Keyboard with a Good Feel

[soupking]

Hi GS,

I would've posted this in the instruments section but there isn't a one for pianos, and I don't consider the piano to be an acoustic instrument.

I hate keyboards. But, pianos weigh a ton and won't fit in my truck. I need a keyboard that feels like a piano and if possible can import sounds of some kind in case I don't like the piano sound it comes with.

I'm mostly concerned with the feel though, as keyboards tend to not have soul and get real flat dynamically if hit hard.

Any suggestions of a natural sounding keyboard would be awesome.

Thanks everyone,
-soup

[numrologst]

Nord Stage is the best sounding acoustic piano I have heard in a board... I am a nord fanatic and I wouldn't use anything other than the elctro or stage for live natural sounds... Organ, piano, ep.

I must say they missed the bill on the electro piano... Although I have heard there is an update... But the stage piano sounds fantastic for live use. The organ and ep's sound awesome on the elctro.

You could always get something like a cme 88 key controller if you have a good laptop and audio interface.

[Mafiso]

In my opinion there is only one keyboard that even comes close to a real piano feel, and that is the Kawai mp8. The keys are wooden, and the action is modeled after that of their grand piano. Even the 10 grand yamaha claviers, or whatever don't come close.

I own a kawai mp8 and i can be as expressive as i want. The only thing that might deter some people is the action can be a bit heavy. I prefer it, but I could imagine it's not for everyone.

I haven't played a nord, so i can't compare, but I have tried most of the yamaha's, the korgs, the rolands...etc, and i like kawai the best...for sound, and playability.

[numrologst]

that mp8 is a pretty big board. I may have to check that out myself.

the garden variety rompler can't touch the nord stuff though

[soupking]

Originally Posted by numrologst

Nord Stage is the best sounding acoustic piano I have heard in a board... I am a nord fanatic and I wouldn't use anything other than the elctro or stage for live natural sounds... Organ, piano, ep.

I must say they missed the bill on the electro piano... Although I have heard there is an update... But the stage piano sounds fantastic for live use. The organ and ep's sound awesome on the elctro.

You could always get something like a cme 88 key controller if you have a good laptop and audio interface.

Do all the varying Nord models feel different?

[numrologst]

Originally Posted by soupking

Do all the varying Nord models feel different?

Yes. The electro has semi-weighted action, which i feel is necessary for playing the organ and to some extent on the ep's...

The stage is 88 key full weighted and feels fantastic to me.

If you are looking mainly for acoustic piano, the Electro is not your board. It is useable but not where this instrument shines.

The Stage shines on Piano on the other hand

[jmarkham]

I dearly love my Yamaha C300. The action is great . very piano like . and
the pianos and Rhodes are *excellent*.

I hear very good things about the Yamaha S90ES for fellow keyboard players,
but I haven't played it.

jeff

[Mr. PC]

I have a Yamaha P-70 for fun-at-home use, and I think the feel of the keys is quite good. I think it is best to look at manufacuturers who make real acoustic pianos, as they have an idea of what real piano action feels like.

The sound coming from the P-70 is pretty damn good too, me thinks, but you would want to step up to a higher model for stage use because the P-70 only has crap 1/8" audio outs.

I am amazed at the level of genuine piano-love I get from this keyboard. It is a nice piano experience for playing classical piano in an apartment.

PC

[soupking]

Originally Posted by jmarkham

I dearly love my Yamaha C300. The action is great . very piano like . and
the pianos and Rhodes are *excellent*.

I hear very good things about the Yamaha S90ES for fellow keyboard players,
but I haven't played it.

jeff

Do you mean cp300? I can't find the c300 anywhere.

[soupking]

Originally Posted by numrologst

Yes. The electro has semi-weighted action, which i feel is necessary for playing the organ and to some extent on the ep's...

The stage is 88 key full weighted and feels fantastic to me.

If you are looking mainly for acoustic piano, the Electro is not your board. It is useable but not where this instrument shines.

The Stage shines on Piano on the other hand

What about the Lead model, is it like the Electro or the Stage?

[numrologst]

I also own a lead 2x. My favorite synth I have ever owned. Totally subtractive synthesis. The real deal as far as synths go in my opinion.

It's really for sounds and pads and leads and stabs, etc... Definitely not for acoustic sounds.

[soupking]

Originally Posted by numrologst

I also own a lead 2x. My favorite synth I have ever owned. Totally subtractive synthesis. The real deal as far as synths go in my opinion.

It's really for sounds and pads and leads and stabs, etc... Definitely not for acoustic sounds.

Cool, thanks man! The Nord Stage looks really nice. It'd be a while before I could afford something like that though.

I'll have to continue my search.

[tnsngwtr]

+1 on the yamaha S90ES.. actually a step up (for acousitc piano sounds) from the more expensive motif.

[eskay]

Originally Posted by soupking

Cool, thanks man! The Nord Stage looks really nice. It'd be a while before I could afford something like that though.

I'll have to continue my search.

Sorry to burst your bubble but if you want good feel, you have to pay for it.
You could look at the M-Audio Axiom line. For the price it's good.

[soupking]

Originally Posted by eskay

Sorry to burst your bubble but if you want good feel, you have to pay for it.
You could look at the M-Audio Axiom line. For the price it's good.

The Yamaha S90-es costs about half used and it looks to get reviews on HC.

I know what you mean though. I'm a believer in that principle.

[jmarkham]

Originally Posted by soupking

Do you mean cp300? I can't find the c300 anywhere.

Yes . the CP300 .. which was a follow on product to the P250.
I actually have both the P250 (one at home) and the CP300 at the
studio.

Minor differences .. although they improved some of the controls on the CP300
over the P250.

jeff

[Ben J]

Yamaha s90

Great action. Decent sounds.

[clonewar]

I'll put another vote in for the Kawai MP8, I've had one for a few months and its amazing. I'm a piano player, used to the heavy action of pianos. I've owned several Yamahas, Motif ES8, S90, S90ES, the M-Audio Keystation, a CME, and several Fatar 88 key controllers.

The worst of them was the M-Audio, followed by the CME. I love the onboard sounds of the Yamahas, the S90ES is an excellent instrument.. but for true piano feel, none of them comes close to the MP8 for me. Its not just the weight of the keys on the way down, its also their action on the way back up. There's something I can do on the MP8 that I've never been able to do on a keyboard before and thats bounce the keys under my fingers like a real piano. Kawai modeled the full action, including bouncing hammers, from their grand pianos.

A couple of things about the MP8... its really heavy, over 70 lbs I believe. I only use mine in the studio, I still have a Studiologic (Fatar) 88 key controller thats easier to lug around.

And they just released a new version, the MP8II, which actually has a lighter action that a lot of MP8 users have been disappointed with.

For me it came down to the Yamaha CP-300 and the MP8 and I got to play them side by side in Sam Ash. The CP-300 is a really nice board, but it didn't have the same feel as the MP8.

[Spec]

If costs are a concern then consider the Kawai MP5. I bought mine a few weeks ago and while it does not compete with the MP8 wooden key action is still a great smooth action - perhaps a little heavier than the new MP8 keys.

as other posters have remarked the only downside with the Kawai is that the heavier action may not suit everyone, especially beginners or people use to lighter semi weighted keys.

spek

ps and the MP5 only has unbalanced audio outputs if that is a concern.

[bexarametric]

I like the S90ES

[Alex Specht]

Get an audio card with low latency,

and get a piano plugin.

Then buy whatever keyboard you like the action on and midi it for your ultimate piano.

Of course, your speaker setup will make the biggest difference when trying to get an acoustic tone.

MHO

[soupking]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I'm thinking seriously about trying out those Kawai mp5 and mp8 keyboards.

They sound the most like what I'm looking for. I don't need a lot of bells and whistles. I've played piano for over 20 years so I need something that feels like a piano.

The Kawai gets real good review for the feel. I'm going to check it out and maybe eventually patch new sounds via midi if I get a chance.

Thanks again!

[Kiwiburger]

Why does that make me think you don't know what midi is yet?

[soupking]

Originally Posted by Kiwiburger

Why does that make me think you don't know what midi is yet?

Heh, cuz I'm allergic to computers + music. Either that or it's the dust they create from sitting around for so long. One way or the other I've never understood it.

It took me a year to properly tune a guitar.

[uncle duncan]

Speaking in general, weighted keyboards from Yamaha have heavy, sluggish action, compared to Roland, which have fast, expressive action. But this is coming from a piano player who prefers fast action, due to a slight deficiency in the technique department. (And I would agree that the Maudio and CME boards kinda suck.)

Try a Jerry Lee Lewis style fast 1/16's chord up high. Or a honky tonk roll, (I don't know what it's called - rattling the keys?) where you're playing a 3 and an 8, alternating between the two, as if you're playing a long fill behind George Jones, or Dylan's 'Everybody Must Get Stoned'. These licks will tell you if the action is fast enough. If you're waiting for the keys to snap back, chances are the action will inhibit your playing.

Any keyboard these days is going to have a decent piano. The Roland FP2 (the one I use on gigs) also has a nice wurlitzer in the GM bank, but the Rhodes patches aren't very expressive. The thing to do is bring your iPod to the music store, and play along with it, to see how the piano patch works in a mix. Or, if you're using it for a solo gig, nevermind.

One more consideration - if you ever have occasion to do quiet acoustic gigs, a keyboard like the Roland fp2 has built-in speakers, which are about as loud as a good acoustic guitar. This feature can come in quite handy for songwriting sessions and living room jams, or motel room practice sessions, if that's your thing.

[Kiwiburger]

Originally Posted by soupking

Heh, cuz I'm allergic to computers + music. Either that or it's the dust they create from sitting around for so long. One way or the other I've never understood it.

It took me a year to properly tune a guitar.

Fair enough. Computers suck. But i'm sort of stuck with them.

I just want to make sure you aren't suffering from delusions that you can buy any old keyboard and later get the sounds you want out of them. If you don't like the sounds you hear, they probably aren't going to get much better.

Obviously you can tweak many keyboards a lot. Factory presets are usually a disaster - good for Japanese elevator music. Midi will let you trigger other sound modules or keyboards that might sound better. And although the train spotters will assure you that it's theoretically possible to load samples via midi, in practice it's not going to happen. If you get a sampler - yes, you can load fresh samples. But unless you get a recent model one with the ability to use large hard drives, you won't be happy with piano sounds. I would go so far to say that samplers are the answer for piano sounds. Modelling is the future for pianos.

In the meantime, check out the hardware pianos - plug and play. Expensive but good.

What kind of music are you aiming for? With your interest in vintage stuff, maybe an upright piano, or a Rhodes, Wurly, B3 would be the answer?

[boris]

I use a General Music Pro 2 and I love the thing. It could be built a little stronger for the road but I think it has the best sound of any of the pianos today. It has 128 note polyphony(?) so all 88 keys down will sound.

Also the pedal modelling is very accurate as are sympathetic vibrations of the upper registers. The feel is not light but it still is fast, I think its the closest to the real thing. YMMV

Danny

[to-pse]

Hi there,

a couple of years ago I bought a used Yamaha KX-88 master-keyboard
and for the money (Euro 300 including a flight-case) it was a bargain.
The feel of the keyboard was very nice. The drawback: it is heavy as
a tank!

For this reason I decided to get something new which is a bit more
comforting for my back when going to live-gigs.

I tested some stuff and found the Roland RD-700sx and the Kawai MP-8
to be the best thing when it comes to keybed-quality, both also having
some really good internal sound-generation. The MP8 is even a little
bit better in terms of keybed than the Roland, but it is also quite a bit
heavier.

That's the reason I went for the MP8s small brother, the MP5 which has
the exact same sound-generation as the MP8ii (the MP8s successor)
and has a pretty decent keybed (though not as good as RD700sx nor
MP8). It was also quite a bit cheaper than both the others...

I'm very happy with the purchase since I made it about half a year ago...

Best regards,
Tobias

PS.: I still use the KX-88 stationary in my studio, as the keybed is still
very good & I don't need builtin sounds in the studio.

[synthoid]

The RD700 / RD700SX have a nice action and they are good, tough keyboards. They can take a couple of SRX expansion cards, so that you can bring the 700 up to something very close to the RD700SX (with the SRX-12 or SRX-02) and add a second card for a bunch more sounds. If this is for gigging, and if it's mostly piano sounds and other basic keyboard instruments you're after, I'd avoid the unnecessary complication of a laptop or even a separate sound module. That makes sense in a studio but not when playing live unless you have no choice.

-synthoid

[soupking]

Originally Posted by Kiwiburger

Fair enough. Computers suck. But i'm sort of stuck with them.

I just want to make sure you aren't suffering from delusions that you can buy any old keyboard and later get the sounds you want out of them. If you don't like the sounds you hear, they probably aren't going to get much better.

Obviously you can tweak many keyboards a lot. Factory presets are usually a disaster - good for Japanese elevator music. Midi will let you trigger other sound modules or keyboards that might sound better. And although the train spotters will assure you that it's theoretically possible to load samples via midi, in practice it's not going to happen. If you get a sampler - yes, you can load fresh samples. But unless you get a recent model one with the ability to use large hard drives, you won't be happy with piano sounds. I would go so far to say that samplers are the answer for piano sounds. Modelling is the future for pianos.

In the meantime, check out the hardware pianos - plug and play. Expensive but good.

What kind of music are you aiming for? With your interest in vintage stuff, maybe an upright piano, or a Rhodes, Wurly, B3 would be the answer?

Pretty broad array of music. I need that piano 'klang' though. I have an old upright Fischer piano from 1917. It's really cool, but it's as heavy as a Volkswagon Rabbit. So, I need to go keyboard since live places don't have pianos these days.

As far as keyboards go I'll make sure I like the sound and not expect more beyond that. Thanks Kiwi.