So, having gone from being a lurker to a member I thought I should introduced myself.
After a lifetime of wanting to be able to play the piano I decided 8 years ago that I should take the plunge get a piano and have lessons. As a child I wanted to but never got the opportunity; I had a brief dabble in my early 20's but it took 2nd fiddle to other things in my life and fell away. So having passed the milestone of 50, and no longer burdened with the upbringing of my children, I found an excellent teacher and I have weekly lessons. I'm currently around ABRSM grade 6. I'm not taking any exams but I do pieces from the curriculum as well as other stuff that I fancy or my teacher suggests. I'm currently doing a couple of Bach Inventions (4, just starting & 13, just finishing) and also Joplin's Solace.
I don't have room in my house for an acoustic, so its always been a digital. My first piano was a Yamaha P140 which was perfectly adequate for a beginner. I've since upgraded to a Kawai MP11 and I have too say that I love playing it.
At the same time as starting the piano I also picked up the bass and started playing in a band, mostly classic rock covers, which over the last few years has spluttered between being quite active to completely comatose. Now having an absolute beginner on any instrument might seem like a bit of a handicap but as none of us was much beyond the rudimentary and being as the bass can be as simple as you want to make it, and yes I do keep it simple, I've scraped by. We have improved, a little bit, over the years.
The band members have never pestered me too much about bringing keys into the band but when it came up I always said yes when I'm ready. So a year or so ago I decided that I ought to start getting ready by researching gear and set up, which among other things brought me to this forum. One of the things I was unsure about regarding gear was should I go down the laptop/vst route or hardware. I'm a software engineer by profession so playing around with computers and software isn't exactly alien to me. What I did know was that I don't want to be breaking my weak and feeble body lugging around keyboards that need a fork lift truck to move; the MP11 being a prime example. I also knew that to start with an non-weight action would probably be too much to adjust to. I decided that the hardware route would be the safest just on a 'keep it simple' basis. So my initial line of thought was that a Casio PX-5S would be the way to go: cheap, light, good action, decent sounds, good controller capability. Then Yamaha announced the MX88 and that piqued my interest for a while but then Kurzweil announced the SP6 and that seemed to fit the bill perfectly. I got myself the SP6 just before Xmas and having decided that I'm happy with the action and the sounds/functionality I'm keeping it. The potential of the board is huge so I can see its going to take a while to get to grips with it. I've also bought a used Arturia Keylab 49 with the intention of looking at a laptop/vst configuration with the SP6.
I've have just started taking it to band practise so we can start working out how to fit it in to the current set and and decide what new stuff we'd like to cover. So far they're loving the Kurzweil sounds. I'm sure they'd be even more impressed if it was being played by someone with ability and knowledge but hey I'm having fun.
So hello all. I've learnt many things from the forum already and hope to continue to do so.