Tips on Buying a MIDI Keyboard

page 2

for your Home, Pro, or Project Studio

by Rich the Tweakmeister

Its got to Sound and Feel Like a Real Piano

First get real.  Electronic keyboards do not feel or sound exactly like a real piano.  They are not going to please a concert pianist who expects the same action and dynamics as a Bosendorfer Imperial Grand.  Yet, many will come close, and offer a sound that, not only stays in tune, may actually be easier to manage in recording situations.  Two beautiful boards are the Yamaha S90ES and the Roland RD700SX.  Unlike mere digital pianos that only offer up a dozen or so piano like sounds, these are full out synths with great pianos and great touch. They form the excellent middle ground between the expensive workstations and your basic budget pro board.   You might note that the S90ES has the largest sample rom of any keyboard in my chart, which excludes the Oasys, until the Motif XS comes out. On the lower end of the 88's is the Alesis QS8.2, which has been around in earlier incarnations for over a decade.  It sounds good and feels good with its 88 key weighted action. 

Expanding your Sonic World

The older Alesis QS synths are a good cost-effective alternative to workstations, often called "ROM-plers".  RAM/ROM expansion that lets you add sound cards with samples on them, or better, a RAM card that lets you write custom samples to it and use the synth to process them--these are always welcome.  It usually doesn't add significantly to the cost, and with a little work to load the card, you often have the same functionality as workstations. The Alesis Rom cards though, are typically 8 megs, a bit small by today's standards, but are well done.

The newer Alesis Fusion HD adds a hard drive for your samples and offers Sample Playback, Virtual Analog, FM, and Physical Modeling out of the box.  That's an amazing feat technologically that was formerly found only on high priced boards like the Oasys and Roland's V-synth.

Roland updated it's "expansion board" approach for the XV, RD and Fantom series to their SRX format.  SRX boards are typically 64 megs in size.  Yes, bigger often means better in terms of sample realism. The "Fantom S and X" boards hold 4 SRX boards. The Fantom XR (rack) hold a whopping 6 cards. As a sound developer myself, I applaud the careful, sensitive work the Roland programmers do.

Compare that to the Triton Expansion scheme.  These are typically 16 megs and there is less variety compared to the Roland boards.  I've reviewed most of the triton boards in my review of the Triton Rack.  Korg does offer one plugin synth board, called the MOSS board.  It adds a full virtual analog synth to your Triton, not just samples. Note that the new Triton Extreme comes filled with sounds from their best expansion roms.  This is definitely a huge money saver!

The Korg M3 is going to add a Radias ESB board.  That solves the analog problem with the M3, which is otherwise a sample playback machine like the Triton was.

The Plugin-synth approach has been most extensively adopted by Yamaha with its PLG boards for the S80, S90 and Motif series.  These boards include models of analog synths, acoustic instruments, the venerable DX7.  They have some sample rom boards too, for drums and percussion which are about 20 megs or so.  

Before you ask I'll tell you now.  No, you can't use a Roland expansion board in a Triton, Motif or anything else.  Expansion boards are always proprietary.

But however you look at it, expansion boards really help your keyboard cover more sonic territory, and are a big consideration when buying a new keyboard.

 

To gig or not to gig

The gigging keyboard brings other factors to mind.  Durability being the main one.  Price performance wise, the QS8.1 with 88 keys and a Metal housing is pretty foolproof. Especially with all the digital pianos and organs, time tested in gigs.  However if you are going a more techno playlist you want something that can at least mimic and analog synth.  The  Fantoms have a d-beam on it--that might let you wave your arms to control the sound on stage and give you that futuristic edge. Many boards have some nice big knobs that will be easy to find in an impassioned moment. And if your pockets go deep, get a modern day Rick Wakeman-esq setup with a big 88 key controller on the bottom and a tier of specialty synths. Watch out for the material used though. Some of the new boards have lots of plastic.  If you are going to be gigging with a $3000 piece of plastic, I'd advise getting the best case you can find and don't trust the roadies.  And if you are playing summer outdoor concerts in Texas where I live, add in a big sun umbrella and two personal fans.  You don't want it to melt on you and you don't want to melt on it. :)  

Cool Frills:  Arpeggiation, phrasing, sequencing, and drum patterns.  More than ever, the newest keyboards provide features that allow you to unleash incredible soundscapes by pressing a single key.  Check out the Korg Karma, the Yamaha Motif, the Triton and the Roland Fantom.  I thought the Roland was hot with its library of arpeggios.  I just found out the Motif XS will have around 6,000 arps and phrases onboard.  The M3 is going to have "Karma II" technology, which is a proven phrase generator/arpeggiator/midi mega processor. 

The newer boards all have a similar ideology of not only great sounding performance for those who actually know how to play a keyboard, but extensive real-time control so even those with who can't play a lick to save themselves can achieve an awesome audio result.  While you can do all this stuff in a computer sequencer, sometimes it's nice to have it all mapped and ready for you.  Sometimes by hearing a magnificent patch, on gets inspired to write a tune around it.  The newest boards show a departure from simple analog emulation and multi-timbral orchestra-in-a-box that has ruled the keyboard market for the 90s.   The sounds are so mind blowing sometimes I feel like I am cheating, working up a hot rhythm, a swirly pad  and slammin' bass just holding a few keys down.  You can always turn the arps off and build from scratch. 

The New Generation of Arranger Keyboards

You have probably have seen the early generation arrangers in the form of the kiddie "autoplay" Casio and Yamaha keyboards back in the late 80s and 90s.  Well guess what?  Those kids grew up and now are productive citizens with jobs.  The arranger keyboard has grown up too, now outfitted with powerful onboard synthesis, sequencing, sampling and sometimes audio recording.  Check out the Yamaha Tyros 2   Arranger boards share many of the technologies that workstations have but they often approach them in a different way.  Typically the board will have a number of built in styles  (rock, pop, hip hop, jazz, blues, etc) and will call up the appropriate set of instruments and drums for the style.  The Tyros, for example will let you create your own styles.  The idea here is the fast creation of songs, the automatic generation of verses, choruses, fills, endings, intros and easy editing.  They are good for songwriters working on ideas, who don't want to be bogged down with creating drum patterns and basslines.  And that is the main difference between arrangers and workstations.  The workstation assumes you are building things from scratch (though they may have some performance presets that do several instruments with phrases and drum patterns for live use) while the arranger boards assume you want it to build the song for you (and give you a chance to edit the song to your taste.) 

When will a keyboard become a digital audio sequencer? 

Today. It's here.  Audio sampling (with long samples) is one way to get audio into the keyboard and it happens with the Motif and Triton Extreme and is perhaps best done in the Roland Fantom X, thanks to the pads.  These boards allow you to record audio and place sounds on the keyboard so you trigger them in a sequence.   The Motif's variation on this theme is like this.   Motif call these processes "sample with note" and "slice with sequence".  For example, you get the significant other to scream out "Luv me baaybee all night long" at the peak of your song.  The Motif records it, assigns it a note on the keyboard, and if you want, will slice it up according to tempo, sort of like recycle.  Now you can play that little "motif" by pressing the key anywhere in your masterpiece.  Want to slow it down? Make the sig. other talk smack rearranging words.. Speed it up? No problem.  Your motif will track it. 

A more recent development with the Fantom X is the ability to record audio tracks straight on.  No its not going to rival a 24 track recorder for recording a full band, but it will help you plug in your axe and record it next to you MIDI sequence, and then plug in a mic a sing along.  Track at a time.  Cool.  Or just stick a mic on it at the next band practice and next time your sloth-oriented bass player says your adrenaline-inspired guitar player came in too early you can press play and go " yo homys, here's what went down..."   

 

Theoretically, you could sell the studio except for a microphone, empty the room, move out the computer and just have your synth in there (and a stack of memory cards).

Audio recording is perhaps the bleeding edge of keyboard technology. And there are more keyboards on the way that do this, like the Alesis Fusion and the Korg Oasys.  Audio recording has trickled down to the mid-level Juno G. The Motif XS when released promises to expand audio recording even further.  I am still not ready to advocate breaking away from the computer.  But for live gigs, sure, put down your backing tracks, get a gig in a nice lounge at a 5 star hotel, and put out an extra large tip jar.

Advanced connection to computers becomes Reality

Many workstation synths are still not at the point where we can shuttle audio data back and forth between computer and keyboard seamlessly. Never assume.  The older Tritons, for example, use SCSI (for cd roms and hard drive data storage). However, they are not able to connect directly to a computer via SCSI like a dedicated hardware sampler can.  Many of the newer keyboards use what I call the USB solution.  This uses a Smart Media card or similar for exchange.  Roland has done this with the Fantom line, Yamaha with the Motif ES line and Korg with the Triton Extreme. The card actually shows up on your computer as a small disk drive where you can add samples, preset banks, midifiles and more.  This makes it easy to drag some loops and samples you have an get it one the keyboard.   People liked this direction and the USB solution has trickled down to the 2nd tier now to the Korg TR (when outfitted with the sampling option), Roland Juno G.  Even the 3rd tier, the  Korg Micro-X and X-50 have new ways to connect to the computer via VST plugins (though these don't sample).  The Motif XS promises to let you connect via a IEE394 (firewire) cable and Ethernet direct to your computer (s).  Now we are talking about more than just storage, but real time multichannel transfer of audio.  There is the cutting edge.

The Far Future?

What is going one here? The manufacturers are feeling the pinch from all the cool specialty soft synths available.  Letting you control your hardware from the sequencer is an advantage because hardware synths don't use up CPU like their software brethren.  By making connection to the computer as easy and as seamless as possible they are improving their bottom line and our studios greatly benefit from this move.  Imagine, for a second, the future. You'll plug into the computer network by Ethernet and you'll be able to harness all the audio resources on your computer.  In the end, if there ever can be an end, the keyboard will be a local node on a vast network, extending beyond the studio to other studios. Instead of buying expansion cards the keyboard will connect to the manufacturer to install new sound blocks.  And then the real kicker comes...

"Tweak? Wake up, your in a trance".  Oh uh sorry man, I like to dream.

Which is "Best"?  Which synth is the current "King of Synths"

Of course most of you know I loathe that "best" question.  But if you have me at knifepoint in an alley and force me to answer today March 15, 2008 would I still say "Dudely, get a Fantom X!"  like I did through all of 2006?  Nope. In March 2007 I wrote:  "Wait for the Motif XS.  Yamaha is in the lead for today. And they still are.  But the Korg M3 has turned my head and suddenly the XS doesn't gleam as brightly. Is the Karma II on the M3 more musically interesting than 6,000 arpeggios on the Motif?  It appears that the ability to lead you by the hand into new sound vistas is the current requirement for the King of Synths.    Watch out!  Roland is sitting by idly watching their sales dry up.  Now the Fantom G is almost reality.  They have made it very appealing with the super sized display, a larger sound set and new expansion boards.  Those MPC like pads and the sequencer will keep the "G" near the top.  But they wimped out on the Rom, a mere 256 megs (same as the M3, less than the XS, wimped out on the arpeggiator (compared to the Karma and the thousands of Motif Arps).  But if audio recording--without a computer--is your thing the G is it!

The Near Future

You should, by now, be able to get a rarefied glimmer of where things are going in the future.  Will keyboards get so powerful that we'll no longer need an audio interface? We are almost there!  Or will computer's get so powerful we no longer need a keyboard to do anything except send note messages?  We are almost there too!  So what?  So this!  Redundancy (look it up) is everywhere in today's gear.  How many samplers do you need?  One.  How many analog sounding synths do you need? One good one.  How many audio recorders do you need?  One.  Sequencers? One.  (Ok 2 if you gig) What's your computer doing that the keyboard does not need to do?  

So!  I have taken you through keyboard land from the grimy little pawn shops of battered old hulks of the '90s to the posh showrooms of the latest shiny cpu-charged workstations.  The question is now back to you and what you want to make your music.

This article is constantly being revised

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 Keyboards and Modules Index
Keyboards: What you need to know
Multi-Timbral Synths Compared
Choosing a Controller
MIDI CCs Explained
MIDI Modules
The Triton Family
The Motif Family
The Fantom Family
Keyboard Price List
Triton Rack and EXB Expansion Boards
Novation ReMore 37 SL
On Programming Synths
Emu Xtreme Lead -1
Proteus 2000
Korg Electribe EA1
Roland JV1010
Emu Planet Earth
Roland SRX boards
About MIDI Interfaces
Poll:  Best Synth Under $600
Poll: Triton vs. Motif vs. Fantom
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