Hi there,

The display of my Roland EM-2000 is broken (some lines are suddenly missing), and while waiting for a shop to get back to me on how much it would cost to fix it, I am browsing the new keyboards that are available on the market. I usually buy a new keyboard every ten years or so (before the Roland i played a GEM WS2), so time's almost up

I play together with a singer and a guitar player, mostly on weddings. During dinner I play only the piano, after dinner a mix of styles and midi files.

- Weight : the EM-2000 is getting heavier each Weekend, so the lighter the better. I noticed that keyboards like the GW-8 are really lightweight, but I wonder where the gain comes from...

- Keys : 61, else i fear it wouldn't fit in the car anymore (european cars are small

- Sounds, ordered by decreasing importance: piano, accordeon, organ, brass, synth

- Styles : waltz (french), march/polka , latin (samba, tango, ...)

- Midi-player : The ability to quickly find and put some songs together and play them in a row would be great (the EM-2000 is awfull there).

- Quick access in general : i tried to put stuff together in performance settings, but i failed. Guess I'm just the type that wants to press buttons on stage instead of programming at home.

- Brand : doesn't matter

- Stuff I don't need : voice processor, recording/sequencer, sound editing, internal speakers.

So is there a perfect keyboard for my needs out there?

Are (lightweigth) notebook/software/masterkeyboard combinations worth considering these days for that kind of live usage?

Thanks for any hints

You know, with a laptop, you could easily be talking about the GW-8...

Cheap, light, no speakers, good sounds, live style mode, mp3 playback, SMF playback.

Only disadvantage is that the Playlist editor, to put together different chains of songs, is a software thing, so to change it on the fly might be difficult...

A was VERY impressed with it, at the price point it was... I already have a G70, so it's not anything I need in particular (unless I was hiking with it! ), but if I didn't have anything Roland, I think this is what I would get to get the best bang for the buck right now.

It truly is an impressive sound set at that price, forget all the arranger and MP3/Wav/Aiff stuff it can do too... All that Latin stuff is just the icing on the cake...

Something to take into consideration, if you are using SMF's, the Roland GW8 doesn't have the capability of reading "Markers"

Thanks for the replies

I have to look up what markers are good for, don't know bout them *blush*

The GW-8 does look nice, I will try to find one in a shop round here to play it. Would I still need a laptop with the GW-8? From the features it seems it is pretty much what I am looking for. Although it doesn't seem to be build for quick access, but I'll have to try that out. And though it's nice to have the best bang for the buck, that isn't my primary concern. I don't mind paying a premium if it's worth it, as I plan to use it for a long time.

Meanwhile I tried to compile a complete? list with "lightweight" keyboards (15 kg):

Korg PA-800
Roland E-50
Roland GW-8
Yamaha PSR-S900
Yamaha Tyros 2
Yamaha Tyros 3

Greetings from Europe,
Kymon

Kymon,

I owned a Roland EM2000 so years ago and the screen did the samething. I had the screen replaced. The screen alone cost me $400 from Roland USA. Then a year later the screen went again, so I sold it as is.

Since you have already a list of keyboards that your looking at, you may want to look at a ketron XD9 also.

Good luck

It seems that markers can be used to mark patterns like chorus in a midi file and dynamically jump at those positions, sounds like a great thing for live performing

Thanks for the price for repairing the display, seems quite high compared to the price of a new GW-8...

I also had a look at the Ketron keyboards specifications, unfortunately they are all over 15 kg. I know it may seem like a silly thing to do, but I have to draw a line at a certain weight, else I'll end up with a >20kg Roland keyboard Some years ago I wouldn't have bothered, but I'm getting lazy.

I also found some modern flightcases that are made of plastic or aluminium instead of wood, apparently that'll save some weight too

E50 has the marker thing, and E60, too. Both have speakers, but are lightweight.

Markers are great! You put them in an SMF at different section boundaries, and on the fly you can Jump to any of them, removing the way SMF's always played back exactly the same...

You can't do this with MP3's, yet, though, in any arranger (short of software ones, AFAIK).

They help bridge the gap between arranger style mode, where you can go anywhere any time (but have to tie up your LH to do it), and SMF mode, which freed you up as a player, but was more preset in structure.

Now, you have the best of both worlds!

And, with synchronized style section, you can drop into style mode in the middle of an SMF, do what you feel like, then use Mark/Jump to cue up exactly where you want to drop back into the SMF again

The lines are beginning to blur away!

Hey, even better than I thought
Though it's probably harder to navigate through a song when both hands are busy, instead of left one just playing chords in style mode. Thanks for the detailed explanation!

PSR7000
Korg PA50


Both under $1000 US and should suit your needs easily.

Thanks for the hint
I'm looking forward to hear some of them for real next week, as I really start wondering about price ranges. "Cheap" boards used to sound really different compared to the more expensive models, and I wouldn't want to dissapoint the audience with sub-standard sound. But now people recommend me cheap boards, and I read that some even sound the same as their bigger brothers. I guess the price difference isn't so much in sound and styles anymore, but rather other features it seems... I'm glad I asked on this forum, because honestly, I wouldn't have seriously considered sub 1000 boards otherwise.

I have been able to play some boards, although not for long. The most interesting ones seems to be:
- Korg PA-500
- Yamaha PSR-S700
- Roland E-50

The PA-500 sounds nice, but there seems to be a constant hiss, at least using the phone output. Can anyone confirm this, and is it also present at the regular outputs?

I was a bit dissapointed by the styles of the E-50, at least compared to the PA-500 and S700. Not sure if it's only a personal preference, or if I picked the wrong styles while trying.

The S700 seemed to have the most "aggressive" sound (lots of high frequencies), which can be good or bad depending on the situation.

Unfortunately I haven't found any GW-8 yet to try. As for the more expensive models, they seem to have mostly more features that I don't really need, so I will stick to those 3 for now.