Keyboard/synth for a shoegazey family at distance project

ewal

Looks great. Yamaha always make such good gear. Totally with you on the immediacy factor. Just not inspired by midi/vst and screen based music these days. I'd like a drum machine I can take with me on a train instead of my Maschine Mikro. I'd like a keyboard my daughter can use with hooking it up to her laptop.

But I also know this is time honoured gear procrastination and deflection. I could be making the music without the gear I've got instead of looking at alternatives.

I'll check out the Yamaha options.

Funkfingers

What is your budget?

An all-in-one, polyphonic synthesizer with built-in sequencer and/or audio recording is the obvious solution. Old Roland products could do the job. The Juno-G and -Gi have these capabilities PLUS built-in real-time editing controls. The JX-305 amounts to their MC-505 Groovebox but with keys and an MC-50 mk2 MIDI sequencer. Again, this has real-time editing controls to introduce change to arpeggiated parts. An XP-60 might be within budget. ROM sound library expansion boards can wait.

JonnieMelancholy

I know they've both been mentioned already but the Roland VR-09 can be found for less than £400 used if you're lucky. Yamaha CK64 is more pricey but has all the internal sounds of the Reface series but in one normal size box. I've been investigating them myself and both are light and have the processing power/sounds of more expensive keyboards; they just have cheaper keybeds or not quite as much options for splitting and layering sounds.

thomasw88

Basher said:

I've just bought a Yamaha CK-88 "stage" keyboard and think it's fantastic.

Really well designed user interface with almost everything adjustable from the front panel, including some funky drawbars for use with the organ models. The sounds are great focussed on piano, electric piano and the organs from the Reface YC. Lots of other sounds too with plenty of synth pads.

There's a CK-61, identical engine but with a shorter, 61 key keyboard with a lighter action than the CK-88 weighted action that's quite a bit cheaper and very light, so quite portable.

I thought of you because of the excellent organs, including Vox and Farfisa transistor models which, along with the electric pianos will give plenty of Stereolab type tones. The effects section is great too with loads of options so you can drench those pads in reverbs, delay, phaser etc. for the ambient sounscape thing.

Obviously it can be used as a master keyboard for playing VSTs and suchlike and it has USB and midi connections and there's bluetooth so you can stream backing tracks, lessons etc. with it. 

The clincher for me is that they have built-in speakers!
Although these are traditionally the province of home "arranger" keyboards (no drums or cheesy rhumba backings here!) they are, for me, a game changer as I can just power the keyboard up and play (I bought it to learn keys) without having to arse about with booting up the PC and loading a VST. They're only loud enough for home practice or very quiet rehearsals but they're great to have, IMO.   

 

I have the CK61 which I use for gigs where I'm doing a bit of keys  as well as guitar.     I previously had the Roland VR09 (I think it was) and have also had the Roland DS61.

Much prefer the Yamaha as it sounds great, is very easy to setup use  and is super portable.  

ewal

I've been procrastinating over this the last few days. As it will primarily be my daughter who will be using this, the keyboard needs to be super-portable (can take on train up from London to Perth etc while also bring a trumpet and usual baggage), and not too big as space at her house is limited. I'm therefore back thinking a midi controller keyboard possibly makes more sense, even though initial thinking was going more of a hardware route. If we went for something like the Launchkey or Keylab coupled with Ableton, I could probably stretch to a couple of controllers to save her carrying it on the train etc.

The GAS appeal of hardware is strong, but I think in practice we'd make progress quicker going with software.

Lots of decent suggestions here - might keep an eye on the used market for bargains.

Basher

thomasw88 said:

I have the CK61 which I use for gigs where I'm doing a bit of keys  as well as guitar.     I previously had the Roland VR09 (I think it was) and have also had the Roland DS61.

Much prefer the Yamaha as it sounds great, is very easy to setup use  and is super portable.  

It's a great design and the CK-61 is super lightweight!

I got the 88 because I just fancied learning some piano-ish stuff and I'm way to rubbish a player to be in a band. If I was gigging, it'd be the 61 all day. 

I like the way that the basic piano, e-piano and organ voices are really good quality. You get more choice of voices with the fancier Nords and higher-spec Yamahas but the CKs are really well designed and sound amazing for the money. I even think that in only having a couple of Rhodes or Wurli voices, you just get on with it, rather than agonising over countless options.

maltingsaudio

Not yet mentioned but I’m a big fan of Korg wavestation stuff for soundscapes etc. I would suggest a Korg Prophecy if you can find one would fit the bill for soundscapes etc and portability. Midi it up to a Korg 05 module as well for extra textures. Nb the Prophecy is mono phonic but transmits midi polyphonically so great controller

ewal

Thread update. Actually got a few threads kicking around on the subject and it's maybe more of a making music topic but hey-ho...

I had my music making trip with my daughter and it was bloody brilliant. Four days of combining a walks in one of the quietest corners of Scotland with long sessions developing song ideas - we really think we're on to something.

We did everything in Reaper - mostly VST instruments, my Uno Synth Pro, my guitar, her trumpet, and our vocals.

Getting ahead of ourselves but we were already thinking about how we'd perform live. We need to combine live looping, trigger recorded loops, while playing both VST instruments, the synth and our live instruments. Surely Ableton will be the way to go at some point? But for now we just need to focus on finishing our demos and taking it from there.

Haven't felt this good about my music for such a long time - happy days.

Jetfire

I don't know much about *shels, but Im stoked to see that name on here. I was a fan of Mahumodo  and lots of other bands of that era.

Creed_Clicks

That Yamaha CF looks like it could be good. A Korg Minilogue, or Microkorg could be good too. Or a Minifreak / Microfreak.
If you get something really basic and hook up a multi effects pedal it can open up even more possibilities.

dindude

I recently bought a Reface CS - it’s fantastic, I’ve learnt more about Synth’s using this in the last two weeks than years of messing around with software Synths. No presets and WYSIWYG is a blessing or a curse depending on your use case.

Sporky

Jetfire said:

I don't know much about *shels, but Im stoked to see that name on here. I was a fan of Mahumodo  and lots of other bands of that era.

*shels were excellent - if you liked Mahumodo I can't see you not liking them. 

Also Rinoa and more recently *Ancients - particularly Cosmic Ark.