Electronic keyboards

[Richard Barrett]

touch sensitive keys

For an electronic keyboard to feel like a piano it has to have weighted keys, which massively decrease the portability of the instrument for obvious reasons. Not being a trained keyboard player myself, I prefer non-weighted keys, which is highly convenient given that I have to travel with the instrument so often. (Plus various other bits and pieces as seen here.)

[MrGongGong]

You can get a very nice virtual ARP2600 from Arturia for the fraction of the cost of a real one. I made this entirely with it, although actually the keyboard wasn't employed at all:

https://soundcloud.com/r-barrett/disquiet-2018-electronic-music-originally-in-8-channels

Never having had my hands on the actual product I'm not sure how accurate the emulation is, although I rapidly homed in on setting up sounds and textures based on instabilities that cause them to change in a slow and irregular sort of way which I would associate with analogue circuitry.

Their virtual Buchla Easel is even better - you don't need that System 101 after all.

I've owned, among others, a Roland Jupiter-4, an Ensoniq EPS-16 and a Kurzweil K2500 over the years (although for the past 20 years or so my keyboards as such have just been controllers for computer software). All of these were, for their time, highly sophisticated instruments with possibilities far beyond the commercial priorities of their design.

As for educational purposes, well yes, as Joseph says, they're extremely useful in such situations, you can for example have a whole classroom full of them with one for every student, using headphones so that nobody disturbs anyone else, which is a much more hands-on way to learn about harmony etc. than the traditional more theoretical approach.

I used to use the 2600 at art college and a 2500 & Moog modular when I was doing my music degree.
I'm less interested in "virtual" ones these days and about to get an old sequential circuits Pro-One refurbished to use live.

For educational uses I find unplugging the headphones and having a large ensemble of "nasty" keyboards can work quite well.
I'm not convinced that in schools anyone really learns much about harmony by being in the equivalent of a battery chicken farm any more than people learn to speak another languge in a "language laboratory" ? The model of "music as a solitary activity" that rooms full of keyboards with headphones encourage is a bit limited IMV

[Richard Barrett]

For exucational uses I fine unplugging the headphones and having a large ensemble of "nasty" keyboards can work quite well.

I bow to your superior knowledge on that particular issue.

As for vintage synthesizers, there's a lot of fetishism around that whole business these days. It's the sound that interests me most, and if that can be achieved digitally that's fine with me. Mind you, round the corner from where I live is an EMS Synthi 100 which I'll be spending a week with in the new year, so perhaps I'll change my mind.

[MrGongGong]

I bow to your superior knowledge on that particular issue.

As for vintage synthesizers, there's a lot of fetishism around that whole business these days. It's the sound that interests me most, and if that can be achieved digitally that's fine with me. Mind you, round the corner from where I live is an EMS Synthi 100 which I'll be spending a week with in the new year, so perhaps I'll change my mind.

Interesting and hope you have fun with it

Patrick Gowers used to teach us things on the VCS3 when I was a student inclduing a test where there would be two machines on a table with a tea towel over one of them and you had to create the same sound with the other one without looking at the patch pins etc


Some folks in Leicester have been restoring a Synthi 100

https://ask.audio/articles/very-rare-ems-synthi-100-analog-synth-being-fully-restored-for-public-use

Though I don't think the original question was about this

[Bryn]

Skirting the edge of this thread, I'm off to a launch event for a Live Batts! release tomorrow:



I'm not quite sure why they have lost the second exclamation mark for their name.

[Pulcinella]

Does my Casio GP-500 count?

https://www.casio-europe.com/euro/products/musical-instruments/celviano-grand-hybrid/gp-500/

I'm rather pleased with it.

[Bryn]

Does my Casio GP-500 count?

https://www.casio-europe.com/euro/products/musical-instruments/celviano-grand-hybrid/gp-500/

I'm rather pleased with it.

There's posh. How about my Yamaha SHS-10S?

[Dave2002]

For an electronic keyboard to feel like a piano it has to have weighted keys, which massively decrease the portability of the instrument for obvious reasons. Not being a trained keyboard player myself, I prefer non-weighted keys, which is highly convenient given that I have to travel with the instrument so often. (Plus various other bits and pieces as seen here.)

The Roland model I saw and heard recently belongs to a classical pianist who wanted something portable with a touch and sound similar to a real piano. It was portable - and could be lifted by one person - just. It was easier with two or more people (going up stairs and navigating round furniture etc.). I checked out the model (which I can't remember right now) and it seemed to be available (still, currently) for around £1400. I think it did have weighted keys as well as touch sensitive response.

One other reature which should be possible on an electronic instrument is the abilty to use different tunings, though I suspect that's a degree of sophistication too far for most of the cheaper models. It should be possible to switch between equal temperament and other tunings which might be useful for performing different types of music. I don't know if any instruments provide this feature.

[Richard Barrett]

I don't know if any instruments provide this feature.

Not domestic digital pianos and keyboards, for sure. The Yamaha DX7 synthesizer (the first commercially successful instrument to use digital sound synthesis, for those who don't know) had such a feature, but I don't imagine more than a tiny percentage of owners actually used it.

[Dave2002]

Not domestic digital pianos and keyboards, for sure. The Yamaha DX7 synthesizer (the first commercially successful instrument to use digital sound synthesis, for those who don't know) had such a feature, but I don't imagine more than a tiny percentage of owners actually used it.

Could one even emulate the sound of a tuner adjusting the pitch of each individual note on a piano - or harpsichord? That's probably taking things too far - but .... Why not?

[Bryn]

Could one even emulate the sound of a tuner adjusting the pitch of each individual note on a piano - or harpsichord? That's probably taking things too far - but .... Why not?

See the tuning section here.

[Serial_Apologist]

Not domestic digital pianos and keyboards, for sure. The Yamaha DX7 synthesizer (the first commercially successful instrument to use digital sound synthesis, for those who don't know) had such a feature, but I don't imagine more than a tiny percentage of owners actually used it.

I'm pretty sure Django Bates did, or does - I think he probably still has his DX7. I remember carrying it down some stairs to a basement gig in the mid-1980s, and him asking me to be careful with it. The first thing I noticed was how lightweight it was, and was astonished when he set it up and produced the sound of a cathedral organ. I would imagine the DX7 was not touch-sensitive for the "real piano" app. For my own amateur hobbyish purposes I have a Farfisa TK77, which I bought for around £100 at the same time as I did a Yamaha electric, and it (the Farfisa) is both lightweight, playable with batteries or mains, and has some touch sensitivity, though it comes with an annoying leap in volume levels when the piano app is played above a certain level of digital forcefulness, though for some reason is perfect for the "jazz guitar" which is my favourite stop, even though the glissando facility is limited. The Yamaha is just great for my sub-Bill Evans-styled piano playing - naturally one cannot do things one can on an acoustic such as playing on the insides, which would be far too dangerous!

[Richard Barrett]

I'm pretty sure Django Bates did, or does

Really? I've never heard anything of his that uses alternative tunings. Do you know where I'd find recordings where he does?

[Serial_Apologist]

Really? I've never heard anything of his that uses alternative tunings. Do you know where I'd find recordings where he does?

Possibly I should have said "bent" tunings, having got the impression of a swivel bar type application being used to de-tune when he likes to.

[Richard Barrett]

Possibly I should have said "bent" tunings, having got the impression of a swivel bar type application being used to de-tune when he likes to.

Most electronic keyboards do have a sprung pitch-bend wheel, heavily used by synthesizer soloists of the fusion persuasion. What Dave and I were referring to is the possibility of retuning the entire keyboard in different intonations. The DX7 had presets for meantone, Pythagorea, Kirnberger, Werckmeister, Vallotti, quartertone and 8th tone, apart of course from equal temperament, but it could also be set to user-defined tunings of any kind.