offer, with good key feels. I particularly like its piano+strings patch. I think I like S80 better than the P80 for its MIDI controller features and expandability. I wish the S80 also has an internal sequencer for recording, and has floppy drive - Smart Media is nice but less convenient than floppies.

I think I like Kurzweil's old PC88MX better than the new SP series but they belong to two different machine catagories and so it is unfair to compare them this way. After searching for light weight stage piano, I realize that I am also looking for features that this class of machines does not offer. So, I will still be looking for some more.

See, everyones ear is different, the Yamaha may be the one for you. I wouldnt recommend getting the PC-88 for one reason though. I have heard through the grapevine that the PC-88's although they sound great, they tend to have "glass keys"(meaning they break easily).
The SP-88 was supposed to be the correction of this, too bad the piano sound is less than desirable, thats really surprising.