The most useless, disappointing keyboard you ever bought?

[mate stubb]

The more I read this thread, the more I am reminded of bad gear I had tried to forget. To wit:

- Muse Receptor (refuses to boot)

- Alesis Fusion (buggy, unfinished OS, rubbery buttons, rickety data wheel, lackluster factory library and presets)

[Old No7]

Yamaha MX-61 for me...

 

Bought too quickly, didn't do enough research to realize it was a ROMpler -- soon after replaced it with a Yamaha MODX6 that I don't think I'll ever fully investigate or master, but I'm trying.

 

Old No7

[16251]

I almost forgot my most recent bust, the Casio PX-S3000. Could they at least included one authentic Rhodes sample, not. Hated the interface hierarchy, bad implementation of the left user knobs, the touch buttons, clunky action. In its favor it had a livable acoustic piano sample. Buying it immediately after release was saving grace, since I was able to sell it fast.

[The Real MC]

Moog Modular.  Horrible piano sound.  Keyboard was broken, wouldn't play chords.  You had to change all the wires to get a different sound.  I traded it for a kazoo.

[Jim Alfredson]

Roland VK7. I probably should've gone with the 'new' Korg CX3 (the digital one). The Roland didn't sound too bad except for the chorus / vibrato, percussion, and Leslie sim. Oh and those non-waterfall keys. Mine had the issue where it would sometimes randomly spit out digital noise at ear-bleeding levels without warning, requiring a hard power cycle. God that thing was a turd.

[TommyRude]

6 hours ago, Drew Schlesinger said:

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.

dang... I was going to say the D-50 was the most useful and gratifying keyboard I ever bought (slinks away in shame)

[Synthaholic]

15 hours ago, synthizen2 said:

Roland Juno-106.

 

I used to play it's predecessor, the Juno 60, which was vastly superior in sound.

 

Disappointing: Korg PA4X

Useless: Sequential Six-Trak

 

The Korg sounds were very blah, especially the pianos, as it doesn't have the Kronos pianos.

 

The Six-Trak did some things very well, like synth bass and MIDI implementation, but it was a one-trick (trik?) pony. Not a single lush sound to be found.

[jeffincltnc]

Hammond XK-2 around 2005.  Tried a few flavors of tube preamps and Motion Sound rotating amps to make it acceptable for me, but just no.  And not a single "extra sound" was usable.  Worst Rhodes ever by a landslide.

[stoken6]

Basically bought cheap boards too quickly: Kawai K1, Roland JX-01. Graduated to "midrange" Ensoniq and Alesis, which are much more satisfying.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[bill bosco]

that would definitely be a Hammond XB-2 , even had a hard case for it , which turned out to be the wisest choice in the whole deal as it ended up packed away

for a few months with a pile of other equipment crammed against it . even the guy who came out from Manhattan to finally buy it  was disappointed in it but he was really

desperate for an organ to play on . was more interested in my C3 

[marino]

On 3/15/2022 at 12:03 PM, mauriziodececco said:

Davoli Synth

 

Oh my brother.

At 15, I worked all summer at a gas pump (you could do that back then), to buy that horrible piece of crap. The DIY "synth" that I had assembled a year earlier in a wooden box sounded better. I sold it after two weeks of suffering, 'demanded' some money from my parents, and bought an FBT Synther 2000 instead. Slightly better - I used that for a while.

The main problem was that one of my friends had a Minimoog.......

 

Two bad experiences in one:

PPG Wave 2.2. I bought it without really knowing it. Used it in some concerts, hated it since day one. That metallic sound really got to my nerves, and the aliasing that some people seem to appreciate was a torture to my ears. The S/N was terrible. Plus, it kept breaking. The last strain was when it refused to start just on the verge of a major studio job. While it was in repair, the store provided me with a 'replacement' synth... an Akai AX60..!!

It's difficult to describe how awful *that* sounded. I brought it back the next day, demanded something decent, and got an AX80, which I used to finish the work. (Of course it helped that I also had a Chroma and a couple of samplers in the studio)

I sold the PPG right after that, losing a big chunk of money. Kept the Chroma for many years.

 

It's been fascinating to read everyone's stories.

[octa]

Haken Continuum, not that it’s not beautiful and fun to play with.. but it’s kind of like starting to learn violin at age 50. Programming your own sounds on Eagan matrix interface or just modifying presets requires much research and it’s a very sensitive fretless kb with additional axes so playing is a slippery experience. Haven’t had time to dig in, maybe at age 50 I’ll start. (next year)

[Threadslayer]

14 hours ago, eric said:

Poly-800 was pretty painful.

I had the "rack mount" version - the EX800 - very briefly. If possible, it sucked more than the Poly...

[ABECK]

7 hours ago, Synthaholic said:

 

Useless: Sequential Six-Trak

 

It always surprises me how much love this seems to get now.  On paper it looks good - combine 6 voices and slightly detune, yada yada.  But I never had any love for mine.  It was just a whole lot of meh...  But it's old and has wood endcaps, so the hipsters will continue to overinflate the value.

[Tom Williams]

Most disappointing: Alesis Fusion.  Sooo much potential, but they abandoned it before they fixed the software.   Soured me somewhat on Alesis as a company.

 

Most useless: a Hammond spinet (M102 I think) given me around 2009.  Although I was able to learn a bit about registration on it, the motor was too noisy, and I quickly discovered that 44-note keyboards and 13 note pedalboards did not bring me much joy.  I gave it away to a friend who gave it away to a friend, etc.

[OB Dave]

15 hours ago, octa said:

Haken Continuum, not that it’s not beautiful and fun to play with..

 

I spent waaaay too long playing with one at NAMM a few years back. Such a cool instrument. Some of the voices are amazing and do cool things when you slide back towards the back of the key. Thought it'd be fun to gig with in a band situation but I guess you've actually worked with it at some length and came to a different conclusion. 

 

I guess I'll have to go back to dreaming about a clav with the ken rich whammy bar. 

[Fleer]

1 hour ago, Tom Williams said:

Most disappointing: Alesis Fusion.  Sooo much potential, but they abandoned it before they fixed the software.   Soured me somewhat on Alesis as a company.

 

Got a newly boxed one some 15 years ago. And a QuadraSynth some 15 years before that. Never fired them up though …

[octa]

8 hours ago, OB Dave said:

 

I spent waaaay too long playing with one at NAMM a few years back. Such a cool instrument. Some of the voices are amazing and do cool things when you slide back towards the back of the key. Thought it'd be fun to gig with in a band situation but I guess you've actually worked with it at some length and came to a different conclusion. 

 

I guess I'll have to go back to dreaming about a clav with the ken rich whammy bar. 

Heh, Continuum doesn’t belong in this thread probably. The disappointment is me not making time to play it combined with the steep learning curve and price!

[Bobbo Fett]

For me it's a tossup between the Korg Poly 800 and the Alesis QS 7.1....never got to the gigging stage with either of them....

[Pa Gherkin]

Univox electronic piano like Edgar Winter used to wear around his neck. Bad action,bad sound and unreliable to boot. Although I grew to share the same disdain for the RMI as Steve Nathan had,returning to it after the Univox was a relief. Thank goodness I still had my B-3 to provide gigging joy.

 

Though not a keyboard,the worst peripheral I ever squandered money on was the Axxess Mapper midi mapper . What an inscrutable,useless timesuck that thing was.  After sitting on a basement shelf for thirty years it ended up in the town dump.

 

[ElmerJFudd]

At times it’s difficult to recall which thread your in… the best ones or the useless ones.  

 

[Al Quinn]

I bought a MiniMoog in the late 70’s that sounded great but wouldn’t stay in tune. Such a frustrating / bad experience 😩 

[Rofox]

Ahh, you've just reminded me. Mid 70's second hand ARP pro soloist...my first synth, bought to sit on the Wurli.  Same issue as you Al Quinn, it just wouldn't stay in tune despite three visits to various techs.  In fact I spent more on repair attempts than it cost to buy. When it worked it was glorious but sadly........😟

[David Emm]

My ultimate boat anchor was a Yamaha CP-20 e-piano, from the era in which their gear was all bolted to very dense, heavy wood. Ow, my back, said everyone who had to haul that around. Pretend to cough and say "CS-80" under your breath like a curse word. I could have handled it if it had sounded good, but it was totally lifeless and uninviting, regardless of settings. Arguably the biggest bucket of arse I ever bought.

[cphollis]

A big, heavy Yamaha CP series piano (can't remember which one), fun to play, sounded great -- until I tried to gig often with it.  Big mistake.  Learned the hard way that no one is around to help when it's time to lift up the piano.  I threw my back out twice trying to do it myself.  Weight matters.  Loved the buttery AP action though!

[DJkeys]

On 3/14/2022 at 7:41 PM, Ed A. said:

Funny, that was my number one favorite synth out of the tons of synths I had over the years. Had mine for ten years, the longest I had any synth. 

I had a Minimoog I bought new after lusting for one for years, Sold it about a year later for $650. It just wasn't my kind of instrument.

I loved my WS as well, had the 500th one made in 1993 kept it until 2018.  One of the coolest synths ever. Useless was the Roland AX-7 Keytar, impossible to program. I also bought the Korg RK100S in 2014 and sold it this year for what I paid.  They never updated the editor software, so it cannot be programmed on any modern computer-

 

-dj

 

-dj

[mpn_user7629]

On 3/18/2022 at 7:02 PM, David Emm said:

My ultimate boat anchor was a Yamaha CP-20 e-piano

 

I didn't really enjoy playing one too but for a time, it was all I had e-piano wise.

 

When the pandemic hit In 2020 , I saw a CP-30 outside a closed thrift store. I could have taken it home but said to myself FORGET IT!!!

[cp-the-nerd]

My Yamaha YPG-625. I bought it when I was young and ignorant, I didn't know anyone who could point me in a better direction. The longer I owned it, the more I realized I'd bought a glorified toy keyboard, but I didn't have the means to replace it for a loonng time. It has 500 tones and maybe 20 of them are decent. All of the interesting features/effects are buried in cumbersome menus and the preset favorite system is awful.

[CyberGene]

I'm really torn between loving and hating this board but since I sold it last week, let me put it in this thread: the MODX6 😀

 

I will give you one single example. This was my first rehearsal with the MODX6. I found a great arpeggiated sound, the guys loved it and we even decided to base a composition on it. So far so good. Then I decided to create a split: the arp on the left and a synth lead on the right. I did it from the regular screen where there's a nice visual representation of the note limits on each part. But then the problems started: I would play notes in the right part of the keyboard (the lead) which would still trigger the arp (the left part) although it sounded weird and incomplete. I was sure that was a bug and went into reporting it, etc.

 

And it turned out that the note limits you set for each part are not exactly what you think. They do not determine which keys on the keyboard control which part, no, no, no! Each part receives every keystroke, regardless of the note limits you set. However the note limits determine which notes will be heard. Are you following? And since we have an arpeggio that goes downwards, you play something in the right part (the lead) which triggers the arp on the left and because it goes arpeggiated downwards, those downward arpeggiated notes go into the allowed left region and are heard 🤣🤦🏻‍♂️ You have to go to a special arp menu where you can set which note keyboard input region is allowed. And then go in the regular split settings (those nice visual representations) and allow the entire note range because it's arpeggiated and you may be pressing keys on the left but produce notes across multiple octaves and you don't want to cut the notes there. You end up having a screen where you see a lead on the right and an arp that takes the entire keyboard but not, it's actually split (because of the custom arp settings buried in some menu) and you can't easily see that.

 

But here's an even worse consequence. You have an Arp on/off button. If you turn the arpeggio off, so that you use the arpeggiated sound as a pad, then the settings above totally mess up everything. Remember, we allowed the entire note range and the part is always receiving all key input and so you play the right part and hear it layered with that left part sound. (And the keyboard input limits are only valid for arpeggio mode which we turned off). So it's not possible to have a split with an arpeggiated sound on the left and a lead on the right where you temporarily turn off the arpeggio on the left through the arp on/off button. You have to save two different settings as two separate scenes. And the second scene (arp off) is one where the split is as you expect it.

 

That particular WTF situation made me hate the MODX and most of its architecture is a variation on that theme. Don't get me wrong, most of the sounds are killer and for the price it's probably the best there is. But it's not made for humans. I'm glad I replaced it with a YC73.

[ABECK]

Yikes - that sounds overly complicated!!  I don't use ARPs much, but I do appreciate the dedicated ARP on/off buttons for the upper and lower parts of a split on my JP80.  (And the ARP Hold button!!!)