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Nope, not " Open the Eyes". That would be extremely dated. Look for songs by Elevation Worship, Hillsong, Jesus Culture. These comprise a large percentage of what's happening in CCM in most churches.

My cousin had one, in the late 70's. He showed it to me and as teenager's we were both wowed. Not sure if he kept it very long or how he managed to afford it.

Since many here use Apple products for music production, I'm offering a tip on saving a bit on their rarely-discounted products. If you have an Amazon Prime account and an Amazon credit card you earn 5% back in rewards points on Prime purchases. I purchased several Ipads and a Macbook Air this way. The Prime prices are normally good, occasionally have a small discount already, and getting an extra 5% makes for a a nice savings.

I've been using an On Stage Stands KT7800+ folding seat for many years in my home studio. It sees my backside nearly every day and I teach piano lessons one night a week, five students. I've had this thing for many years and it's just now starting to show some wear, specifically with the vinyl failing a bit on the corners on the underside of the seat and also a slight seam failure on the top, about 2" long. I looked online last night, planning ahead for a replacement. This same seat is now available at several online retailers for $38, down from $62. Includes free shipping too. Just ordered and will be here Thursday. It's adjustable, rated for 340 pounds, is soft/comfortable and folds flat. I love deals and thought I'd pass this on to the group.

I own a MOXF6. The Motif XS or XF has a bigger screen but it's not any friendlier to navigate. I think this is the case in most churches, very few regular players and almost no visitors sitting in. I can't tell you the last time anybody 'visited' and sat in with the band. (FWIW, our church seats a around 2100, running around 1500 on a typical Sunday pre-covid, and still a limited pool of competent players to fill the band.) I've found that many of our players have never played in ANY band except in the church setting. I'm sure there's a lot you can teach her.

Ah, my favorite feature of the MOXF. The way to get around that is to change the master program that is in slot 1. My Motif XF is very similar, and I end up doing all of my final set lists in Master Mode (referencing various voices, performances, and mixing setups) so I haven't had to deal with that for years, but every time I would go into a store and touch a MOXF...yep. "Everlasting Glory" I believe was the name of the electronic trance music arp that comes on by default. You can always set up your favorite few sounds as the first 16 slots in Master Mode too. I'd probably use the S6 Grand in most live cases in a band context, and have the regular Full Concert Grand available as well. Have a few piano/pad layers, some strings, etc ready to go and one would never need to fish around for sounds in the situation you describe. I'm using the Motif XS as my top board at church. I power up, then hit the 'Voice' button, then hit 'Category' button, then 'Favorites'. I've got about 30 sounds there that I can get to quickly, a tad cumbersome but it works. There are two other players that are competent using that setup and know to push the same buttons to get there.

I dealt with this when buying our boards. Our (younger) worship leader (who is a killer singer and musician) kept bringing our 'keyboard rig' conversations to Nord (because all the cool churches had them) and to using Mainstage. He struggled to understand that having Mainstage was not a magic bullet to getting the top 40 worship sound used by all the big churches, or that Mainstage and Nord keyboards were just a tools to create music. I've played with a few Nords at GC (years back) and wasn't stunned by them at all. Nice for sure, but not magical. None of this tech plays itself. Its only as good as the person using it. I couldn't get a single good tone out of a Stradivarius because I don't know how to use it. The same idea applies to putting a lot if keyboard technology in front of the typical church pianist. You'll be lucky to get them to layer piano and strings and have them not muck it up.

If she's going to play piano, she won't be programming anything. I've played keys and piano at my church for over 30 years. I'm the only player there that ever progammed anything. Much can be done without programming and very, very, very few players in the typical church setting won't even know where to start OR EVEN HAVE THE DESIRE to program. The OP's knowledge of his church, players and needs will allow him to answer these questions better than anyone on this forum. Regarding your comment to avoid the Kurz, I respectfully disagree, IF we're talking about the Forte. A split or layer is super simple to set up. Any dumb dumb could do it.. Press the 'Layer' or 'Split' button and pick your sounds. Up to four of them can be easily split/layered across the board. As I already said, the 'Favorite's buttons make easy access to 10 sounds, probably more than enough for most keyboard players at the typical church. (Now, if you were talking about the Kurz PC3, yeah, forget about setting up splits and layers. Not hard but certainly not what I'd call easy.)

The Nord Stage 3 88 seems like foolish overkill for that setting, needs and the person playing it. I picked the boards for our church and would have a hard time justifying that expense. (We did get a Forte. Agree with others that have suggested more of a stage piano choice, many to choose from under $3K that will do all and probably more than what you need. Frankly, for nearly $5K, I'd pick two boards (but I know that's not what you asked or need). I treat the church's money more conservatively than my own, and I'm pretty tight with a buck. Another option is to find a nice gently used board. I just did a quick search and found 2 Forte's for mid $2K. You can put 10 great sounds under the 'Favorites' keys. Super easy for anyone to get to those sounds. I'd actually recommend this direction.

I've played Hammond/Leslie samples.......it's horrible. Since every sampled note is mapped over several notes the Leslie speeds are different for every note. It's horrible. And yes, you lose ramp up and down. That, IMO is one of the most important parts of the Leslie, when it's ramping. No, samples don't work. Yes, get a Vent. The Vent also gives you something important besides the right speeds of fast/slow, no warble, realistic ramp times, it also has the tone of a Leslie.

Funny you wrote that. I was thinking the same thing. I load my Receptor with Alchemy, Massive, Reaktor and Absynth and get crazy deep textures and other-worldly sounds. Any single one of those soft synths can generate awesome sounds and textures on their own, but start layering them....watch out!

Watched the video, one of the 'features' listed said "A statement in your living space." LOL.

Even if restored to perfection, it's still a DX7. Leave it as is. Enjoy it for what it was to Col, not something it hasn't been for a long time.

Boy oh boy, Franz, you and I are living on the edge, not showing the 2600 any love.

I took a music lab class my first year of college. We had a four track reel-to-reel, an ARP 2600, a Paia Strings and Thingz (that I helped build) and a Hammond/Leslie. I knew nothing about nothing then and relied on patch sheets to set up all the knobs on the 2600. I didn't enjoy all the work to create a sound that didn't sound very real (I later learned that wasn't what the 2600 was supposed to be about). I've watched all the hubbub about Behringer's 2600 as well as Korg's. While I'm sure I could have some fun with one of those, I have zero real interest in it. All that aside, I learned a little bit about multi-track recording in that class.

This topic explains why I enjoy using synths in my Ipad much less than my enjoyment of the sound they produce. I'm amazed at the sound but just don't get along with the touch-screen interface.

Interesting reading everyone's responses. Explains why there's so many brands/models/features as it seems no one technology is the clear favorite. Workstations, analog, digital, mono-synths, software, etc. It's all mentioned here and all the brands, too. I hope the thread brought back pleasant memories of those 'WOW' moments with your favorite board. It did for me.

Transpose everything one octave. Problem solved.

I had a VFX-SD, and yes, great horns. I especially loved the sax. Very expressive.

(Yes, I'm specifically focused on synths, not piano or organ, as I'm interested in what synth technology changed you as a musician.) What single synth made you stop and say "Wow", or gave you new musical expression because of its capabilities, or was the gateway into the synth abyss? I had early sampler's, an Ensoniq VFX workstation/sequencer, a DX7, Moog Rogue, etc., but the keyboard that stopped me in my tracks was the Yamaha Motif ES. Heard it in a GC, dude was playing a bunch of sounds on it, but when he played the acoustic guitar with Mega-Arps, I was awestruck. Convincing guitars from a synth!!! Wow. I had to have it and bought it without any of the typical research of online reviews. Nothing else mattered after I heard that acoustic guitar. I was already doing one man band sequencing with the Ensoniq, I felt like I found the holy grail. I knew that Motif would take me to an entirely different creative space. Still own it today and still sequence on it often. Do newer boards have more tech, better sounds, etc.? Absolutely, but the Motif, for me was a game-changer. All the newer workstations are just better iterations, but that initial Motif reaction for me was mind blowing.

The thread title conveys a different sentiment than what David wrote in his first sentence. (Not a criticism, just an observation.) Some of the responses are directed more at the title than this part of the content of the thread. This comment focuses on the "handful of people" that post here, not the majority. Some people love to bitch and it doesn't have anything to do with keyboards. They don't make enough money, don't have enough money, have a crappy car, house, spouse, etc., etc., etc. None of that was Covid related but Covid adds difficulty to most people's lives. (And I do know that some people really don't have enough money, etc.,) Happiness is often a choice in the midst of unhappy life occurrences. Some people tend to be happy/positive/glass half full. Other people always look for the cloud that goes with the silver lining. But some people love to bitch and ANYWHERE online is a great place to do that because they have a bigger audience. Regarding gear, look at my signature line. The Motif an Receptor are quite dated. Just bought the Forte and it's over 5 year old tech. I have a Tascam Neo 2488 (old). I've figured out that the best way for me to improve my music is to sit down and write, play, record. I LOVE new tech and new boards but I don't really need them. I've learned to not only be happy with what I have but also realize that I'm EXTREMELY blessed to have the gear I have and am thankful for it. (That's my choice.) Now, if we start talking about mini-keys, then yes, I'll jump on the complain train.

Galaxy S9 here, same problem as OP. It worked correctly after initial upgrades to the forum then started doing as you describe many months ago. It is frustrating. It's not the device.

I played the PC3 with the same action at church for many years until an upgrade in the past year or so. It's a weird action, okay for for non-piano stuff but not fun for pianos. As other said, it's springy and pushes back. I'd try before buying as you may love it or hate it. Actually, I can't imagine many that love it as I'd take a regular synth action over that. I guess it was intended as a compromise action, something between weighted and unweighted. It's just weird to play. Otherwise you'll love the sounds. Nice board and if you're getting a deal, that's even better.

As others have pointed out, that isn't 'dumb' at all... it's just different. . I get that, and I get that a lot has changed since then. No disrespect is intended to the original designers or to the legions of folks that still love that board, but in the Kitaro video, when he BENDS OVER to change a setting, it illustrates the reasoning behind my comment.

I have a hard time seeing this as a generational step up from the PC4. It's more a question of repackaging the PC4 feature set in a higher-end physical build with less of an obsessive focus on weight and cost reduction............The biggest question for me is ........... if they're going to try to keep it wedged between the PC4 and Forte. I really appreciate Kurzweil as a smaller company trying to compete with much larger companies with way more resources. (In fairness, much of my Kurz love is because of Dave Weiser, a fine human being, but also because I love their product, love playing the Forte, and my previous Kurzweil board, the PC3.) I don't want my comments to come off as dismissive to a product that these guys have invested a lot of time into. That would be unfair. When I compare the PC3 to the Forte, I certainly prefer the Forte in many, many ways, but I'd summarize by saying that there's not $4000 difference between the two. (I sold my PC3 for $900.) I was fortunate that I didn't pay that difference, thereby making my decision to upgrade an easy one. A significant percentage of the PC3 resides in the Forte and a lot of the similarities are wonderful. As I look at the feature set of the K2700, a significant percentage of the PC3/Forte/PC4 resides in it. Yes, a few features have been removed, some GB of samples too. I'm sure the K2700 'package' (price and feature set) was done with much intention to be successful in the market. Simply comparing sample memory and saying "more is better" won't tell the story. As someone mentioned regarding the Hammond Pro, when something does everything, it doesn't do everything well. To win in the market, it must do enough things "well enough" that buyers want it. Regarding where the Forte fits in the product line, try to find one online right now. They don't exist. IMO, that tells the story.