My daughter is an excellent violinist, who is studying violin performance at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. She is home for the summer, and she is doing volunteer work at St. Joseph Residence for seniors in Dallas, and we do a one hour set each week. The residence is run by nuns, and takes in low income folks, so I feel it is a very good cause in which volunteer for and hopefully spread a little joy.

For most of her material, I just play piano, but their piano isn't the greatest, so I decided to get an 88 key, fully weighted, hammer action digital piano, with arranger functions. My choices came down to the Yamaha DGX 670, Casio CDP 360, and Korg XE 20.

I am more or less a Yamaha guy, but the DGX was just to heavy and bulky. The Casio felt great but the speakers aren't good, and the styles didn't do much for me. The Korg won for me. The speakers are great, good piano sounds, and the styles are pretty good, and I like how easy it to cut out the harmony parts and just leave the auto bass on and play full piano. My daughter is happy with the additional back up for her country, Latin, Great American Songbook standards, and other non classical songs selections that she performs on her violin. So far I'm enjoying my new keyboard but it's not a very intuitive operation system (for me) I am studying the user manual and making good progress. Wish me luck, we'll performing with the Korg this weekend.

It's GREAT to play with kids. My grandson is my drummer, my oldest son is my bass player and my youngest son plays guitar and acts as sound man.

GOOD, FUN STUFF!


Russ (adopt me, please) Lay

The Roland FP-E50 did tempt you? Or outside the price window?

Good question, and yes, I did consider the Roland, but it's weight was a big negative. If it was for home use, it would be fine.

The apple never falls too far from the tree : )

Congratulations ,
You can even add additional styles which is great.

Enjoy.

How well does the Pianostyle chord tracking work? Does it have anything more modern than ‘three notes down before a new chord’?

I found that mode quite tricky to play pianistically well without constantly having to think whether new notes would freak out the chord recognition. Roland’s ‘three with sustain pedal up, five with it down’ has really freed me to play without paying much attention to the notes I am playing… (you know what I mean! 😂)

This chord system didn’t appear until the BK series, and afaik, no one else has picked up on it yet, but I’m not familiar with most of the arranger/piano type keyboards (Clavinova’s, Havian’s, PF-E50’s etc.).

Thanks Rikkibears, I'll have to look into the additional styles.

The chord recognition on Korg XE 20 is nothing to write home about. I have been playing it mostly with auto bass/drums with the other parts cut off. It works in full piano mode but I really have play quite simple chords. No rootless voicings and no rhythmic anticipations or delays. Definitely no montunonos or other arpeggiated patterns ! I wish it had a chord sequencer like the old Havian. I wonder why they cut that feature?

I thought so.

With Roland pretty much out of the arranger game, I don’t see why its former competition don’t snap up some their better ideas, like now everybody and their uncle having a chord sequencer now.

The thing about playing piano is, you spend a lot of time with the sustain down, moving up and down the keyboard, making runs and arpeggios, playing passing notes etc.. but it’s rare with the sustain down to play five notes simultaneously. But three..? That’s pretty easy, and it will send your chord recognition off on a wild goose chase!

Try to contact your manufacturer, see if you can’t get them to add this. It’s a fairly simple code exercise, nothing as complicated as good articulated sample sets, or even the chord sequencer, but nothing I’ve played in 30 years of arranger use ever allowed me to play pretty conventional piano until Roland’s ‘Pianist2’ mode.

Roland’s shortcoming in this area was, they never had a rootless chord mode, so trio type playing isn’t as well done. But play less jazzy, and it tracks pop and rock playing flawlessly. If I want to do rootless voicings, I’ll turn on the chord sequencer and record the head with more straight ahead pop voicings, set the ACC to mute any piano stuff (best is just bass and drums), then start the chord loop and move to the rootless voicings for the solos…

The only rootless voicing you can do on a Roland is the 7/13, it will recognize those without the root. I don't play jazz but I agree that Roland, as one of the pioneers of professional-grade "chord intelligence" didn't implement rootless as well as the other major brands.