Our church has allocated about $2500 to purchase keyboard equipment for our worship service. We are looking for the best way to have a good performance keyboard that anyone can play without knowing much about keyboards, and at the same time provide programmability (sequencing, drum-loops, arpeggiating) to those who know how to use it. However, we don’t want to have to drag a heavy keyboard home with us every week! Do you think purchasing a solid 88-Key keyboard that feels good to play, but provides less functionality, and then adding a rack-mounted processor to this setup is a good idea? Can you recommend such a keyboard and such a rack-mounted system? Unfortunately, our local music store doesn’t display rack systems, so it’s hard for me to pick one out. I know many of the rack systems mirror workstation keyboards, such as Kurzweil’s K2600S (which is probably too expensive for us). It would also be nice to have something that is relatively PC friendly. I know my TS-12 can’t read PC floppies, but I can use a converter program on my PC. It’s a real pain, though. Thanks for your comments. I’d love feedback from anyone – especially if they have a similar situation.

Check out the Roland Fantom, and you will still have $700 left to spend..

You write you also want drumloops-arpeggiation etc... so my guesses are you want in fact full orchestra accomp.
In that case your best solution would be an arranger keyboard..
Has everything you asked.
Easy to play for anybody if using the ready to go banks.
The only think lacking are programability of synth.sounds, but I doubt if your church needs surrealistic /space/house sounds..

For $ 2500,-- you are in the range of top pro arranger boards.

Model to look out for this moment;
yamaha 9000/9000pro
solton X1/SD1
gem sk780/wk8se
roland va76
korg pa80

note;
Read thru the general arranger keyboard section of this bbs and you will find most answers you need.!

fred

You might rethink your keyboard system completely and go more with a computer-based system instead of tying all your resources into one keyboard. And you could simplify your setup and diversify it at the same time. A good lightweight portable General Midi keyboard would give you the basic sound set that you needed for any application, including taking home for practice, and there are many to choose from. And instead of a rack-mounted workstation, maybe a laptop computer would be a better choice. You could get your new keyboard/software/alptop/midi interface for $2500 and have something that is very portable and easier to use than any hardware sequencer, plus it would give you more versatility while costing far less. One example is Band In A Box by PG Music (http://www.pgmusic.com). This inexpensive program can easily create worship-style midi files and sheet music with lyrics at the same time. I think trying to get a do-it-all keyboard is a big limitation when you could seperate your components and get more band for your buck and lighten your load.