Hi Bryan,

You must have fairly narrow "slim" fingers I am guessing. The real trouble does not lie on the front part of the keys, ie., before you reach the black key area. The main problem lies in the black and white key area, ie., the white key area within the black key area. Those 2 extra millimeters (approximately) could mean the difference between an excellent rendition/performance or a mediocre one. I realize some Keyboardist's probably don't even play within the black/white key area but if you notice most if not all of your professional, ie., "world class" Keyboardist's do. I am sure there would be far less of them if they had to play within the constraints of Yamaha's less than true full size Keys of their portable Keyboards. PS: A 1/2 inch for 5 octaves states my point. I mean, the Keys are not made of ivory so I don't see why Yammie is penny pinching on Key size. It doesn't make sense. I am not trying to be sarcastic toward Yamaha because I enjoy my PSR 2000 as much as the next person who owns one and Yamaha makes great Keyboards no question but if nobody ever raised their voice expressing their opinions on ways to make a product better and more advantageous not only to Yamaha in possible product sales increases, ie., "a better product will sale more and stymie the competition in the process", but in better satisfaction and enjoyment for their customers. My next Keyboard besides having 76 Keys, onboard speakers, at least 128 note polyphony (preferably 256 or more), and besides a host of other must's, it must also have TRUE full size keys. If that means jumping ship, so be it, although I would like to stay with Yamaha if at all possible because of some of their other great features and quality sounds, but only if they start making true full size keys on their Arrangers.

(True full size keys is like High Speed Internet. Once you have a taste of it you never want to go back to using dial up).

Forgive my ranting but if nobody spoke up about anything the wheel would of never been invented either and we would still be living in the dark ages.

Best regards,
Mike

Mike

I have fairly large hands as I can play tenths like most folks play octaves and my fingers are commensurate in size. (I can play the opening bars of Rachmaninoff's second concerto as straight chords if that means anything to you). I have no trouble playing between the black keys on the PSR-740 so I never really thought about the key size. Wonder what the key size on a piano accordion is - must be smaller than a keyboard.

Bryan

Hey Guys and Gals,
Before you jump ship, and spend a lot of money, you may want to spend some time with a tape measure and measure todays 76 key keyboards. Then measure a brand new grand piano, and measure your present keyboard. In most instances, the key size is identical--the only difference is the space between the keys or clearance, which is about 1/1000 of an inch greater in the grand piano than a 72 key Roland I measured last night with a micrometer. The keyboard keys were identical in size and height. I talked with a performer about this last night, a guy who has played with the Ink Spots, and lots of other well-known, big-band groups. His response was "I can't tell the difference. If there's a difference, I sure as hell don't know about it." This guy has been playing professionally for more than 50 years. If he can't feel the difference, I doubt seriously that anyone can!

Cheers,

Gary

Thanks Gary and Bryan for your reponses. This is an interesting debate and it has been brought up on the SynthZone on more than one occasion.

After posting my message yesterday I decided to do a little further investigating. I scooted on down to GC today and checked out a few Keyboards they had on display to compare the Key sizes. With my trusty measuring tape that measures down to a 32nd of an inch I carefully analyzed, scrutinized and measured the Keys of a PSR 2000, a Korg PA-80, a Korg SP-500, a Korg Triton and I also played several other different models from Roland, Yamaha, and Korg, eg., Motif, S90, Roland FP3 and FP5, Korg Karma, Triton Pro X, Yamaha DGX-500 athough I only played them briefly to get an idea of how the area inside the black and white key area was, to compare them.

Okay, on to the measurements. The only two real comprehensive measurements were of the PSR 2000 and the Korg PA-80. The Korg SP-500 (88 Key Hammer Action) was next down the list. The PSR 2000, (and Steve Deming can correct me if I am wrong), was as follows: The area between the black keys "F#, G#, A#, ie., "inside the black and white area", was 9/16"[14.2875mm]. Between C# and D# was 5/8"[16mm]. The distance of E and F (including the "space") was 1 3/32"[27.78125mm]. B and C would be the same as E and F of course. The actual Key width was 27/32"[21.43125mm]

The Korg PA-80 is as follows: Between black keys F#, G#, A# was 19/32"[15.08125mm]. Between C# and D# was 21/32"[16.66875mm]. The distance between E and F (including the "space") was 1 5/32"[29.36875mm] B and C would be the same respectfully. The actual Key width was 29/32"[23.01875mm]

I noticed that the Korg Arranger Key size on the SP-500 was actually 1/32"[0.79375mm] wider than the Korg Triton's key size. Why Korg would do that is anybody's guess. I assume it's because the Triton is a Synth and the SP-500 is a 88 key Graded Hammer Action Keyboard. But it only goes to demonstrate that Korg's Arrangers are geared more toward the true Professional musician whilst Yamaha's Arrangers seemed to be geared more toward younger children, students, teens, and the Home Hobbyist. Not the serious Professional.

I will say this. I believe one of the reasons it is more difficult for me to Play within the black and white key area of the PSR 2000 is because of the very poor/mushy/flimsy key action. Putting my index finger between F# and G#, etc., and pushing the white key down almost always results in either F# or G# or both, etc., to also move "downward" which could possibly result in an unwanted clash of sound if they depressed so far as to evoke an unwanted note while playing live or whenever. When playing the Korg PA-80 and especially the SP-500 doing the same key press resulted in neither of the sharps; F#, G#, etc., to budge. And that is because of the superior Key action/response of the Korg's. I think I could bear with the PSR 2000's smaller key size if it weren't for the fact that playing within the black and white area the sharps and many times the adajacent naturals; B, C, etc., will depress when I don't want or intend for them to while playing. (That IS the main reason I am raising this issue although the actual Key size is another). Again these things happen because of the smaller size keys. And my fingers are normal size even tending toward "thin" in my estimation. Bryan, you say your hands are on the large side. That could also mean they are 'Long' not necessarily 'big around' which I think is what you are saying. Someone who has 'big around' fingers, would of necessity have to play on the end of the white Keys and would probably find it next to impossible to play within the black and white key area of the PSR 2000 because of the smaller key size and the flimsy, mushy, key action. Of course there is nothing wrong in doing that but it would be harder to play complex chords, progressions and arrangements imo if a person just played on the end of the white keys, ie., "outside the black and white key area".

On a positive note. Both the PSR 2000 and Korg PA-80's "Black/Sharp" key width was the same size which I believe all Sharp keys on all Keyboards have been standardized. I could be wrong about that though.

Any who, because I want to be more than just a home hobbyist, (which I am already btw , in my musical pursuit/career I deem it necessary upon purchasing my next Arranger Keyboard, to buy one that is more geared toward the professional musician and of course it must have true full size keys, be it from Yamaha, Korg, Roland, or whoever. But in the mean time I still enjoy my PSR 2000 immensely with all of its fantastic sounds and other features. And when I play in a live situation I try to be extremely careful in my playing if need be, paying extra attention and detail to finger positioning, which btw I shouldn't have to! Enough said.

Best regards to all,
Mike

Out of curiosity I watched myself playing. I noticed that because of my long fingers and the fact that my thumb is much shorter than the rest, my second and third fingers tend to turn sideways when playing between the black keys. Maybe that's why I have no difficulty there. That also answers an old question of mine as to why I always had difficulty in playing some of the fast twiddly bits. I'm not striking the keys as accurately as I should. I'm surprised I didn't notice it before. Another interesting fact - the space between the C# and D# keys on my keyboards is a lot bigger than on the piano which has more even spacing - as you also discovered while measuring.

Bryan