Choice of keyboard for classical music

[NonTrendyGuy]

I am completely new to electronic keyboards, and I've been looking around the web and getting very confused. Perhaps you could help me to start going in the right direction.

I'm planning to buy a keyboard that will play orchestral sounds. I don't expect to find a keyboard with everything on my wish-list, but hopefully I'll find one with a fair amount that's right for me. This is my wish-list:

- A variety of orchestral sounds, accessible via a simple action (ie not by delving into a menu system each time).

- The ability to use these sounds in any combination, in the same way that church organ sounds can be used in any combination.

- If it isn't possible to use the sounds in combination, then a good selection of ready-made combinations should be provided.

- Piano sound.

- Harpsichord sound.

- Some church organ sounds, at least a stopped flute 8'.

- The ability to split the keyboard for playing accompaniment and solo line.

- A pedal section playable from the keyboard (ie deep bass notes for the bottom of a chord).

- Something comparable to a church organ's combination pistons (ie the ability to quickly recall a collection of settings).

I do not need to have any facility for laying down tracks and then playing along with such tracks - I simply want to play music "straight" onto the keyboard, often accompanying a singer or an acoustic instruments.

I won't be playing large-scale piano compositions on it, so there is no need for an 88 note keyboard. I'm sure a 61 note keyboard will be big enough.

The instrument must be portable. I'll be extremely happy if it weighs 10 kg or less, but I accept that such an instrument may be quite a bit heavier than this.

Please can anyone point me in the right direction at least, even if you don't wish to single out an exact instrument. I will be grateful for any suggestions. Thanking you in advance.

[Biggles]

Budget?

 

There are dozens in the $200 - $6000 price range.

[Gretel]

A standard recommendation here might be a Nord Electro 6D. For piano it is only moderately capable, but for organ (including pipe organ) it is quite versatile. Hammond XK-1C as well. You can use the drawbars on these models as organ stops (select and deselect individual pipes). They will also have a harpsichord sound or two, but I am not sure how good those will be.

[Gretel]

Also, if you want to have a really low-budget alternative, the Yamaha NP-12 would also fit. You cannot have a pedal section here though, and there are only two pipe organ sounds. It also has other severe limitations compared to the Nord Electro or the Hammond, but that is only to be expected given the difference in price.

[NonTrendyGuy]

As I'm so new to this area, it's hard to put an exact budget on it, but roughly speaking I could reckon on up to $2500 for the basic instrument (and allow a bit extra for accessories like sustain and expression pedals and a stand etc). But if I can find a satisfactory instrument for much less than this, I'll be really happy. I'm in England, but I assume that the range of instruments available is usually the same whichever country you are in, so I'll happily study responses from people all over the world.

[stoken6]

Welcome to the forum.

 

First question: do you want a weighted hammer-action keyboard? That will challenge your 61-key and <10kg requirements. (That's about 22lb in old money).

 

Second question: when you say "use these sounds in combination", do you mean a simple split or layer of two sounds? Or something more complex.

 

I can't think of anything offhand that has a harpsichord AND organ with pedals AND a credible piano/orchestral capability. (Although a MIDI pedalboard would potentially work with a board that can play one sound locally and another via MIDI).

 

Cheers, Mike.

[NonTrendyGuy]

Thanks for bringing theses points up.

I don't want weighted hammer-action keyboard, as I'll probably be spending most of the time playing non-piano sounds, and to me hammer-action only feels right when playing piano sounds. I hadn't thought as far as realising that I'd be saving weight by that. By the way, 10 kg limit was just a wish. I may well have to put up with more weight than that.

I didn't explain the "sounds in any combination" bit very well. I was thinking in terms of what you get on a church organ (which I've played a bit in the past). For example you might have a stop labelled "Flute", a stop labelled "Oboe", and lots of other stops. If you pull out the "Flute" stop, you play on the ranks of flute pipes. If you pull out the "Oboe" stop, you play on the rank of oboe pipes. If you pull out both stops together, you play on both the flute pipes and the oboe pipes at the same time. Likewise, any combination of the other stops available on that organ. I was wondering if any manufacturer had followed this type of scheme for sampled orchestral instruments. I've been doing more exploring round the web in the last few hours, and I get the impression that this is not the case with synthesisers. They tend to have samples labelled "Soft Strings", "Strings", "Full Brass", "Full Orchestra" etc, and you just pick one of these at a time.

I was hoping to have the option to get the instrument to play the bottom note of chord played on the keyboard with extra deep sounds. Glancing at some websites, I see that the deep sounds are labelled "pedal section", or something similar. I may have confused people in the way I described this. I wasn't envisaging getting in instrument with a built-in pedalboard, as this would stop it being portable.

Cheers,

NonTrendyGuy.

[cphollis]

I think the OP has a long road ahead ... many of us on the forum have been buying and selling digital instruments for decades. Part of the challenge here is that he's completely new to the topic, so the language here is different. $2500 is enough for a serious instrument.

 

As I read through his description, I kept thinking one of the Nord Electros or similar might make him happy. All the organ capabilities you could ever want (yay pipe organs!) including optional separate pedalboard. Great acoustic and digital pianos, albeit modest keybed. Plenty of orchestral samples as layers or splits. Almost no menu diving. Lots and lots adjustable presets. Given his experience with church organs, he'd love the drawbars and different pipe models. Several nice harpsichords to choose from. The layering enables all sorts of fun.

 

If the OP can spring for a new/used Electro 5/6, that would be a great choice, which can be done under budget. I believe all the other similar models that have drawbars come up short in important areas, hence the popularity of the Electros.

 

Or, you can be like me and burn through a lot of different boards until find something you like.

[stillearning]

I second the Nord Electro idea. Relatively easy to learn and use. Covers his bases.

[stoken6]

If you pull out both stops together, you play on both the flute pipes and the oboe pipes at the same time. Likewise, any combination of the other stops available on that organ.

OK that makes sense. In the world of the pipe organ, every last possible sound it can make has a stop. You can pull out none, one, two, all, or any subset of the stops and create whatever combination you like.

 

In the world of digital keyboards, the model is a bit different. Depending on which keyboard you select, you can:

- Only play one sound at once

- Play two sounds at once

- Play three, four or 16 sounds etc. at once.

You can also, depending on the keyboard, split the keys so the lowest 2 octaves play a particular sound, while the upper 3 octaves play a different sound. Some keyboards can perform multiple splits, etc. etc.

 

The Nord Electro 6 suggested above can play (I think) up to 3 sounds at once, but one HAS to be an organ (pipe, hammond, vox, farfisa), one HAS to be a piano (acoustic, Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Clavinet, also Harpsichord is in this category) and one HAS to be a sample. Plenty of Electro owners here will correct me if I'm wrong.

 

If you can spring to that budget, Chuck Hollis is right - it's an instrument that you can keep as you grow and develop. Maybe look for a secondhand one - you won't save much, but they are reliable, and if you don't like it, you can sell it on for what you paid for it.

 

EDIT I see it going for around £1349 in the UK, which, while not exactly the bargain of the century, is imho good value for such a versatile instrument. 8kg as well! Why don't you download and read the manual? Nord's manuals are well written, and should give you an idea for what the thing can do.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[bfields]

I don't *think* NonTrendyGuy is asking for an actual pedalboard:

 

A pedal section playable from the keyboard (ie deep bass notes for the bottom of a chord).

 

That's just the ability to do another split and maybe octave-transpose one side of the split, I think.

 

- A variety of orchestral sounds, accessible via a simple action (ie not by delving into a menu system each time).

 

Outside the pipe-organ world, nobody makes keyboards with hundreds of dedicated patch-selection buttons, so there's always some compromise here, like dedicated category buttons and then a scroll wheel.

 

- The ability to use these sounds in any combination, in the same way that church organ sounds can be used in any combination.

...

- The ability to split the keyboard for playing accompaniment and solo line.

- A pedal section playable from the keyboard (ie deep bass notes for the bottom of a chord).

 

We may need more specifics about the kind of layering and splitting you want to do.

 

At the simpler end, a keyboard might have the ability to choose one split point and layer 2 sounds on each side of the split.

 

Typical at the higher end is 16 "zones" each which their own key range (which may or may not overlap), each with its own sound.

 

- Something comparable to a church organ's combination pistons (ie the ability to quickly recall a collection of settings).

 

Anything with complicated layering will have this. They vary in how many presets you can save, how convenient they are to recall, whether you can give them names, etc.

 

I won't be playing large-scale piano compositions on it, so there is no need for an 88 note keyboard. I'm sure a 61 note keyboard will be big enough.

 

Keep in mind if you want a lot of splits it may get a bit finicky trying to fit everything across 61 keys.

[allan_evett]

For the depth and variety of individual sounds and instrument groups needed, I immediately thought of Korg. Having been a Kronos owner, I'm fairly certain the sounds needed are either onboard already or available from 3rd party programmers.

And I suspect most of those sounds are available as well on a Korg Krome, or even Kross. The current Kronos, even in a 61-key version, exceeds the OP's budget; though the new Nautilus 61 might be the ticket.

[Shamanczarek]

Many Keyboards typically have nine slide controllers the number required for tonewheel organ drawbar settings. These controllers can often be assigned to control separate instrument sounds which would allow you to immediately select several instruments in any combination as needed. Kurzweil Keyboards are particularly good at doing this and have a wide selection of orchestral sounds onboard. Nord Keyboards although their pipe organ section isn't bad aren't very flexible with splits, layers, and having several sounds available simultaneously.

[AnotherScott]

Sorry, guys, I think the Nord suggestions are way off the mark, as are those emphasizing pipe organ. Reviewing the wish list...

 

1- A variety of orchestral sounds, accessible via a simple action (ie not by delving into a menu system each time).

Nord does have a variety of orchestral sounds, though it's not their strength. Unlike any other board with orchestral samples, they use only a single velocity layer. But okay, even though Nord may be at the bottom in orchestral sound quality, it's still not bad, and may be usable if it was otherwise one of the strongest choices, but it is not. Just sticking with this bullet point for now, the other qualifier is being able to select its orchestral sounds simply. Here again, it's not worst, but it's not top tier either. There are only four patch select buttons (which can be used for either single-button access to 4 sounds, or 2-button access to 16 sounds). After that you have to scroll through menus. But it's much worse than that, for reasons I'll get to as we get to other bullet points.

 

To actually address this bullet point, though, in order to have simple access to a wide variety of sounds, I think you need a board that has either a good number of patch select buttons (I'd say 10 definable, with the ability to easily access different banks of 10), or a touchscreen.

 

2- The ability to use these sounds in any combination, in the same way that church organ sounds can be used in any combination.

Note that he's still talking about orchestral sounds here, not church organ sounds. How do you play multiple orchestral sounds in any combination on an Electro? You can't. All orchestral sounds (that is, anything that is not some kind of piano or organ variation) is in the "sample synth" section... and the Nord only lets you play one such sound at a time. This basically fully disqualifies it right off the bat.

 

To address this bullet point, it is unclear as to whether he needs to be able to layer combinations of two sounds, or if he wants to be able to layer more than two sounds. Plenty of boards can easily layer two sounds. Doing it in real time gets a little trickier (especially if you want many rather than few sounds to choose from), and layering more than two gets trickier, but there are choices for these things that are not overly complicated. I'll get back to some possible suggestions.

 

3- If it isn't possible to use the sounds in combination, then a good selection of ready-made combinations should be provided.

Not a concern, really. Lots of boards let you combine sounds (and the boards that don't have few if any ready-made combinations).

 

4- Piano sound.

Not a concern. Probably anything that has orchestral instruments has piano.

 

5- Harpsichord sound.

Not a concern. Again, it would be very unusual to come across a board that met the above criteria that did not have a harpsichord.

 

6- Some church organ sounds, at least a stopped flute 8'.

Getting back to the people suggesting all kinds of pipe organ functionality... remember, the needs here are minimal. "at least a stopped flute 8'" -- i.e. a single, simple (single tone) organ sound. I don't think one needs to get a full pipe organ emulation for this... tons of boards will probably have something suitable. But once we narrow down the list, the OP would have to assure that it has one or more suitable pipe organ patches.

 

7- The ability to split the keyboard for playing accompaniment and solo line.

Almost any board that layers combinations of sounds can also split them, so we have a lot of latitude here. Something that is much tricker to find--which may or may not be a concern here--is the ease with which one can independently manipulate the sounds on either side of the split. For example, if playing a left hand accompaniment and right hand solo line, and part way through you want to change the sound for your right hand solo line while continuing to play the left hand accompaniment, that is not so easy on most boards. Often, the best thing to do is to create and save the different combinations ahead of time, and then switch entire sound combinations (even though the left hand sound is the same in both combinations). If you're going to do this in the middle of a song, though, now some kind of "seamless transition" feature becomes useful, to assure no audible cut-out when switching those sounds. (And actually, even if not doing splits, that may be an important feature, even just for changing from ones sound to another mid-song, so that a held or decaying note from a previously played sound doesn't cut off when switching to the new sound.)

 

8- A pedal section playable from the keyboard (ie deep bass notes for the bottom of a chord).

This is one of the trickier elements. One can certainly split a keyboard to an appropriate sound and play a single note bass line with the left hand, but if you want to be playing full chords with your left hand sound and have only the bottom note of the chord doubled by (or replaced with) a separate bass sound... not as easy. Possibly a board that lets you layer your left-hand sound with an additional sound which is monophonic with low note priority (e.g. the Korg/Kurzweil/Roland/Yamaha workstation-style boards)? Possibly a board with a bass pedal function that can be assigned to the keyboard (Hammond SK Pro, Dexibell J7 Combo)? Possibly an arranger (Korg PA series, Yamaha PSR-SX)?

 

9- Something comparable to a church organ's combination pistons (ie the ability to quickly recall a collection of settings).

Again, I think this threw people off, into thinking he wants multiple pipe organ registrations, where as I pointed out earlier, he needs only a few (or possibly even just one)... the key to this point isn't wanting a church organ sound, but rather, wanting its various saved sound combinations (whatever combination of orchestral, organ, piano, harpsichord, etc.) recallable as a single item, without having to assemble the same combination from scratch every time it's needed. This is obviously also an easy one, since most boards that support splits/layers of many sounds alslo let you save those combination for instant recall.

 

You guys are posting faster than I can keep up. ;-) More posts have come up since I started this one... I'll stop for now and be back with more later.

[JimboKeys]

The first thing i thought about is built-in speakers. When the OP mentions wanting it to weigh 10kg or less, i read that as a self-contained keyboard, not in addition to speakers. As far as actions go, other than the Numa Compact 2x, it's probably going to be a weighted-action board to get all the features discussed.

 

-- Jimbo

[AnotherScott]

- The ability to split the keyboard for playing accompaniment and solo line.

...

I won't be playing large-scale piano compositions on it, so there is no need for an 88 note keyboard. I'm sure a 61 note keyboard will be big enough.

as bfields pointed out, 61 may be tight when splitting into two separate sounds, limited the available range for either one. Give this some more thought before deciding that 61 will definitly be enough. But also, getting back to what I said about being able to easily have independent control over the sounds that have been assigned to either side of the split, some boards let you easily move one of your sounds up or down an octave, while leaving your other hand's sound unaffected, and that can help a 61 go further, if need be. Roland Juno DS and Korg PA700/PA1000 are some I know that can do this.

 

Hammond XK-1C as well...will also have a harpsichord sound or two

XK-1c is organ only. You're probably thinking of the step-up model, the SK1. Though that still suffers from significant limitations, including the inability to split/layer two sounds that aren't organ. Yo'ud have to go up to the SK Pro for that.

 

The first thing i thought about is built-in speakers. When the OP mentions wanting it to weigh 10kg or less, i read that as a self-contained keyboard, not in addition to speakers.

I wasn't thinking built-in speakers since they are so rarely loud enough for public performance... but maybe. (I assumed public performance because of "often accompanying a singer or an acoustic instruments" and wanting it to be portable.) But that brings up another relevant point... either way, is the $2500 budget supposed to include amplification?

[Biggles]

Great big plus point â¦â¦l you live in England.

 

That means you should have quite a few well stocked Music Instrument Shops within a couple of hours travel of you.

 

I live in Lancashire and I have about 20 shops within an hours drive.

 

What I am getting at is to take a trip to a store or two and play what you can.

 

If you happen to live within travelling distance of Manchester then PMT have a huge store there which will have all the models that I am about to quote on display.

 

If you are thinking up to about £2000 then you are in no mans land as there is the Korg Nautilus just under, the remainder of possible models are a few hundred less. Over £2k you have the Korg Kronos, Yamaha Montage and Roland Fantom plus a Korg Pa4X arranger.

 

At about £1500 check out the Korg Pa1000 and Yamaha PSR SX900 arrangers.

 

At up to about £1200 you will find a Roland FA, Yamaha MODX and a Korg Krome Ex.

 

Try and play as many of these as you can.

[Docbop]

I think nothing is going to be as simple as the guy wants. A workstation type keyboard will have all the instrument, sounds, pad, strings, brass, etc, but not going be a bunch push one button and it happen. He has to realize to get what he want he's going to have a learning curve and have to learn how to create programs, set lists and etc. But once he adds those skills to his toolbox then can create setups for all types of gigs or shows.

[analogman1]

https://www.dexibell.com/product-category/organ/

 

Dexibell Classico. I think that will fill the bill perfectly!

[Radagast]

https://www.dexibell.com/product-category/organ/

 

Dexibell Classico. I think that will fill the bill perfectly!

 

I was just about to suggest that, or the Dexibell J7. The J7 has pipe organ samples. The drawbars control the loudness of different stops when it is playing pipe organ sounds. The drawbars can be controlled by a volume pedal to change from different registrations like a crescendo expression shoe. Other pipe organ suites can be downloaded for free from Dexibell. The Classico already has the different types of pipe organ suites in it. And of course they both can play the most excellent acoustic piano sounds.

[Tom Williams]

I tick some of those boxes with the Kurzweil PC361: 61 notes, good (not great) piano, some good pipe organ flue stops, best strings in the business, can be second-manualed with ridiculously expensive MIDI pedalboard. Downsides: weight is twice the goal, no built-in speakers. Right now the PC3K6 (which can also import samples) is going for a stupid low price.

 

Particularly regarding the pipe organ, I have one set up with 16 stops (one of those is a mixture IV) that can be selected individually or in grouped combinations with one of eight buttons, quite similar to pistons.

[AnotherScott]

More people seem to be answering based on some focus on pipe organ sounds... Again, OP wants at minimum one simple pipe organ sound, and maybe a handful of others... that's not a tough one. His other references to his pipe organ background are what seem to be making people thing he wants a lot of pipe organ sonic replication, but he has not actually expressed any need for that.

 

I think nothing is going to be as simple as the guy wants.

I'm not sure he's specifically asked for simple, except for patch selection. So I'm not assuming he's not willing to put in a bit of effort here. So...

A workstation type keyboard will have all the instrument, sounds, pad, strings, brass, etc, but not going be a bunch push one button and it happen. He has to realize to get what he want he's going to have a learning curve and have to learn how to create programs, set lists and etc. But once he adds those skills to his toolbox then can create setups for all types of gigs or shows.

Exactly. This also gets back to bfields' comment, that "nobody makes keyboards with hundreds of dedicated patch-selection buttons, so there's always some compromise here, like dedicated category buttons and then a scroll wheel." True, if you want lots of sounds to choose from in any combination, this won't be a dedicated-buttons approach, but a board can have user-definable buttons instead. So yes, you do need to do some work to set the buttons up to bring up the sounds you want, but once you do, bringing them up in performance is quick and easy. This seems like it could be a viable approach.

 

I tick some of those boxes with the Kurzweil PC361

Many Keyboards typically have nine slide controllers the number required for tonewheel organ drawbar settings. These controllers can often be assigned to control separate instrument sounds which would allow you to immediately select several instruments in any combination as needed. Kurzweil Keyboards are particularly good at doing this and have a wide selection of orchestral sounds onboard.

As the workstation-style boards go, Kurzweil is a strong choice. PC4-7 meets weight and budget requirements, and can be set up with multis of sound sets where each sound has its own key range, on/off buttons, and volume fader, providing a lot of real-time switching control and flexibility. The Korg/Roland/Yamaha equivalents for this particular way of working don't give you quite as much control in their models that are in this price range, but they might do enough, so if they're preferred for some other reason, I wouldn't necessarily rule out Korg Nautilus, Yamaha MODX, Roland FA or Juno DS.

[AnalogGuy1]

One other thought, if you are really new to using electronic keyboards vs. using a church's pipe organ and acoustic piano: do you have your speaker system sussed? Are you plugging into an existing church or hall acoustic system? Or are you assuming that any reasonable $2.5k keyboard would obviously include speakers?

[NonTrendyGuy]

Wow! That's an amazing response! I've never posted to this kind of forum before. I didn't realise that I'd receive so many useful replies. It's Monday now, so of course I'm busy, but I will use my spare time over the next few days to investigate all the suggestions that you've made. You'll be hearing back from me soon. Once again, thanks a million.

[NonTrendyGuy]

Thank you bfields and AnotherScott for pointing out the possible problem with a 61 note keyboard. I hadn't thought of it before, but if I'm going to split the keyboard and sometimes play the right hand with a sub-octave transposer on, I could run off the top of a 61 note keyboard.

 

I studied the details of many of the suggested makes, and found it a bit confusing trying to understand how one gets multiple sounds set up (eg for a split). Also I couldn't see how to set them up so that they play the "pedal" division from the keyboard (ie the leftmost note played on the keyboard invokes the sounds selected for pedals in addition to the sounds selected for keyboard). I think this is sometimes referred to as "auto-bass" or "auto-pedal". From now on I will call it "auto-pedal" because "auto-bass" also has another meaning (referring to the machine composing a bass line, such as 12-bar blues).

 

Then I looked at the Dexibell Classico L3, and it shone out like a bright light. Thank you analogman1 for suggesting it. It has the ability to select individual sounds with the press of a single button, and to combine them by selecting more than one button. It has "auto-pedal". It also has some combination pistons that work in the same way as on a church organ. But it does seem like an electronic church organ which has timidly dipped its toes into the world of orchestral sounds, which is opposite way round from what I wanted. There aren't that many orchestral sounds, and from reading a customer review I learned that some of the orchestral sounds are deliberately made monophonic, so that they only work on the rightmost note played on the keyboard, with the result that they reinforce the tune line. This would sometimes be useful, but I would like it as an option that can be turned on and off.

 

Then I looked at the Dexibell Combo J7. Thank you AnotherScott and Radagast for suggesting it. It also has "auto-pedal", but doesn't have the other features I just described about the Dexibell Classico L3. The Combo J7 obviously requires many more key presses than the Classico L3 to set up the sounds for a layer or a split. However, I think I can gradually get used to its method of setting things up. And from listening to some demos on YouTube, it seems to have an incredible selection of very appealing sounds. This looks like my best option, and I will arrange to try one out. I will also try out the Dexibell Classico L3.