need suggestions for stage piano gear

[scribibastos]

I play the piano and am thinking of buying some gear to use for gigs. I've been fine until now cause I have an old Technics that I'v been using when necessary but it's getting too heavy and the quality ain't that mutch.
So my problem is that I don't really know what kind of stuff I should buy.
My aim is to use a good midi controler to use ONLY pianos, electric pianos, fenders and ocasionaly hammonds allong with some distortions and stuff like that(that part is new for me but made a gig with shity keyboard last week with a lot of experimeentation on top and was great). My main concern is the keyboard and the sound I could get from it! I'm used to grand pianos so that's an issue and I play mostly jazz and improv stuff but also some modern classical...
Another problem is the other gear I'll need. I don't know anything about keyboards and amps and stuff so I don't really know what else I need. I have my laptop so all the rest is missing. I've been looking around and the Doepfer seemed like what I need, a good keyboard, very portable and basic sets.
I just need(and obviously would apreciate) some opinions for a nice set to play on gigs and for what i've seen there are a lot of people around here that know a lot about this stuff and I'd really apreciate any tips you could give me.

[Midiguy]

I'm a keys player myself, and I've never found anything that I like better than a Yamaha S90ES for a digital/stage piano.

[scribibastos]

i've been looking around and the yamaha seems real nice but it's almost double the price of the roland rd300-gx that also seems ok and is more portable. do you use an amp with it?
did anyone around here try out the doepfer lmk2? i'm just so curious about that one but hardly anyone talks about it...

[Midiguy]

I've never heard of a doepfer. I've owned many Roland digital pianos over the years too - they are a little mellower than the yamahas, and therefore they don't but through the mix quite as well. If you want something cheaper, I'd look at the Yamaha P140.

I always need my pianos in stereo - they lose so much when you sum them down to mono. If I go through an amp - I always go through two. I use a pair of JBL EONs.

[chrysb93065]

+1 for the Yamaha P series for stage work. As far as amps go, most places will run you to the board and back to the monitors. But if you want your own amp/monitor, the Roand keyboard amps are probably the best.

[uncle duncan]

I've noticed a big difference in action between Yamaha and Roland. To me, the Yamahas seem sluggish, the Rolands fast. To others, the Roland action is too light. It would be a good idea to bring some music tracks into the gear store and play along with both keyboards, to see how they feel when you're trying to cut through a mix.

Nord makes great piano/classic keys/B3 organ sounds. They have weighted-key and unweighted models. They're expensive, but they're also the best, which is a good way to go when buying gear.

I use 2 keyboards on my gig - a synth midi'd out to an external Emu B3 module, and a Roland FP2. The FP2 is one of those 30-pound 88 weighted-key models with the built-in speakers. The built-in speakers are handy for acoustic rehearsals and songwriting session, and they're sufficient for quiet gigs, like wedding ceremonies and background cocktail music. The FP series have drum beats, which can get you through a solo dance gig if you're in a pinch.

The problem with the FP2 is, the bright piano is in the general midi bank, at #25, and the good Wurlie is #33, so you have to hold down the 'up' button to scroll from #25 to #33. I think the RD series give you user-definable patches, which would enable you to just hit different buttons to switch to your favorite sounds - much better for a live gig. The FP2 does have a 'boost' button (I forget the actual name of the button) which you can hit when you solo, assuming your volume is normally on 10.

The one thing that bugs me about all these 88-note keyboards is, you can't split the bass to a separate output jack. I play key-bass on some gigs, and end up bringing an external module for that, so I can run the bass through a bass amp. The FP2 does give you a stereo balance knob, so if you do split the keyboard and send midi to an external module, you can turn off either side of the FP2 sound output. (The sustain pedal doesn't send to the external bass module. This was a problem at first, but now I'm used to it, and actually prefer it this way. There's nothing worse than slurred, sustained bass notes, which is what you'd get if you were pedaling as if you were just playing the piano.)

I have a little one-space 4 channel mixer bolted underneath my keyboard stand. It goes to a power amp and speaker. If you're only gigging with one keyboard, you could probably get some kind of powered monitor and just plug into that. If I didn't already have my speaker and amp, that's what I'd do. I prefer that to a monitor mix, because you can never count on the monitor situation to be reliable (at least not at my level of gigs.)

[into the white]

As far as I know the doepfer boards just use Fatar action, so you'd be paying 3-5 times as much for nicer casing and the same action as if you just bought a Studiologic controller.

[area51recording]

If you don't mind modules, do yourself a favor and check out the GEM RP-x. I've been using one of these jazz gigs and it sounds great, totally playable...another plus is it sounds good in mono. I've also got a Yam P90 and a Roland FP5 and both sound really strange to me in mono. Anyway it's a really nice piece of gear IMO.

[Midiguy]

Originally Posted by uncle duncan

The one thing that bugs me about all these 88-note keyboards is, you can't split the bass to a separate output jack. I play key-bass on some gigs, and end up bringing an external module for that, so I can run the bass through a bass amp. )

This is in fact possible with many synths. I do this frequently with both my Roland Fantom X7 and my Yamaha S90ES. I run bass out a separate output so the mixing engineer doesn't even know the difference if it's me playing bass on keys, or a live bass player - important thing is that he's got the bass coming through its own channel.

[EvilE]

run the native virtual piano on your laptop w/ an 88 key controller. also the nord electro has awesome organ/rhodes/wurly type stuff

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