Hi,

First post. I am interested in a decent keyboard/synthesizer. I used to own a Kawai K1 which was all I needed. The K1 had weighted keys which was a nice feature. Any one have other suggestions? I am a beginnner.

What would a used K1 be worth? Thanks, Bill

Hi Bill

Make a choice from the workstations below. I have a fully loaded Korg TrinityV3 workstation and Korg O1/Wfd workstation.

Triton Studio

TrinityV3

Karma


Peace.

Ringo

------------------
Need furniture for your Studio? Want the best for less? Contact me, I'll build you beautiful pro quality furniture for a price that can't be beat.

[This message has been edited by RINGO (edited 04-24-2003).]

Hi bpatters55,

Personally, I think you'll need to ask yourself a few basic questions first. From there I think you'll be able to begin to decide about which board to purchase.
Things to consider.
1) Money
2) Number of keys that are essential for you
3) style or keyboard, light, semi-weighted, fully weighted, graded vrs balanced (for weighted boards only) aftertouch needed?
4) necessary features such as, on-board seqeuncer for recording and/or just playback. Sequencer capacity.
5) User banks/patches.
6) edit ablilty?
7) real time editing?
8) expandability and if you want expansion, check out the expansion cards available first, you might find none of the cards are worth it, thus rendering the expansion ability useless.
9) sampling? Something I know little about.
10) Money (or did I mention that already)

There's a hundred decent keyboard/synths out there on the market. All have different features and limits. You have to figure out what features are essential to you, which you would like but are non essential, and which features you could absolutely careless about. Like for me, on board sequencing, I could care less about because I prefer to use my PC. But I'd really love to have play-back ability.

I'm finding you could probably break down the boards into these categories
1) Workstations
2) Performance synths
3) Digital Pianos
4) Controllers

Many boards may do 2,3 or 4 of the above. I like a performance synth for playing live. a workstation for the studio. Which brings me also to another question you need to ask yourself, what will you be using the board for and how will you be using it? Weight of a board is an important factor if you'll be gigging alot. Most digital pianos and workstations are heavy 50 pounds and up.

basically I think you need to ask yourself some questions first.

I bet if you could ask your question again in greater detail, perhaps you'll get more exact responses.

Best wishes
Bob
<><

Hey you guys what's up!
Welcome to the synthzone man!!!
LOL
There's one small preliminary to having the best sound setup imaginable.
Win a lottery jackpot.
I'm still trying myself. The dollar investment is worthy of making a dream an actual possibility. You can't catch a fish if your line is not in the water!

You can find up to date average prices on keyboards at good old ebay online auction.
Search K1 in the keyboards section.
Hope you'll stick around w/us!

Yamaha have some good weighted 88 keyboard actions on their lower priced pianos and synths if the action on the keyboard is important to you.

Some people get struck by lightning, some win the lottery. The chances are about the same. The good thing is, lightning doesn't require any investment.

-tek

-tek, in California the odds are even worse than that. I think getting hit by lightning is what 14Million:1 Superlotto odds are 60Million:1 in California. Pretty steep!
Nigel, did you hear about that one guy who hit our Superlotto Jackpot and then that same day bought a Quick Pick Fantasy 5 and won that too! OMG . . . They figured out his odds were 23Trillion:1! He was quoted saying "I guess I was a bit lucky." 23Tril.?He Guesses? A Bit? It obviously hadn't really hit him yet how lucky that is.

Weighted keys are great for the beginner to learn the physical properties of the piano. When I was a tot I was given a toy piano to get me off the real one. I remember my mom saying that I played it but whenever I could, I would sneak downstairs to the upright that was in the basement. I don't remember back exactly that far except that the piano downstairs had so many more keys.
My poor parents bless their souls. I must have really driven them to the edge way back then. Probably a good reson why I got lessons, so I wouldn't drive them completely bonkers. I still take 1 lesson per week (LOL and at times, hehe I still play horrible too LOL)

Hi All,

I'm new too, this is my first post. I'm a bass player, and would like to purchase a keyboard for learning, writing, and home recording. I will try to answer some of the questions in the quoted post above in order to help others make suggestions for me.

1) I would say my limit is $500, and I'd actually like to spend a bit less than that if possible.
2) Not sure on number of keys. Something average I suppose, not soo small, not too big. I would like a large enough range to work on progressive rock arrangements, but something like 88 keys sounds too big. Is there a manageable number of keys, something that doesn't take up too much space, but has enough to work with?
3) Not sure what all the distinctions mean as far as my needs. Since keys are not my main instrument, I guess I would like something that plays nice and easy. I am clueless on proper technique and such, so I imagine something that is easy to play would accommodate me well. I don't have any experience on what different keyboards would feel like, but I do have a good amount of strength and dexterity in my hands from playing bass so long. Something too light would probably not be good, nor something too weighted. Is there a happy medium?
4) Just doing home recording, so I'm not sure how high-tech I should be with the unit itself. Not looking to make pro level recordings, but home ones for sure.
5-6-7) I would like banks and editable patches if possible, would be cool to tweak some sounds instead of being stuck with canned stuff. Not really sure what is meant about editing and real-time editing up top. I would like to edit sounds, but I would rely on the computer itself for other editing chores. A keyboard with a lot of nice useable sounds would be nice.
8) Expandability - Don't think it's an issue. I can't imagine the things I'll be looking at in my price range will have too long a life beyond the initial product.
9) Sampling not needed, unless of course it helps me emulate other cool synth sounds I hear on records and such. Not intersted in sampling anything outside of actual synth sounds. I could use the computer and software to handle other samples.

So I guess I'm looking for something in between a workstation and a performance synth, with performance being limited by my budget of course. I just want something that is 1) easy to play, 2) has great value for the money, and 3) has good, useable sounds (preferably with patch editing capabilities).

My main influences are stuff like Rush, Dream Theater, etc., but I listen to lots more besides those bands too. Just wanted to mention that in case anyone knows if some keyboards in my price range excel at reproducing sounds from those bands. I listen to a lot of hard rock and classic rock as well. Zep, Floyd, etc.

I'm just totally clueless on synth, but even some suggestions of what to check out in stores would be helpful. Sorry for the long post, and thanks in advance for any feedback.

Hey seamus;
Sorry for the delay in replying. It's seems you went a week at least. Sorry.

For 500 bucks there are a few bare bones synths out there. I know of two in your price range that come to mind. Roland RS-5 and Yamaha S-03. Both have 61 light keys. Neither has aftertouch. Aftertouch adds modulation or other assignable effects by pressing down on the keys harder. A cool effect for playing strings and organs. But this effect can be accomplished with the mod wheel (yamaha) or joystick (roland).
Neither board is expandable. So what you get is all it will ever have. Which isn't necessaryliy a bad thing.

The RS-5 has real-time control knobs. This means there are a few dedicated knobs to edit things like attack, decay LFO rate and cutoff. Personally I never edit my sounds live, but many people do.

Both of these boards would probably be considered performance synths. workstations generally are equipt enough to compose on. Most new workstations also have samplers. Also the lighter keys generally come in 49, 61 and 76 keys. 61 and 88 are popular. I don't thing you'll have any trouble with 61 keys since you are not a pianist, or a long time keyboardist. It's hard to tell if you'll ever need more keys. If you find you've become really good at the keys, and want to continue, you'll probably be like the rest of us and have a few boards, so then you get a larger keyboard. It's a tough call.


I think 49 is not enough. 61 is tough for someone used to playing piano. Like me for instance. I had an XP-50 which has 61 keys and I kept looking for those bottom bass notes for B, A and G, and they weren't there. I've played 76 keys and never had any problems. However most weighted keyboards come in 88 keys. but of course, generally more keys = more money. added sequencer = more money. added sampler = more money. expandability = more money.

Both the RS-5 and Yamaha S-03 have user patches. this is where you can edit an existing patch and store it. To be able to store 128 of your own is the norm. (aka 1 user bank). Nearly every synth allows this. I really can't speak for which of the two is easier to edit sounds in. No board is really hard. Yamaha offers a sound editing sofware package for free to help edit the S-03. which is way cool for editing! Roland does not.

I own the RS-9 which is the RS-5's big brother. I also own a Yamaha S80 which is like the S-03's older cousin.

The RS-5 has an arpregiator but i don't think the S-03 does

I think Proteus also makes a very bare bones 61 key synth but I'm not certain.

Another option for you is you might consider a used board. You can generally get the next level of board used for around 500. Like a Roland XP-30 (61 keys, expandable). Alesis QS6.2 might be options for you but the price is more like 600 new. It can be expnaded (with a Q-card).

All the boards I have so far mentioned are 64 poly, multi-timbral and GM compatible.

Multi-timbral meaning it can play more than one part at a time (through the use of an external sequencer such as a computer).

GM (General Midi) compatibale is a standard that manufactures can adhere to. It basically means there is at least one bank of 128 sounds in the synth that is arranged to a standard. Where program 1 is piano, program 17 is an organ, program 74 is a flute, etc (1-128 are used). I just rememberd those 3. This way if you download GM midi files, the'll play correctly on your GM compatible machine.

So for 500 bucks you can get a decent bare bones synth. Generally, 61 keys, no sequencer, no sampling, no expandability.

And by no means are my comments comprehensive. There may be a few other boards out there. I'm just not aware of them.

best wishes
<><
Bob

[This message has been edited by RW (edited 06-02-2003).]

[This message has been edited by RW (edited 06-02-2003).]

Hi Bob,

Thanks a lot for the reply! I'll do some research on all the boards you mentioned, then try them out in the stores if possible. Thanks for all the other info too, you've helped me learn some board related lingo which can help me with my ongoing search.

Mike

I would agree up to a certain point regarding how many octaves your layout is equipt with. Actually what I meant was down to a certain point. Any less than 61 keys for me personally is not comfortable when the controller or board is in a split RH / LH mode (which is usually what I would do). Unless I am having fun tinkering rag tunes into different syncopations, the weighted keys don't really do much for me either, although I must admit that I do like to feel a little something under my fingers. When there's nothing there but lightweight plastic, my playing tends to become timid because it feels really cheap like I might break the stupid keys.
The flip side of it is that they recoil instantly and you can get better velocity from the "numb" keys. Wouldn't it be nice if someone made it a feature where you can select the weighting on the keyboard!?

Seamus,

I just checked the prices of the RS-5 and the Alesis qs6.2. It looks like they're both going for around 600 bucks. In that case the QS6.2 might be better than the RS-5. The RS-5 has a pretty good apregiator, I don;t know about the QS6.2. But the Yamaha S-03 is about 500 bucks.

Hi Bob,

Thanks again for the info. Thanks also to everyone else who posted as well. I'm saving this information to help me with my search!