Digital Piano + Synth
- From: JSOUL dot com <tkdREMOVESPAMinthecity@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 13:10:15 -0400
It has been a number of years since I've hopped into the keyboards
section since my JV80 has lasted me for quite a while. I have been
looking at digital pianos to practice at home and also take on a gig.
I've found a few but many don't have the features that I would expect
given the boom in technology everywhere else! Given that RAM and
storage cards are dirt cheap it is amazing that musical equipment
comes ridiculously underpowered for the money and with few expansion
options at an over $1,000 price range.
1) With built in USB for these synths and pianos, e.g. the Roland
FP-5, etc. they have built in sequence playback. Can you load
sequences in these just by plugging in a USB drive or do you have to
hook up the keyboard to a computer to do a "dump" of the MIDI info?
2) Synth reviews: Next: Most important is a good piano sound and good
keyboard feel. Without these you don't have much! I would like to have
a reasonably good selection of other sounds, most important really are
just a small variety of good basses so that you can play jazz or
clubdate or disco and have a right hand piano, wurlitzer, rhodes,
decent organs, clav and maybe a few other samples like brass. Doesn't
have to be a huge collection but enough to do the job, 50 sounds would
even be fine if they were good. Optimally I'd like a sequence recorder
or playback, nothing elaborate and a 1 or 2 track sequencer that holds
plenty of notes and 10 songs would be adequate. Not too much to ask
for methinks. Having presets like on a synth should optimally be there
but aren't in practically all these instruments and everything from
changing sounds to then changing the effects, etc. all have to be done
manually every time.
I'm hoping someone can help me make a choice. I'll give you my
impression of the keyboards:
Casio PX300 at $600. Very cost effect, very light (27 pounds), it has
a 2 track recorder/playback that doesn't look useful (1 song and 5,000
notes) and no built in USB but hey, $600. Synth sounds are terrible
other than the ones on the hard keys so you get roughly 20 sounds. The
built in speakers are useful for playing at home and don't weigh a
whole lot. For the money, it seems almost unbeatable.
Yamaha PX90 which I was not impressed with at 1,000 given the lack of
built in USB and also deficiency regarding MIDI per other reviewers.
>From what I have seen there are better values.
Roland FD300: Very nice sounding but I was not so impressed at this
price. It boggles my mind that for $1,300 you can't get simple presets
like one could get with a Juno 60 over 20 years ago. No sequence
playback either. Good keyboard action, excellent stage piano sound and
reasonably good synth although it's limited in sounds to the basic GM2
and was not so impressed with the basses. No built in speakers. No
expandability. On the bright side 128 note polyphony but provides
diminished returns without any of the other capabilities.
Roland FP-5:Very nice sounding piano but also expensive. On the bright
side good built in speakers, multi song sequence playback, excellent
keyboard action, very good looking piece. Not impressed by the price
and that there are again no presets for performance, no saving of
sequence playback to a card, no sound expansion. It seems Roland is
basically stating that its piano and keyboard feel are amongst the
best so you will pay up the nose for it if you really want it.
Heaviest piano at 47 pounds but can be carried. Does have a sequence
playback and several songs. But for $1,500? Is this also an older
model?
M-Audio Prokeys88: Didn't get to see this but I was told it's an
incredible value at well under $1,000. One problem. It's supposed to
be the same keyboard as the current Keys-88 or something like that and
the keyboard is much worse than even the $600 casio.
Korg SP500: I REALLY wanted to like this piece. On paper, the only
thing missing are built in speakers. But is it only me or does this
piano sound incredibly mediocre? I've seen one or two other reviewers
say the same while the others say it's unbelievable... maybe they all
haven't heard what an acoustic piano sounds like. Maybe it was the amp
but in two places I demoed it the board just sounded tinny/canned and
not right. Good keyboard feel. Reasonably decent other sounds.
Incredible 2 track sequencer which holds plenty (over 100K notes and
12 songs). But oy... is this piano mediocre? 44 pounds is not light
but not completely unreasoanble.
So those seem to be the choices. It boggles my mind that walking into
the store after all these years even hardware sequencers are $400+ so
there is no option to take that along. Has the music world gone mad?
That said, what do you guys think/hear about this gear and what is
coming out shortly? Thanks in advance...
.
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