John H Carter

Obviously depends where you are in the world, but in the UK https://musiciansunion.org.uk/legal-money/finance-and-tax/tax-advice-and-guidance-for-musicians

I've got the GXP88, action is pretty poor. Nowher near as good as novation launchkey, for example.

NI Maschine can do this (I do it for a few songs), and I assume Ableton too.

I used Gradeur for a few years, but halfway through migrating sets to Pianoteq - some tweaking required for the right sound, but sits well in a mix once you get it right.

Casio PXS1100 is 11.4kg and usable as a controller (but no wheels or other controls).

Rhodes were there last year, I probably enjoyed playing that more than the CS80 Yamaha had 😀

I don't think this has been mentioned yet, but well worth having a"room" mic that you can mix in to get a sense of connection with audience and the band.

Cantabile user here. Not looked at this, but would assume that needs some time to be trusted as stable platform for gigs. I guess it being Steinberg, that they won't be interested in supporting CLAP as a new plug-in standard.

The 2x is potentially very sensitive to poor quality USB cables, and sometimes doesn't work well unless a powered hub is used.

I currently use a Numa Compact 2x, nice semi-weighted action with aftertouch. Not in same budget range though.

GXP88 is a very poor quality keybed, not much travel, and very tiring over extended playing time. I just keep as a spare now.

I'd avoid Roland cloud due to the activation requirements; you don't want to be at a gig to find its disabled without internet access. I personally use the korg Triton vst for this purpose.

If we're talking about live use I get a lot of mileage out of the brass sounds on the Korg Triton Extreme VST, also good for other bread-and-butter sounds.

Problem is quite a shallow and very synthy key action, lighter action than most of my synths. BTW the aftertouch works really well on the 2x.

I have both the GXP88 and Numa Compact 2x - the former is fine, but I find it tiring to play over a rehearsal or gig. The latter is good, but the mod and pitch "wheels" aren't so good for performance. John