I need help finding a nice sounding battery powered keyboard

[rickyd123]

I bought a Roland Gokeys. It was on sale during black Friday for $250. It sounded like a tin can. If you ask me it was worth about $50 bucks. I returned it. The reason I need a battery powered keyboard is I want to try my hand at being a street musician for tips. I already have a samson speaker with an internal battery. I don't have much money and I play the piano decent. I'm not great or anything, but people that have heard me play have said good things. I can afford to spend between $500 to $700.

I was searching about this subject and this forum site came up with members discussing battery powered keyboards, but no one mentioned specifics about which sounded best or costs.

[The Piano Man]

Yamaha NP32 sounds a lot better than the Roland Go Keys (in my opinion). It has only a headphone output so not ideal.

 

Alternatively, Roland has the VR730 and Juno DS line. Korg has the Krome.

 

You could also connect to an IOS device to expand your piano sound options.

 

Finally, you could get a portable battery solution and power up a keyboard of your choice.

[rickyd123]

I have a portable Roland FP30 as my at home piano that I really like. You mentioned a portable battery solution. I don't know what that is or means. I also don't know what connecting to an IOS device means.

[AnotherScott]

Maybe a Casio CT-S1? Or if you can deal with the weight, for more piano-like key feel, CDP-S150, CDP-S350, or PX-S1100 (the piano sounds in the three models are all different, I believe).

[area51recording]

A used Casio Px5S. I bought my second one of a friend for $500. IMO bang for the buck is stupid on this board.......

[rickyd123]

I looked up those portable battery solution things online. Does anyone know how long they will keep a digital piano going. My plan was to play for 2 or 3 hrs.

[AnotherScott]

A used Casio Px5S. I bought my second one of a friend for $500. IMO bang for the buck is stupid on this board.......

Yes, another good option, if 24 lbs is manageable. It's subjective, but there are certainly people who prefer the older Casio action in that board to the one in the new "super slim" models. And there's a freebie download from the casio forum that has a mike-martin-tweaked piano sound that, to me, plays a lot more nicely than the stock sound. It's the same timbre, but it has nicer playability.

[Baldwin Funster]

As mentioned before, roland ds. You can sing through it also.

[rickyd123]

Unless I'm wrong it looks like all the ones mentioned so far are over a thousand dollars. I don't have that much money. I have $600 dollars saved up now. I'm sure I could get another $100 if needed.

[AnotherScott]

All the boards I first suggested (post #3122220) are under $700. Though also, if you could get a good deal on something used, that could open up some other possibilities like the PX-5S.

[rickyd123]

Another Scott mentioned the Casio PX-S1100 Privia Digital Piano. It's in my price range. He didn't really say anything about it. All I really care about is that it is battery powered and has really good acoustic piano sound like my Roland FP30. If anyone can give me some insight about, I'd appreciate it.

[Biggles]

Casio PX S1100 is currently c$675 US, I have played one (well the prior 1000) and the sounds were pretty good, keybed action of other makes you may find has more feel but its size and weight will take some beating. Piano sounds were good, almost as good as the Yamaha P125 , yep subjective, cannot comment on the current Roland FP30X but the prior model had the best action but the piano sound quality was between the Yamaha and the Casio.

 

I was watching and listening to some vids on the Casio CDP S350 today which was impressive for its $550 price tag so do check it out.

[GovernorSilver]

Casio CT-S1 is the best $200 keyboard I ever got.

[rickyd123]

It seems there are so many options. does anyone have an idea how I should direct my research. Like maybe I could hear the keyboards on YouTube videos or is there a site that gives reliable reviews. I'm suspect of some reviews because I always wonder if the company is buying the reviewer.

[rickyd123]

Is there agreement that the Yamaha P125 sounds better than the Casio PX-S1100 Privia Digital Piano. Because they are close enough in price all I care about is the best sound. I'll get use to the differences in the action.

[Fuzzy1]

Get a Korg Kross 2.

[AnotherScott]

Another Scott mentioned the Casio PX-S1100 Privia Digital Piano. It's in my price range. He didn't really say anything about it. All I really care about is that it is battery powered and has really good acoustic piano sound like my Roland FP30. If anyone can give me some insight about, I'd appreciate it.

Everything I suggested meets your criteria of price range, battery operation, and arguably at least decent piano sound and not totally horrible action. There's not a lot to choose from that meets those criteria. I guess you could add the Yamaha NP32 someone mentioned. Maybe some other Casios, I'm not familiar with all of them, but from a strictly piano perspective, I suspect that the ones I mentioned would be the pick of the litter. From there, you'll have to listen/feel them for yourself to make a judgement about sound quality and action. The piano sounds can at least probably all be found on youtube. If you happen to own an iPhone or iPad, that can also be a source of additional piano sounds for whatever you get.

 

Is there agreement that the Yamaha P125 sounds better than the Casio PX-S1100 Privia Digital Piano. Because they are close enough in price all I care about is the best sound. I'll get use to the differences in the action.

P-125 does not run on batteries.

[rickyd123]

Thanks for the heads up about the P-125. I think What I'll do is I have a list of 7 pianos in my price range. I'll go to a local retailer and play them. I should be able to find them somewhere.

[wjwilcox]

You could get a pristine used Roland VR-09b for your budget. Lightwieght, good sounds.

[rickyd123]

Thanks I'll add it to the list. I'll listen to a new one with a plan to buy a used one if it's the best.

[Fleer]

Korg i3 for under $400.

[Old No7]

Check out the Yamaha PSR EW-310 -- it has 76 keys and takes batteries (and is a more-keys version of the PSR E-373).

 

There are some great reviews of the EW-310 online; and I recently took back and returned a Casio CT-S410 (which is an upgrade from the CT-S1) to get the Yamaha board -- which I will pick up this coming week. I got to play one in the store for almost an hour, and to me, it has much better sounds and is "less of a toy than the Casio I had was" -- and without a doubt, 76 keys sure beats 61 keys any day! Especially for your application.

 

Jeremy See has some nice videos of it online and he says it has "No competition in 2022" at that price point (< $300) and being portable with battery power. Yeah, I have much better boards stacked upstairs at home, but I got the EW-310 to use as a travel, outside deck and around the firepit board.

 

Old No7

[Charleston]

Jackery Explorer 240 Portable Power Station

[AnotherScott]

The suggestion of some low-cost arranger-style boards (Korg i3, Yamaha PSR EW-310, or 410?) could be another interesting way to go, if piano sound and action are acceptable. I'm not very familiar with them.

[Biggles]

One thing to note about some of the suggestions is that the polyphony can be a bit low, ie the Yamaha EW310 is only 48 notes, Korg i3 only 64 and the Casio CDP S350 is also only 64 notes.

 

I will suggest you save up some more and look closely at a Casio PX S3100, 700 voices, slim and lightweight, battery powered, 192 note polyphony, arranger features, 200 styles, 2x8W built in amp.

 

In other words an all in one unit so no lugging around to much heavy weight kit.

 

An arranger specific keyboard with reasonable features and polyphony is way above your budget, and most well featured ones are only 61 keys and may not be battery powered.

 

The smallest lightest 61 key keyboard that runs on batteries that I know of is the Korg Kross 2 which at a bit over 8 lbs in weight is very, very portable.

[AnotherScott]

Rickyd, I realized that I assumed that piano would be the main sound of interest, but in looking at the thread again, I'm not sure about the priorities. Is it actually largely for piano, or are there are other kinds of sounds that are equally important?

 

I also don't know what connecting to an IOS device means.

an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.

 

I looked up those portable battery solution things online. Does anyone know how long they will keep a digital piano going. My plan was to play for 2 or 3 hrs.

Different ones have different amounts of battery life. The amount of battery life on a given unit will also depend on the power draw of the particular keyboard you plug into it. But if you can get enough of what you need out of a keyboard that has batteries in it, I'd say that would be preferable to the suggestion of an external battery pack, both for portability (one less piece for a street musician to carry around), and also because your budget is limited to begin with, so you may not want to use up a big chunk of it on a battery pack if you don't need to.

 

On the subject of portability, one more nice thing about the Casio CT-S1 is that it has pegs for attaching a guitar strap, so you can wear it. I don't know if you're comfortable playing that way, but it could spare you from having to travel with a keyboard stand as well.

 

One thing to note about some of the suggestions is that the polyphony can be a bit low, ie the Yamaha EW310 is only 48 notes, Korg i3 only 64 and the Casio CDP S350 is also only 64 notes.

A question to consider here is what you want to do with it. If you're just playing one sound, polyphony is rarely an issue. If you're going to be layering sounds, or having the keyboard play MIDI sequences, arps, auto-generated backing tracks, etc., those things use up additional polyphony, then it may become more relevant. Though also, comparing polyphony figures can be tricky. At least in my experience, no Casio piano sound uses more than 2 instances of polyphony per note played, while Korgs may use 4 (I don't know about the i3 in particular). And voice stealing algorithms differ. So comparing these figures doesn't necessarily tell the story. (My Korg Kross with 80 polyphony hit that piano playing wall before my Yamaha NP-30 with 32.)

 

I will suggest you save up some more and look closely at a Casio PX S3100, 700 voices, slim and lightweight, battery powered, 192 note polyphony, arranger features, 200 styles, 2x8W built in amp.

 

In other words an all in one unit so no lugging around to much heavy weight kit.

Budget issue aside, I do see the appeal of "all in one" (and in fact, many of the recommendations above include speakers), though he does already have a battery powered speaker he intends to use, and I'd be wary as to whether any of the low-cost keyboards' built-in speakers are loud enough for street performance. Maybe it depends how noisy the street is. ;-)

[rickyd123]

My plan is to use it 98 percent of the time as a piano. My current keyboard has other voices. Not many a few strings and organs. I've never used any of them. I like playing the blues, so if the new piano I get has a sax or an interesting horn I might try it for some blues songs, but that would be about it. As far as polyphony goes I'm only planning on playing songs from sheet music one at a time. Nothing fancy. I googled what polyphony meant. It went over my head. I don't know if it's important to get the sound I want from a budget keyboard.

[AnotherScott]

Short, simplified version: Polyphony is how many notes the keyboard can produce simultaneously. At first, someone might think, I've only got ten fingers, so I don't need it to play more than ten notes, polyphony of 10 would be enough. But some simple examples of why you can need more would be, you have a sustain pedal, which means notes can keep playing even after your fingers aren't on them anymore. Or you may want to layer the sound of a piano with the sound of strings, and now you've got two sounds for every note you play. Or in some cases, a stereo piano sound (with a left and right sound for each note) will use two instances of polyphony for every key you play. So okay, you can think, gee, so what happens if I do all of those things? Say I use both hands to play a 10-note chord, with strings (10 notes of polyphony) layered over a stereo piano (20 more), and put the sustain pedal down (so holding 30 total), and then hit another 10 note chord... am I already using 60 notes worth of polyphony? And if I do it again, am I using 90? Yup. But is it a problem? Probably not, because you're unlikely to need to do that when playing typical songs. And even if you do that, and the keyboard doesn't have enough polyphony to play 90 notes, it will drop only as few of those notes as it needs to, and the audience probably won't even notice.

 

Realistically, for a single person playing a single sound in live performance (or a pair of sounds, like maybe playing piano with your left hand while you play a sax sound with your right), it's almost never an issue. In the vast majority of cases, polyphony is only a concern when you're doing fancier things that involve playing many sounds at once. And even then, most boards have enough polyphony for most things most people would want to do with them. Boards are usually designed pretty intelligently. Even arrangers that automatically play additional parts in the background as you play rarely have these issues. The manufacturers are smart enough that, if a board has "only" 48 notes worth of polyphony, they're not going to design it to create backing tracks that use it all up leaving nothing for the player. Boards generally work pretty well to do the things they are designed to do. Read these forums... complaints about people having polyphony problems if only playing one or two sounds are almost non-existent, and it's been that way going back to the days when lots of boards only had 32 notes of polyphony. So my advice, especially for a beginner, is... don't worry about it. ;-) I'd focus on what matters most, which in your case would probably be the sounds, the action, the travel weight, and the battery operation. Maybe a split function if you're looking to play that horn sound over the piano, or something like that.

[rickyd123]

I agree with what you said about Polyphony. The only thing you mentioned that I use regularly is the sustain pedal. I firmly believe that ignorance is bliss, so I've already forgotten there is such a thing as Polyphony. I'm thinking about trying a poll on this site to see which of these pianos member think sound best. The ones on my list in my price range. I'm at 9 keyboards now. I'm not sure how to whittle it down to one or the best for me.

[AnotherScott]

I'm at 9 keyboards now. I'm not sure how to whittle it down to one or the best for me.

See how many you can find youtube videos for, that have people demonstrating the piano sounds, and eliminate the ones whose sounds you like the least.