JosephWalsh
From Battle Baptist Church
I lead worship in a youth congregation of about 40 (no big event) and I've always played the church keyboard which is basically an imitation piano, nothing more nothing less (not a bad one either). I have my own keyboard which i keep at home and is a 'cheap and cheerful' kind of device, not full piano octaves which is annoying and all the lamest effects under the sun.
long story short I have some money and I want to start considering buying myself a keyboard which is portable (not stationary, I can carry it from a car into church), provides a convincing piano feel and sound whilst also allowing some effects for reflective response time (I'm thinking deep soft blanket noise sounds if you catch my drift). If you know about these kinds of things please tell me what/where to be looking at or perhaps you could tell me what keyboard you've got and how that's been for you , I love playing keys for God and the prospect of a proper keyboard makes me exited!
A good place to start is the review section of these two websites:
http://www.soundonsound.com/
http://emusician.com/
As Mark said, budget is important. A keyboard for £500 will have different features to one which is £2000. It's about finding the right keyboard for you.
Hey, I bought a Casio Privia PX-330 a couple of months ago, haven't regretted it in the slightest :). Its a full size, fully weighted stage piano with a decent range of sounds (pads, organs EP's etc.). It's also about half the weight of anything with a similar spec sheet! (about 11 kilos compared to 20-25). The action is superb for the price, I wouldn't go so far as to say its better than a Roland/Nord, but its about 1/3 of the price and certainly not substantially worse! The only slight downside is the Organ/EP sounds are a little weak, but that can be improved somewhat with some careful layering :). There are a couple of good critical reviews about
http://www.keyboardmag.com/article/casio-privia-px-330-the-digital-piano-for-everyone/1721
http://www.jazzwisemagazine.com/reviews/11353?task=view
I was quite lucky and got one new for £510 off Ebay. Expect to pay more around £600 though (certainly don't pay more than £630). Basically for what you want you find something that's better value for money, I use it in almost exactly the same way as you and its perfect :). Just give me a shout if you want to know any more.
Hi Joseph
Have a think about the features that you want, your budget and then your choice sort of falls out of that!
Keyboard keys are either weighted (ie. like a piano), unweighted (plastic bouncy tonka-toy style) or semi-weighted (halfway in-between, and often found on keyboards that favour organ, pads or electronic piano sounds over normal piano sounds.
Weighted keyboards are the heaviest, and can weigh probably 20-25kg for a full length one. They're also usually favoured by nearly everyone for standard church duties.
Most modern keyboards will have piano, electric piano and pads (ambient sounds) or strings-type sounds as well as a variety of other useless ones that you'll never use. In general you get what you pay for, but if you're willing to look used, you can get a pretty good keyboard for £400ish upwards.
A hard case for it is also a good investment if you're going to be transporting it!
I got a Kurzweil SP2X for £450, which is fine and does the job nicely. Similarly priced good models would be things like a Roland RD300, or a Kawai MP4. Stick to the known brand-names and you won't go too far wrong.
Hi Joseph,
Have you considered a master keyboard? I sold my Roland A-80 about 18mths ago. Excellent MIDI Master Keyboard, assignable MIDI zones and levels which made it very powerful, when MIDI'd to rack synths. (Bought Clavinova as replacement - long story involving my wife, and the birth of our daughter!)
With any 'piano sized' keyboard it is going to way a tonne, my A-80 needed two people to carry it when flight-cased, and I could just fit it in a Vauxhall Corsa, seats down and moved fwd. If transporting you'll need to consider dimensions, weight, and a flight case. Keyboards are delicate souls, and unfortunately you can't transport them around in your bag like a flute!
Your ability and commitment will also have a bearing. Do you want a keyboard that you can play piano repertoire on, will you be gigging regularly, how much time are you going to spend on musical activities? These are some of the questions that you might need to answer to evaluate your commitment and investment - keyboards are expensive, so you should take a while to think about it.
At our church we use a Roland RD700SX (I think), which is excellent, though for pianists it is a hard touch. If I were buying one now, I'd look at a Nord or Yamaha. Korg make excellent synths, Yamaha have good pianos, Nord are very good all-rounders, with Roland also. If you are on the lookout, you may wish to visit a shop and try a few out. GAK is reasonably close to you: http://www.gak.co.uk/
D
Hi Joseph, I've owned and used my Roland RD700sx for the last 5 and a half years now and its been brilliant. It isn't the lightest keyboard, but it is portable. I mainly use piano/pad sounds but also hammomnd organ style also. I also have played for weddings and a funeral of which it has a great pipe organ and a cathedral organ sound not only big big very realistic as its actually a real sample from each instrument. It also has graphic equaliser style volume control for up to four different sounds at any one time, this is really good when combining pad and piano and you want to fade the piano out just to have pads or bring piano back in. Its so much smoother than selecting another sound and it coming in very suddenly. The overall sound quality is brilliant and having considered replacing it recently and tried the latest Roland Rd700sx which replaces mine, I don't think its enough improved to change. The Rd 700sx sell for around £700-£800. I've had keyboards for the last 15yrs and I've always found you pay for what you get, you go cheap you'll sacrifice the quality of sound. Its well worth trying one or two to see what you like, but I can highly recommend the Rd 700sx for a great affordable, easy to use controllable keyboard
Thankyou for all your comments, I have taken note and will continue investigating. To add a few deatils, I lead a worship team vocally as whilst playing the keys. My worship team play in a youth congregation (with a contemporary style) once every fortnight as I rotate with my worship leading counterparts. My budget (although I'm fortunate to have more disposable money if I really wanted a specific keyboard) is up to about £500. I would also consider buying used keyboards.
I've been out of my way to visit a music shop and I had a look at three keyboards in particular.
-Korg SP250 (£582)
- Roland FP45 (£1199) (I may have made a mistake with the '5' in FP45)
- Roland RD 300NX (1,359)
If anyone has come across any of these and could give some advice then please comment.
I got the impression that the Korg was a good piano imitation in sound and feel with a few quality alternative voices.
The first Roland seemed like a better piano sound. The second Roland didn't have internal speakers but was described as an excellent gigging keyboard. I didn't have much time to play them all but I wondered what any of you thought?
(My budget really depends on how much I like a keyboard, I could spend as much as 2000 if I was really convinced over a particular keyboard, I would rather spend something nearer to 1000 however)
The Roland RD keyboards are a staple of worship bands - the 300 and 700 series are both pretty good, and you won't go wrong with a Roland in general. I'm not really too fussed about getting internal speakers as you can play with headphones, or just plug the keyboard into your home hi-fi, or a pair of PC speakers. Will sound fine.
In general, the best advice is to go with a board that you feel comfortable playing, and that has the right sounds which you will use (assuming you're not going to get an external sound module).
Unless you're in a rush, i'd keep looking and playing different boards as the Kawai and Kurzweil boards are worth having a play with...
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Exciting times when you can buy new toys! What budget are you working with because that makes a big difference