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The most useless, disappointing keyboard you ever bought?


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Useless, disappointing, infuriating - Roland JP-08 Boutique.   Almost got the 3 original ones in a bundle, got only the JP thankfully.  Those tiny sliders are horrible.   Kept the SE and the D05, and the layout of the new ones is better.  

 

 

 

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Korg Kronos X73 / ARP Odyssey / Motif ES Rack / Roland D-05 / JP-08 / SE-05 / Jupiter Xm / Novation Mininova / NL2X / Waldorf Pulse II

MBP-LOGIC

American Deluxe P-Bass, Yamaha RBX760

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The Alesis Micron.

 

It was my own fault thinking I could make do with an minimalist UI.

 

The sound was just alright, and the effects were noisy.

 

Probably would have been fine as a giggable bass synth or something.

 

I dunno. Meh.

 

I make software noises.
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I'm going to add the Yamaha P-121 to the list.

 

Not a fan of the action, the built-in sounds, or the muddy speakers.

 

I guess it's fine as a lightweight, smaller weighted controller, but it's too much to pay for just that.

 

Enh.

I make software noises.
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Roland Juno-106.

 

I know, I know... everybody's favorite 80s synth, leagues and leagues out of its proper price range these days.

 

Just a simple 1-osc synth with chorus. Meh.

 

Of course, it didn't help that one of the voice chips went bad in the one I had for about a couple weeks, back in 2004. 

 

It got returned to the seller. 

 

A couple months later, I bought a used JX-10, and had that one for about 6 years before I sold it. Liked that one a lot better.

 

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Kurzweil PC3, Yamaha MOX8, Alesis Ion, Kawai K3M
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22 minutes ago, synthizen2 said:

Roland Juno-106.

 

I know, I know... everybody's favorite 80s synth, leagues and leagues out of its proper price range these days.

 

Just a simple 1-osc synth with chorus. Meh.

 

 

So true.  To all the hipsters - it wasn't the holy grail when it came out.  It was cheap and easy.

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12 hours ago, allan_evett said:

A close 2nd would be the Memorymoog I bought in 1983; it was the first unit in Chicago.  Certainly not useless, as the thought of essentially 6 Minimoogs under the hood was drool-worthy. But it Just. Would. Not. Stay. In. Tune. After lengthy repair efforts, I returned it to the dealer for a lightly used OB-Xa 8-voice. 

One of these Gearfests we'll have to share series-1 MM horror stories over a beer.

 

~ Bill 

Gear:

Hardware: Nord Stage3, Korg Kronos 2, Novation Summit

Software: Cantabile 3, Halion Sonic 3 and assorted VST plug-ins.

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6 minutes ago, mate stubb said:

Rhodes Stage 88. The most sluggish low dynamic playing, heavy and awkward to move, muffled dead non-cutting tone beast I ever struggled with. 

"$2000 for this chunk of shit?  I mean really Ray, it's used.  There's no action left in this keyboard."

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Another one is the Yamaha Motif. Had for about a week.

 

When I played weddings, GB, etc, I used two boards. Top board was a Korg Triton. Great strings, brass, sound effects, easy to find patches. My band was badgering me to upgrade (in their minds,) with a Yamaha Motif. I played one gig and hated it compared to the Triton. I ended up bringing back to GC and exchanged for a Triton Extreme as I already sold my Triton.

 

Demoing it in store I loved the Yamaha Motif strings, brass but IMHO didn't sound good unless I was noodling alone. The pianos, eps, clavs are great and much better than Triton but I didn't need those sounds from my upper board.

AvantGrand N2 | ES520 | Gallien-Krueger MK & MP | https://soundcloud.com/pete36251

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Hammond B-3000.  Basically an early clone in a B cabinet.   Full console but much lighter.  But hauling it in a trailer would bounce the internal connectors loose.  I'm the only man dumb enough to try to tour with a B-3000.  one of the stupidest things I tried in my life.

"It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne

 

"A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!!

So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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52 minutes ago, vonnor said:

One of these Gearfests we'll have to share series-1 MM horror stories over a beer.

 

~ Bill 

Yes!  And we'll 'cry in our beer' together over what I sold the replacement OB-Xa for in 1991. 

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'Someday, we'll look back on these days and laugh; likely a maniacal laugh from our padded cells, but a laugh nonetheless' - Mr. Boffo.

 

We need a barfing cat emoticon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I'll drop the **** but I think the most useless and disappointing keyboards are all the analog synths that are being sold for insane prices because there's some nostalgia. And I mean both vintage analog and newly (re)created analog synths. Yeah, yeah, there's nothing like real analog and no VST or digital emulation can recreate those things 😉 Each to their own. My Hydrasynth trumps them all! 😛

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1 hour ago, mate stubb said:

Rhodes Stage 88. The most sluggish low dynamic playing, heavy and awkward to move, muffled dead non-cutting tone beast I ever struggled with. 

 

I still have lower back issues from carrying mine by myself when I was 20 years old, 10-feet tall, and bulletproof.

Live: Yamaha S70XS (#1); Roland Jupiter-80; Mackie 1202VLZ4: IEMs or Traynor K4

Home: Hammond SK Pro 73; Moog Minimoog Voyager Electric Blue; Yamaha S70XS (#2); Wurlitzer 200A

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Crumar Perfomer String ensemble. Bought it unheard by recommendation from the sales guy, as a replacement for my dead Elka Rhapsody.

It is the only instrument I have thrown away in the dumpster- back in 95. 10 - 15 years later I saw ad for the same type of instrument as vintage at $1500 😖

/Bjørn - old gearjunkie, still with lot of GAS
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Amazingly and completely stupid on my part was the Roland D-50 which came out at the same time as the Casio CZ-1. I took the D-50, stripped off all the chorus, reverb and effects and said to myself "well, as a synth this ain't much really". I decided to focus on the CZ-1 (which I still use to this day as a plug in) but from a business point of view I should have realized I could have sold boatloads of Sound Cards for the D-50 as it was selling boatloads.

 

I missed the boat big time, one of the worst decisions I made back then...stupid is as stupid does I guess.

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1 hour ago, bjosko said:

Crumar Perfomer String ensemble. Bought it unheard by recommendation from the sales guy, as a replacement for my dead Elka Rhapsody.

I put a lot of miles on my Elka Rhapsody and got some pretty hip sounds out of it too (by 1970s standards anyway).

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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4 hours ago, funkyhammond said:

I had the Korg equivalent of the Juno-106, the Korg Poly-800. Also single DCO with chorus. I bought it brand new at the time. It wasn't that good but it was my first synth.

I had a Korg Poly-800 and trust me it was no equivalent to the Juno-106.  Fortunately I only paid about $150 for it and sold it for about $80.  Mine was the Alesis QS-6.1.  It sounded cheesy.  I had the Alesis Q-Cards and their sound was just as cheesy.  Couldn't wait to get rid of it and never looked back when I finally did (Sorry Brother Dave Bryce, I know you like that board).

57 Hammond B3; 69 Hammond L100P; 68 Leslie 122; Kurzweil Forte7 & PC3; M-Audio Code 61; Voce V5+; Neo Vent; EV ELX112P; GSI Gemini & Burn

Delaware Dave

Exit93band

 

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38 minutes ago, OB Dave said:

Not a keyboard, strictly speaking, but: Muse Receptor. What a poorly-engineered, expensive, finicky piece of shit that was. Was very very happy to unload it while it still had some residual value. 

At the time, I thought the concept was genius - offload the processing to a separate host.  But, I've never heard a good word about them.

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55 minutes ago, OB Dave said:

Not a keyboard, strictly speaking, but: Muse Receptor. What a poorly-engineered, expensive, finicky piece of shit that was. Was very very happy to unload it while it still had some residual value. 

Yeah, that was probably one of my "mistake" buys for sure.

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Plus 1 on the Rhodes comments. Mid 70's, friend playing on a cruise ship offered to by me one from Sam Ash and for three weeks I was sizzling with excitement. Back in London 10 minutes in and crushing disappointment followed. Impossibly heavy action plus ridiculous overall weight but I persevered ..... not for long! That was the keyboard I least connected with. Managed to sell it for more than I paid and for a third of the price bought a really beat up Wurli from the AWB.

A couple of years later I figured a pristine brand new Wurli 200a would be an upgrade. One gig was enough to seal its fate. It just didn't have the grit and bark as the beat up EP200 which, fortunately, I still had (have).
If we can include modules (?), Korg Radias, I've tried but could never coax the remotest approximation of a warm sound from it.

 

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The one I just couldn’t get my head around was the Casio FZ-1. Got it cheap off eBay during eBay’s heyday. I probably would have tried a little harder, but several key buttons were sticky and intermittent, and that got very frustrating very quickly. Only came with a couple of disks and I already had a Roland S-550 with nearly the entire library. Decided to resell the Casio and bought a second S-550. All worked out very well.

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Ditto on the Poly 800.!!!!   Only bought it because I needed something to use as a keytar at the time.  Dreadful synth, dreadful idea. 

Also not keyboard, but rack:  the Roland D-110.  Awful.  I actually liked the MT-32 better as a low rent D-50 sound module. 

 

Also loved my Elka Rhapsody through a small stone. :)

 

 

Chris Corso

www.chriscorso.org

Lots of stuff.

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Poly-800 was pretty painful. I remember getting one for $100 way back in the early '90s as I wanted something to leave in a sketchy rehearsal space. Its 4-voice polyphony and interface was not helpful. I did use it for a year or two as a rehearsal instrument, but was really glad to see it go when I sold it.

 

Also, the Alesis Micron was another that didn't do it for me. Poor keyboard action and weird interface. The knob broke on mine and it was like using a computer without a mouse or mouse pad. Simply useless.

 

I went through a brief era with those half-rack micro romplers like the JV-1010 and they had a ton of useful sounds, though controlling them through the less capable MIDI controllers I had at the time made it a headache. That's less on the module and more on the adjacent gear, but that little thing was not the least bit user friendly for dialing up sounds and forget editing sounds in that era of not much computer integration.

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