Piano Patches with Synth Action Keys

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Following on from my other thread about weighted keyboards, does anyone here happily and successfully play piano and electric piano patches with non-weighted keys?

It's all I've ever used for actual recordings, only played weighted ones and real pianos for short "shots" in shops etc.

So I'm purely making an assumption that I'll be able to control the dynamics more easily and consistently with weighted keys.

Are weighted keys only objectively better for those used to a real piano or is it the way to go?
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Comments

  • horsehorse Frets: 1562
    It depends how much control and nuance you need.

    I can get by ok for a fair amount of piano on a semi weighted waterfall keybed like a Nord electro. Or just about get through typical rock piano ballads on a pure synth action if I concentrate on my playing - although in those cases I do adjust the patches a fair amount to reduce the velocity sensitivity so that the lack of control doesn't show up.

    Much easier, more natural and more enjoyable on a proper weighted keyboard though.
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  • FunkfingersFunkfingers Frets: 14321
    Both my keyboard instruments have plastic keys with metal weights attached. These lack the articulacy of a full mechanical hammer action. (Probably unimportant in a twenty five years old ROMpler sound library, using three or four velocity cross-faded samples.)

    Using the same keys to trigger a present day software instrument offers greater expression, mainly thanks to the vastly more detailed samples and layering.

    In my case, “successfully play piano“ is an oxymoron. With my limited ability, piano and Clav are little more than a spot effect.


    Be seeing you.
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  • octatonicoctatonic Frets: 33725
    edited August 2020
    Synth weighting sucks for acoustic piano.
    It is ok for electric piano sounds.
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  • goldtopgoldtop Frets: 6101
    I've got the Nord Stage 3 Compact with the waterfall keyboard and an old Oberheim/Viscount MC2000 weighted controller driving it by MIDI. It's a different animal with that - much more rewarding to play piano. There's a feeling that - like when playing a guitar's strings - you've got to physically work to express yourself. And that effort makes you play and write differently.

    (Although as FF says above, my lack of proper technique means that I often miss-play the weighted keys.)
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  • thegummythegummy Frets: 4389
    horse said:
    It depends how much control and nuance you need.

    I can get by ok for a fair amount of piano on a semi weighted waterfall keybed like a Nord electro. Or just about get through typical rock piano ballads on a pure synth action if I concentrate on my playing - although in those cases I do adjust the patches a fair amount to reduce the velocity sensitivity so that the lack of control doesn't show up.

    Much easier, more natural and more enjoyable on a proper weighted keyboard though.
    goldtop said:
    I've got the Nord Stage 3 Compact with the waterfall keyboard and an old Oberheim/Viscount MC2000 weighted controller driving it by MIDI. It's a different animal with that - much more rewarding to play piano. There's a feeling that - like when playing a guitar's strings - you've got to physically work to express yourself. And that effort makes you play and write differently.

    (Although as FF says above, my lack of proper technique means that I often miss-play the weighted keys.)
    Cheers guys.

    I think when I was scared off the couple of keyboards I was looking at I was trying to focus on what I "needed" to get by but forgot about the most important thing of enjoying it. Just like with guitar, 99% of the playing is just for enjoying it and not recording anything so that should be what I take in to consideration for this.

    Not that I don't enjoy playing piano patches on synth keys, I just think I'll enjoy them much more with a weighted keyboard.

    The model I'm looking at now is the Korg D1. Uses the same keys as they use on some of their high end keyboards that are used by some top guys (including Jordan Rudess) and, unlike the others I was looking at, googling for complaints about the quality doesn't bring back tons of posts. Doesn't necessarily mean much but it could.
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  • EPs - yes can do that fine.  Acoustic Piano... Ill never ever play those sounds on a synth/semi weighted action board again.  I couldn't go back after the hammer action bed I have now.
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  • I'm a pianist first and foremost (guitar is just an expensive hobby), I have a real piano downstairs and I have a basic Yamaha MX49 keyboard upstairs, which I use for recording direct (stereo USB sounds lush) or recording to midi to play about with different sounds, and get a bit of better expression than typing the midi piano roll dots in. Its keys are not weighted.

    It's perfectly fine as it is. I was always taught to play "with your ears and not your hands", ie listen to what sounds are coming out and adjust your hands accordingly. Some actual pianos are dreadful instruments to play, much worse than non-weighted keyboards, but with this approach you can adapt pretty quickly to whatever instrument you find yourself sat at. I once had to play at a Christmas concert at a special school for a fund raiser, they'd told me they had a full digital piano for me...got there and it was a 3 octave keyboard with no sustain pedal! But got away with it by using this approach, I think I did a bit of an improvised "mood setting" introduction to get the feel for the keys,

    I suppose it's like buying a Custom Shop tele instead of a Squier - yes the custom shop one is probably objectively better, but actually if you play the Squier well, it can be just as effective a tool.
    Please note my communication is not very good, so please be patient with me
    soundcloud.com/thecolourbox-1
    youtube.com/@TheColourboxMusic
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  • thegummythegummy Frets: 4389
    I'm a pianist first and foremost (guitar is just an expensive hobby), I have a real piano downstairs and I have a basic Yamaha MX49 keyboard upstairs, which I use for recording direct (stereo USB sounds lush) or recording to midi to play about with different sounds, and get a bit of better expression than typing the midi piano roll dots in. Its keys are not weighted.

    It's perfectly fine as it is. I was always taught to play "with your ears and not your hands", ie listen to what sounds are coming out and adjust your hands accordingly. Some actual pianos are dreadful instruments to play, much worse than non-weighted keyboards, but with this approach you can adapt pretty quickly to whatever instrument you find yourself sat at. I once had to play at a Christmas concert at a special school for a fund raiser, they'd told me they had a full digital piano for me...got there and it was a 3 octave keyboard with no sustain pedal! But got away with it by using this approach, I think I did a bit of an improvised "mood setting" introduction to get the feel for the keys,

    I suppose it's like buying a Custom Shop tele instead of a Squier - yes the custom shop one is probably objectively better, but actually if you play the Squier well, it can be just as effective a tool.
    Must admit I'm surprised to see this.

    You clearly have a lot of experience with both so your opinion is completely qualified, just surprising to me.

    The whole "adjusting your hands according to the sound" is the reason I want weighted keys - it's easier to deliberately play softly on weighted keys because there's a bigger difference between how hard you need to hit the keys whereas with synth action you still only have to touch the keys to play at full velocity so I find it can be hard to not play some notes too hard when playing soft chords.

    It might turn out that I have the same problem on weighted keys (I have played them plenty but never recorded with them to check), it just seems logical that weighted keys would help this issue.

    The Custom Shop to Squier comparison doesn't seem apt for me; that would be more like a top of the line Nord vs. a Casio digital piano. Because the Squier can still be played in the same way and have the same feel as the CS.

    I've seen a MIDI controller kind of shaped like a guitar where each note on each fret has a button you can press to play that note - that would be more like a comparison for a synth piano; i.e. you can play the same notes but don't have the same control over the dynamics.
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  • horsehorse Frets: 1562
    edited September 2020
    I think you're correct in your thinking thegummy.

    I grew up learning on a real upright piano. It's possible to play acoustic piano tones from synth keys, but takes greater control and care in comparison (and in my experience adjusting the patches to compensate a bit too). No doubt thecolourbox can do this because he has very good control / technique.

    I've got 2 fully weighted / hammer action keyboards available but for rehearsals and some gigs I will play piano parts on non-weighted such as my Nord electro or Yamaha modx7 in order to take out less gear and carry less weight etc.

    Edit: as an aside, one of my hammer action boards is a Casio PX5S, which has an action many prefer over the hammer action fatars in many Nords. The other is a kurzweil forte 7, which is different class in quality, weight and price.
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  • thegummy said:
    I'm a pianist first and foremost (guitar is just an expensive hobby), I have a real piano downstairs and I have a basic Yamaha MX49 keyboard upstairs, which I use for recording direct (stereo USB sounds lush) or recording to midi to play about with different sounds, and get a bit of better expression than typing the midi piano roll dots in. Its keys are not weighted.

    It's perfectly fine as it is. I was always taught to play "with your ears and not your hands", ie listen to what sounds are coming out and adjust your hands accordingly. Some actual pianos are dreadful instruments to play, much worse than non-weighted keyboards, but with this approach you can adapt pretty quickly to whatever instrument you find yourself sat at. I once had to play at a Christmas concert at a special school for a fund raiser, they'd told me they had a full digital piano for me...got there and it was a 3 octave keyboard with no sustain pedal! But got away with it by using this approach, I think I did a bit of an improvised "mood setting" introduction to get the feel for the keys,

    I suppose it's like buying a Custom Shop tele instead of a Squier - yes the custom shop one is probably objectively better, but actually if you play the Squier well, it can be just as effective a tool.
    Must admit I'm surprised to see this.

    You clearly have a lot of experience with both so your opinion is completely qualified, just surprising to me.

    The whole "adjusting your hands according to the sound" is the reason I want weighted keys - it's easier to deliberately play softly on weighted keys because there's a bigger difference between how hard you need to hit the keys whereas with synth action you still only have to touch the keys to play at full velocity so I find it can be hard to not play some notes too hard when playing soft chords.

    It might turn out that I have the same problem on weighted keys (I have played them plenty but never recorded with them to check), it just seems logical that weighted keys would help this issue.

    The Custom Shop to Squier comparison doesn't seem apt for me; that would be more like a top of the line Nord vs. a Casio digital piano. Because the Squier can still be played in the same way and have the same feel as the CS.

    I've seen a MIDI controller kind of shaped like a guitar where each note on each fret has a button you can press to play that note - that would be more like a comparison for a synth piano; i.e. you can play the same notes but don't have the same control over the dynamics.
    Are we talking about different things? Maybe I've misunderstood what you mean. Are you talking about keys with no touch sensitivity when you say "synth action" or "non weighted"? If so then yeah it's impossible, I had a Microkorg once and it was impossible to even get a passable electric piano sound out of it with the mini keys and no touch sensitivity.

    I thought weighted meant they were heavier and felt like piano keys, whereas non-weighted just meant like my Yamaha MX49 I have, where the keys are just lighter but still fully touch sensitive

    https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/yamaha-mx49

    I mean, yeah it's not as easy on the keyboard than my proper piano but it's enough for recording - I'm not going to be doing any piano recitals on it! 

    I used it for an online festival thing I played for earlier this summer, and I think it sounded decent (more than can be said for my singing!!!) but I'm likely biased so please feel free to tell me if it does sound awful.

    The first song is piano, but the last song at 11:20 has a bit more expressive piano playing so is possibly a better example. Please also note I'm sat on a child size stool on a keyboard stand that doesn't fit it, hence my awful wrist angles whilst playing!


    Also this song was recorded using the same instrument:


    I'd say this kind of keyboard is very much the Squier to the Nord's Custom Shop, but happy again to be told differently

    Please note my communication is not very good, so please be patient with me
    soundcloud.com/thecolourbox-1
    youtube.com/@TheColourboxMusic
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  • Imo, its almost impossible to get any nuance from not weighted keys.  Some beds allow you to change its response curve and that can help a lot, but some don't.   

    Its just the dynamics that are different.  You'll get away with things on that sunth action but you will never play as well.
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  • thegummythegummy Frets: 4389
    horse said:

    Edit: as an aside, one of my hammer action boards is a Casio PX5S, which has an action many prefer over the hammer action fatars in many Nords. The other is a kurzweil forte 7, which is different class in quality, weight and price.
    I've heard so many great things about that over the years, the action and the sounds itself. It's discontinued though, as is its whole range. It would be one I'd heavily consider if it was still on the go.

    Are we talking about different things? Maybe I've misunderstood what you mean. Are you talking about keys with no touch sensitivity when you say "synth action" or "non weighted"? If so then yeah it's impossible, I had a Microkorg once and it was impossible to even get a passable electric piano sound out of it with the mini keys and no touch sensitivity.

    I thought weighted meant they were heavier and felt like piano keys, whereas non-weighted just meant like my Yamaha MX49 I have, where the keys are just lighter but still fully touch sensitive

    I mean, yeah it's not as easy on the keyboard than my proper piano but it's enough for recording - I'm not going to be doing any piano recitals on it! 

    I used it for an online festival thing I played for earlier this summer, and I think it sounded decent (more than can be said for my singing!!!) but I'm likely biased so please feel free to tell me if it does sound awful.

    The first song is piano, but the last song has a bit more expressive piano playing so is possibly a better example.
    That is what I'm meaning with synth action so my own comparison wasn't very apt either. If you play the keys softly it plays soft notes and vice versa, I just think it's harder to consistently play the keys softly because the key is so easy to press.

    But you show in your video it's quite possible to play with dynamic expression on a synth keybed. It's a very inspiring video for me to stick with the keyboard I've always played.

    The only thing though, is it just because you're so good at the piano after years of playing a real one that you have that level of control? I wonder if someone who's just a basic pianist would be able to play like that on a synth.
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  • Practise practise practise is all I can say. Yes it's easier for me to do than somebody just picking it up or who is considered a "basic" player but that's the only way anybody gets there. Practise each line by itself, and mess about with the dynamics even to the point of ridiculousness, really over do it, sort loud then next note really quiet, lean your hand into it a bit too get quieter ones.

    I'll have a go later on mine and see if I can come up with any better description than that to help you - it's hard to think exactly what I do without doing it as it's kind of second nature I guess, but I'll be able to do so if I pay a bit and notice what I'm doing

    Keep at it mate
    Please note my communication is not very good, so please be patient with me
    soundcloud.com/thecolourbox-1
    youtube.com/@TheColourboxMusic
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  • Surely it's all down to expert players being familiar with a real piano, hence the widespread preference for weighted keys

    If you never played a real piano, or weighted keys, it would probably influence your style slightly, the way that different guitar types do, but that might not always be a bad thing
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  • But similar to guitars, I like to think if you can do it on non-weighted keys then you'll sound even better on weighted as and when you play a real piano or a weighted digital one. Bit like learning to sound good on your Squier then upgrading afterwards
    Please note my communication is not very good, so please be patient with me
    soundcloud.com/thecolourbox-1
    youtube.com/@TheColourboxMusic
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