Master keyboard - 88 keys

The Moog Forum Moog Music General Topics Forum
1

Here’s a question for people with experience and proper players (I’m a newbie with actually playing keyboards PROPERLY, if that makes sense given the time I’ve been playing).

I like having a fully-weighted 88 key keyboard - currently have a Korg Trinity Pro X V3, which replaced a T1. The aftertouch has gone AWOL, it doesn’t handle half-damper, and it’s a bit short on MIDI controllers.

Whilst I like having the Trinity synth, I barely use it. For the sample and synthesis stuff I like my Roland XV module. For the MOSS board stuff I find my Virus and Moog blow it away. I don’t need the workstation side of things, I use a sequencer and so on.

With this in mind, my logical next step seemed to be the Triton Extreme. But I’m thinking far too linear here. There are products like the CME VX8 out there. Or Kurzweil K2600.

Forget budget. I’m prepared to buy an OASYS, so I should be able to take any sane option short of a Diskclavier. What’s going to give me:

88 weighted keys with a really nice response and piano feel, with good aftertouch (poly A/T would be a bonus but barely supported).

Some assignable controllers. Good software would be nice.

A synth engine that adds something to my setup.

At the moment it seems that the ideal would be nagging JB to produce an 88-key version of the Solaris, or perhaps if Nord could make an 88 key wave (the wave adding a synthesis method to my setup).

What am I missing?

Part of my reluctance to move outside of the Korg comfort zone has been that I know how the Korg 88 key mechanism feels, I know what sounds I will get, and I know it won’t break easily. I tried a GEM Equinox 88 and despite many keyboard players raving about them in print, I thought it was a great big steaming pile of !£^&@!* NO CARRIER

…

Where was I.

Yeah. GEM Equinox. TWO sound engines, each one needing to be MIDI controlled independently. Gutless sound. Awful build quality. Presumably because it’s cheap and has drawbars, it was beloved of very talented organists - the people who definitely play in a manner I envy and I thought would have an opinion I could trust. It’s a hateful synth.

For this reason, I am wary of the Kurzweil. They seem beloved of people who may get paid to play a Bosendorfer, but not enough to take one home with them, and as such are massively talented, but might not know a good synth if it bit them on the bum.

What’s my ideal product?

2

I know Nord does indeed make an 88 key red box, but I’ve never played with it. Kurzweil is like the Moog of the digital piano world. They actually are more known for their voice-recognition software and other adaptive technologies, which is why Stevie Wonder played one for a while. Great pianos! Hope this helps! :mrgreen:

3

Like the Moog of makes me think it’s worth having :wink: But their piano samples seem small. The Clavia 88-key thing sounds like a big ol’ mess of compromises, and I’d live with their weird weighting of keyboard if it had the Wave’s synth engine, but I really don’t like the sound of the half-cocked single-oscillator synth, compromised organs and stuck-in-the-middle pianos.

4

There’s always Yamaha, as well. Their piano samples are HUGE! :wink: Kurzweil has much better customer support, from what I understand, though. I’ve never heard a “bad” sounding Kurzweil, but that’s my opinion.

5

I looked at the Yamaha KX8; I quite like the looks of Korg’s RH2 action keyboard and I suspect that this is a Yamaha component.

Kurzweil’s newer keyboard than the K2600XS looks promising. But the cramped UI; I’m so used to workstations with touch screens and big interfaces… I’ll have to find a dealer and try it.

6

The KX-8 is a beautiful instrument. I’d get one if I could play it. :laughing: I am not a classically trained pianist, you know. :wink: Kurzweil’s high end workstations are definitely worth looking into, as well. See what’s available, and try it out! That’s how I ended up with my Little Phatty. :mrgreen:

7

If you want to buy an 88 key oaysis but you don’t need the workstation…then why buy the oaysis?

If buy the Fantom G8 and spend the remainding cash on a dotcom system?

8

Well, partly because the OASYS looked - until I learned that it uses NO DSP hardware, just pure software on a PC - like a nice bit of kit, and partly because I was still arguing with my DAW software and thought the OASYS might have been an easier solution.

The G8 is too… big. It won’t fit my desk with the height of that weird design, I think. And the remaining cash won’t get much of a dotcom setup, certainly nothing that would really move on from the Moog I have.

9

Dude that picture I posted is like 5100 bucks. THat plus 3400 is probably what youd pay for an oaysis.

But for that matter you could have a few sequencers several filters, that would be quite superior in function to the Voyager.

10

The Oasys does a lot, sounds very nice and has a nice feeling keyboard. For me I prefer the feel of the Yamaha Motif. The XS8 would give you several options and a wide pallet of well done sounds with a very nice keyboard feel. The new Kurzweil PC3x is getting great reviews.

11

The exchange rate puts that 5100 at £4000+ now, I think. And I can buy a used OASYS for £3,500; they’re only £5,400 new and I reckon that anyone with one of these four-year old things in stock now is going to be keen to move it.

The Fantom G8 is £2,500. £1000 isn’t going to get me much of a modular :wink:

The PC3x is looking interesting, as is just ditching the sound engine and having a CME VX8. I haven’t looked at the Motif, I thought it was a bit backwards still using AWM2 (which I’m somewhat wary of, having had a Clavinova and been deeply unimpressed with it).

12

Im thinking that the Fantom here is 3500, the dotcom is 5100. THe oaysis is 8000+.

I have heard that some of the Korg Updates are lacking. So a search for this in the forum, we discussed the Oaysis awhile back.

I just assumed you were in the USA.

Eric

13

Well, the other thing is, I don’t want or have space for a modular. I just spent ages getting rid of things I don’t use properly; really trimming the fat - until we move to a bigger house, there’s no room for the sort of modular system I’d want.

And if I were going to buy another synth - then I’d buy a Solaris. I’m in discussion with them to see if they can build a weighted 88-key model; so far the cost is “high, not prohibitive, but definitely more than I could justify”; if more people can be found that want one then the development cost can be spread.

Thing is, when it comes to piano samples - there’s always going to be something with more storage, higher resolution, more multisamples, tailored velocity curves. My computer or a small dedicated module is always going to provide the best piano samples short of a real piano simply by not tying me into (in the K2600’s case) 18 year old memory and processing constraints.

But a good synth? The Voyager’s basic concept is what, 40 years old nearly? Still works.

I want my primary keyboard to feel like a piano, and sound like something I don’t have covered already. If Roland had make the XV5080 into the XV88, instead of the 3080 less two boards, then it would be a no-brainer, though I want graded action ideally.

Is the cultural split between “synthesizer” and “piano” so great that the idea of a device like the Solaris having a weighted full keyboard is just bizarre?

14

I’d read an article on Keith Emerson’s web site, actually an interview with his tech guy. When asked about Keith’s rig, he began with saying that for piano, Keith uses the General Music Pro 2. For that reason, I checked out the Pro 2 and was Awed. Probably the most significant keyboard I’ve ever purchased. Now, don’t confuse this keyboard with any of the GEM stuff… General Music rearranged their corporate structure some years back and divided up all their keyboards into different sub companies.

Anyway, GM didn’t use samples here, but physical modeling techniques to simulate the internal characteristics of a piano soundboard. Personally, I don’t think there is anything that comes even close to the Pro 2 for sound and feel. But they’ve been out of production for some time now, and hard to find. But I’ll tell you, I play 10 times better when I’m at this keyboard. It’s so inspiring to play.

Keith recently has switched to the Korg Oaysis for the foundation of his rig.

I also own a Kurzweil PC1-X, which I have primarily for the Orchestral sounds, which of course, Kurzweil is unsurpassed. I can’t believe I’m even saying this, but it’s true. The piano aspect of the Kurzweil actually pales to the Pro 2 when played side by side, both feel and especially sound. Trust me, I was as surprised as anyone with Kurzweil’s reputation with piano sounds.

I’ve tried various others, like the Yamaha Motif and found them lacking on the piano, both sound and feel. But they are after all workstations that have a broader purpose.

I’d like to try the Nord Stage.

If you are a pianist first and foremost, than you’ll want to be very picky at what you use for your piano. But if you just feel you need to have a decent piano sound and 88 keys to drive it, then some of the workstations might be the thing for you since they deliver a variety of different features as well.

15

The Nord Stage is hybrid-weighted, and the sound engine - on paper at least - leaves me cold. But a lot of the points you make I’ve addressed above anyway; I don’t like the OASYS because it’s off-the-shelf hardware tech that is massively outdated and hasn’t been upgraded at all in 5 years - the HD is still 40GB when 500GB would fit, the CPU is a single 2.8GHz PIV when the cost of that motherboard now would deliver a pair of Core 2 Duos, the RAM is limited to 2GB when most platforms support 8-16GB at the sort of level the OASYS costs.

But, I don’t use Piano sounds often. I want the weight of the controller, not the best piano-within-a-synth. If you’re on tour, I can see why you’d want that, but if you’re just in a studio, then a computer can hold more, better, more frequently updated keymaps, velocity maps, samples - and as technology improves you can improve that. Sample & Synthesis devices are frozen in time, and for “sounds” that’s fine, but for “recreation” - technology offers more potential.

My piano sound will come from whichever computer-based instrument offers the best recreation, not ‘the best effort to cram it into 4MB of compressed ROM’.

16

The new Motif XS sounds beautiful. And the build quality is superior to Roland and Korg. And the XS8 keybed is fantastic.

  • CM
17

I’d take a look at the M-Audio Keystation Pro-88. Lots of assignable controllers, weighted keys, price is right. No synth engine, so I’d take the money you saved and buy a new rackmount baby…but that’s just what I would do.

Although I love a nice workstation, I always end up with gear issues, so separation of pieces is good for me. However, the new Roland Fantoms are very nice. Intuitive sequencing and you can work with audio in it too. Roland makes good stuff and it will last for many many years.

Kinda depends what you wanna do. I’ve been trying to minimize my gear for some time now, so I understand. I opted to keep only one or two pieces with keys. That saves me a lot of space. One dedicated sequencer. blah blah blah.

18

That M-Audio Keystation Pro 88 is one fantastic deal to say the least. What a great controller for the price. Only around 300 bucks if I’m not mistaken? The only thing I heard was the the keyboard has an annoying ‘bounce’ to it that bothers some hard-core piano players. Does anyone know anything about that?

A good friend of mine out on the west coast is and always will be my MIDI hero. I’m a performance player when it comes to my approach to my rig, even in the studio. If there’s anything I hate it’s ‘switching hats’ while recoding… and until 10 or so years ago, that friend of mine was always around to keep me from having to do that. I like to concentrate on playing the musical keyboard, NOT the computer keyboard. I can’t stand going back and forth. It brakes up my creativity.

What was the frackin’ point of going there?

Oh! The Reactor. My friend would like to see me go for The Reactor in my rig, which is a rack mounted device that allows you to store all of your virtual instruments and call them up on any keyboard in your rig during onstage performance WITHOUT having to bring along a computer. VERY cool, actually. Virtual stuff has come a long way over the years. I especially like the B3 stuff available. One could EASILY go out and perform with 2 simple, soundless controllers and a Reactor and have, virtually every keyboard ever made conveniently available at their fingertips. Bob Moog even endorsed a virtual MiniMoog, I believe.

Some day, I just might go that way. But I really need the feel of a good piano when I’m playing piano, a really nice spring action keyboard for synths - Voyager is PERFECT for me for that, and a nice middle of the road weighted spring action for all of the middle of the road stuff. I use a Korg CX-3 for my B3 stuff because of the feel of the keyboard. It’s really close to the feel of a B3… it’s a dedicated keyboard for that sound, like all of my other keyboards. Plus the fact that you have to be able to beat the living crap out of it with all the palm glisses and such. It can take it where most other ‘plastic’ case keyboards can’t, and weighted action is simply out of the question.

Recommendation: I still recommend to anyone who is looking for a piano for their rig and is concerned about the feel and the sound: Find an old General Music Pro 2 (or Pro 1). If not, see if you can find a Promega 2. It looks like a frackin’ space ship, but it has the same piano engine as the older Pro line and some nice additional sounds as well. The Promega 3 is superior, but VERY expensive even used, but it’s out of production so you can’t buy a new one. For just a superior sound, they made a sound module called REAL PIANO that will get you the sound engine by itself and use your own controller for it. Just at the very least, try one or so of these out. I know you’ll be impressed to no end with the piano’s sound and feel.

19

Generalmusic have lost me for good after the Equinox. I don’t care if they’d knocked out an Andromeda 6 with graded hammer keyboard and 48 voice poly for a grand. I won’t touch anything they’ve produced.

Keystation doesn’t help either. If I wanted a dedicated controller then it would be the KX8 or CME VX8.

I might look at a Motif…

But I’m still liking the idea of a custom-built Solaris.

Helping along the way, turns out I can buy a whole new keybed - with new springs, keys, pads, contacts, AT strip, the works - for £200 for my Trinity Pro X, which will definitely keep me happy for the time being (and give me more time to research the Solaris 88 idea).