Hello folks I'm seeking advice on getting a new board. Last time I settled for a DGX-305 which has suited me just fine, however I now have a new steady gig. I'm going to be a backing musician in my brothers band. I'll be playing keyboard, handling bass, drums and organs and pads, while he will play piano and we have a guitarist playing guitar. So what type of board will handle this kind of job? I tried using my current setup with the DGX and my trusty old Boss DR-3 drum machine, but it all sounded awful and I didn't have enough time to switch the beats... We like to switch songs rapidly somtimes before the one we are playing is over creating sort of impromptu medleys. What sort of feature could ease my job when my brother shouts out "country rock 130bpm G major) in the middle of a bossa nova?
Would be great to get like some sort of 1 touch button setup where I could switch from 10-20 different setups in a split second...

So far I've checked out either getting a new drum machine, the DR-880 has user banks, don't know if they will work for one touch settings, but at least it's cheaper than a new board but I don't know how well it will work.

Secondly I've considered getting the S700 or S900, but maybe I need some kind of workstation synth instead? like the MO6 or Korg TR?

My budget is max the price of the S900, preferably the price of the S700

Any suggestions?

Doc-Z

with either the 700 or 900 you can set up registrations or folders with all the beats you will be needing, tempos can be saved and even transpositions if needed can be saved. Then, by just locating the style you will be needing, which is saved, you can call it up with a single button.
you could also set up all these styles and tempos in the music assistant section and here you can choose by name, style type or tempo and you can search for these by scrolling and then just pushing the enter button or by searching by typing in the name you wish to find.
as many of the members will tell you here, there are many ways of setting up a type of the line arranger to do all these things
the 700 is a good choice if you want to spend less and don't need the vocal harmonizer, color screen and the additional articulated voices.


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George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com

Can these registrations save orchestration info of the style? (Mute tracks, patches etc) and is it possible to edit the sounds of the thing? Can it do something similar to the MO6 performance features?

Doc-Z

yes, the registrations can save volume changes and mutes for selected style tracks. Yes, you can edit the sounds with parameters found in keyboards like the MO-8.


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George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com

I would audition a Roland E60/50 (preferably the '60). The drums on those things is a definite notch up from Yamaha arrangers, especially if you want to get out live with a trio. They are punchy and dynamic enough to survive three live players on top of it, something I don't feel Yamaha's do as well...

If your brother wants to yell out random styles at random tempi in the middle of something else, I wouldn't touch a WS with a barge-pole. That just isn't their strength. Stick to arrangers, or be prepared to put in a LOT of work in advance, and STILL not have the stuff a regular arranger can do.

[This message has been edited by Diki (edited 02-19-2008).]

Ok thanks for the info guys. I watched the video demos of the MO6 on youtube and saw the guy shout "Let's go to spain" and a flamenco beat was playing, and then he said "what about germany" and then pressed a button and suddenly a euro trance track was playing. I thought "Hey that's what I need" but if it requires a lot of cumbersome sequencer programming, then it's not for me. I need something I can either play out of the box, or fiddle with during gigs and save the setups on the fly, or something I can fiddle with a couple of hours in advance, and adjust it live and save settings. If that is possible with the suggestions I'll check it out.

Also I can get a good deal on a used PSR-3000, which has a MIC input and that gives me the advantage of still being able to use it on my solo gigs. Can I use this board in this other setting as well? Any other older gear I can check out that is similar in features to this board?

Doc-Z

Doc,

You can't go wrong with a used PSR-3000 or a new S900--either one will do a great job, and when he yells out country rock, G, with a tempo of 142, it's just a single button push away.

Good luck on whatever you decide upon,

Gary

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Travlin' Easy

No offense, Gary, but that's only one button push away if you set that up in advance, isn't it?

In 'live' play, that's a button push for the Country group, a button push for the Country Rock, and a button push (or a spin of the dial, whatever) for the 142 bpm.

Same as Roland, same as most of them, AFAIK...

But still a WHOLE lot easier than trying to find that on a WS (best of luck!)

[This message has been edited by Diki (edited 02-19-2008).]

I was comparing photos of the S900 and the PSR-3000, and the look a lot a like, I can read from the specs that the S900 has those fancy Super Articulation Voices from Tyros 2 and 5 more MegaVoices. And I noticed that S900 had registration bank + - buttons, the 3000 did not. Does that mean that the 3000 only has 8 registrations? Also the S900 had voice control buttons, I couldn't find them on the 3000. Btw can voice settings be saved in registrations? And is there a way of controlling Harmony on off from a button or maybe a foot pedal?

Doc-Z

Ok, I tested out the S500, S700 and S900 today. The S500 sounds exactly like my DGX-305, no difference, at least to my ears. The S700 sounded like a Tyros and the S900 like a Tyros2. And the color screen on the s900 was a lot like the one on the Tyros. But the registrations seemd to work the same on all three boards. The + and - buttons for the banks looked like a good thing, does the psr-3000 have a similar feature quick way of selecting banks? And I noticed that I could only give names to the banks the selves, I couldn't find any way of seeing the names of the individual registrations. I would like a way I could see the registrations as "1: Cottonfields" "2: Let it Be" "3: Proud Mary" and so on, that way I could press 3 if my brother shouted out Proud Mary G major, in the middle of Let it be.. Is that possible on any of these boards? (S500, S700, S900 and PSR-3000)

Doc-Z