The best, most useful and enjoyable keyboard you ever bought?

[funkyhammond]

As someone who loves organ, the most useful has been my Nord C1 for dual manual portability, and the most enjoyable, hands-down, has been my Hammond A-100 and Leslie 147. It puts a smile on my face just looking at it. And then there's the smell. Turn it on, listen to the low hum swirling through the slow spinning horn and take in the aromatherapy. It's meditation. I'll take Hammond oil and humming Leslies over scented oils and droning didgeridoos any day. 

 

And then you play a few notes and the real fun begins...

[TWizzle]

Most Enjoyable: My Sohmer upright. First acoustic piano I've owned. Great everyday workhorse for practice.

Most Useful: Nord Electro 6D. Throw it in a backpack case, get all the bread and butter sounds I need.

Best: My new Nord Piano 5 73. I record with it a lot at home and it sounds and plays so great. Only had the opportunity to bring it to one gig so far, and it was killer.

[David Emm]

Korg O1Wfd workstation. All of the separate synths I'd ever played came together under one operational roof. I controlled outboard gear from its sequencer (wow) and basically learned how things worked, or not. I felt like Icarus the day I got it to command a Proteus/1 and Kawai K1.😮

 

I even made programming headway, figuring out how to build a decent rock piano from the carefully apportioned memory resources. I've had a couple of Tritons, but the O1W is still my gold standard, for both usability and Fun. 

 

In fact, I used Redmatica's Autosampler to preserve a lot of it before it croaked. I created a couple of godly pipe organs I still possess as a result. Likewise the TR61 I just gave to a music student. I'm doing that with a lot of things, now that AS is a Logic plug. 

 

I should have an Autosampler t-shirt, because I use that (bleep) on everything remotely "good."💪

[David Emm]

On 3/16/2022 at 1:43 PM, Polychrest said:

It’s an Alfred Hitchcock film:  Nord by Nordbest

He emits puns that make you hold your nose and run from the room, but he also quotes our dearly departed P. J. O'Rourke. A true bon vivant!🤓

[MotiDave]

On 3/15/2022 at 7:11 PM, justin_havu said:

Yamaha MODX7.  I've owned several instruments in the last 20 years, and this is by far the most powerful instrument in its price range that I could think of owning.  Does everything I need it to do, and does it all very well, at about half the weight of the Motif XS6 that it replaced.

Me too.

[felis]

In the past, the most fun was an Oberheim Matrix 6 I bought new right when it first came out.  I spent endless hours for years programming patches for it.

 

Currently, the most useful and enjoyable is my Kurzweil PC4.

[ABECK]

On 3/19/2022 at 2:02 PM, Stephen Fortner said:

The most useful was my first Kurzweil, a K2000 I bought in 1995 and still have. I say that because in terms of the number of different sounds I got out of it and ratio of paying gigs played to its cost, it has worked harder than anything I’ve owned since. That’s mainly because being a broke-ass grad student in the 1990s motivated me to squeeze every drop out of programming I could out of it, seek out aftermarket samples, etc.

 

 

I fondly remember playing the K2000 every time I went to my local music store (circa '92).  It looked great, sounded great and the action felt great.  Being a broke-ass college student myself, I could only dream.  It's one of those boards that I'd buy now just for nostalgia.  

[NewImprov]

On 3/16/2022 at 9:44 AM, EscapeRocks said:

In the last decade, it would be the Casio PX-5S.   I bought it shortly after it became available.

I was looking for an 88 note board, lightweight, with good piano sounds, and editable overall sounds.   The things I discovered it could do as far as controller function fit it perfectly with my then new transition into Mainstage.   The fact I can send MIDI and USB MIDI at the same time on the 4 zones within each stage setting make for some cool routing possibilities for Mainstage control, and external hardware board control.

It's been taken apart several times to change its color. It's been dropped.  It's been schlepped around to countless gigs, and while now having that nice "beat up" patina, it still works.

 

 

Overall it would be the Korg Triton Extreme 61 with MOSS board.   It introduced me to workstations and touch screen joy.  Which has finally led to my Nautilus 61

Nice to see some love for the PX-5s here. In a process of elimination, while thinking about this thread, I realized that the PX was probably the most used and most useful board I currently have. It's probably the only keyboard i can honestly say has paid for itself multiple times over on gigs. Until I started taking my Rhodes to gigs a few years back, it was my primary foundation keyboard, and I used a mix of its internal sounds and using it as a controller for Mainstage. While I might find my Rhodes, Minimoog or A100 more enjoyable to play, the PX has really been one of the best musical instrument purchases I've made.

[Zydecat]

For. me, the best is the SK Pro, and the and most useful is the SP6.  Most enjoyable is the Korg PA 1000 professional arranger, which I use solely at home for practicing and song creation.  The PA 1000 has very good sounds and styles, and the onboard speakers are surprisingly good quality . I can run a second keyboard (generally the SK Pro) into the audio in on the PA, which makes a very compact and simple home setup.  I also use the PA headphone jack for "condo friendly" playing of both keyboards.

 

[Dr88s]

On 3/15/2022 at 9:37 PM, drawback said:

Nord Stage 2 Compact. 

Same. 

[jarrell]

The best:

 

Hard to say, but my current keyboard, Kurzweil PC4, tickles all the corners - light weight, pretty decent weighted action, good bread and butter keyboard sounds, plus many orchestral and synth sounds, ability to load samples, good UI and Kurzweil VAST design... etc. A great choice for a one keyboard setup where you might want to layer and play multiple sounds, left hand bass, etc. or just play acoustic piano or Rhodes.

Before this it was my Casio PX-5S - similarly the action and keyboard sounds to weight ration was amazing.

 

Most useful:

 

Probably my Yamaha AvantGrand N1, which I bought 10 years ago. Practicing on a good action is so useful. I used to have a baby grand a friend gave me, and old beater, really, and the action was so light, that whenever I played a gig on acoustic piano, I had to struggle... I started to realize the hours of practice I put in on it were pretty useless from a technical standpoint, so I researched and purchased the N1. Never needs tuning, and the ability to not only instantly record my playing (with no need to worry about do I currently have a computer and interface setup and correctly connected with audio software running), but also then immediately slow it down to listen to how accurate my playing is with its metronome, is a great practice tool.

But back in the day, it was my Rhodes, which I bought in 72' and played until 83'. It was my main keyboard - paired with my Minimoog.

 

Most enjoyable:

 

Tie between my PC4, my N1, and my Minimoog which I bought in 72' - it was like buying a piece of the future 🙂 Sadly I haven't taken it out of the case for years, so now the piece of the future is a piece of the past.

[octa]

gotta give a shout out to my old combo of the original wooden korg cx-3 and Wurlitzer 200a + deluxe memory man. Played some fun shows on that setup. 

and before that DX7 + various module boxes did the job pretty well too. 

[Mills Dude]

Most useful? 

 

I gotta go with my Korg X-50.  Yeah, it doesn't get much love and it certainly had a lot of compromises but that little board was extremely useful for me.  I picked it up on a whim, when I went into a GC on a black friday.  Salesman was looking to make a deal and I just happened to have some store credit so he gave me a great price.    Of course the keybed is not great and the wall-wart connection and overall build quality are cheap but I dragged that thing around wherever I went and it never failed, in a unpadded roland bag no less.

 

It was a time when I was involved in a lot of different diverse projects -- worship gigs, sitting in with various bands and recording projects, vocal and ensemble rehearsals.  I used it a top board on so many gigs, paired with an RD700 or an Electro for a lightweight 2 board gig.   At 9lbs it was easy to use on the couch or plug in some computer speakers for a quick vocal rehearsal somewhere.

 

It's been retired for a while, but I still hold onto it.   Still love the Triton era sounds.

[jazzpiano88]

Keyboard/Controller:  Rhodes MK80 -> Yamaha P250 -> Yamaha CP300

Piano:  Yamaha C7D

 

[Moonglow]

Best: Kronos 88. Incredible keyboard on many levels.

 

Most useful: Prophet-5. Milked every sound imaginable out of that thing.

 

Most enjoyable: CP-70B. After years and years of attempting to cover AP piano songs on a Fender Rhodes, when this came along, it was true bliss.

[mpn_user7629]

Yamaha PSS-480.... laugh if you will

 

 

 

 

 

[Baggypants]

1 hour ago, mpn_user7629 said:

Yamaha PSS-480.... laugh if you will

 

 

 

 

 

I mean, I will, but you're also right. Sometimes the most useful and enjoyable keyboard is the one you have under your fingers.

[mpn_user7629]

It can't possibly be the best to me but it has become so in a strange way.

 

I've completely abandoned playing full-sized keys after I got used to it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Losendoskeys]

 

Best: Roland XP30 - most bang for the buck and great to play

 

Most useful: Kronos 73 - does everything

 

Most enjoyable: ARP Prosoloist - just hitting those Banks solos with the original synth makes my hair stand on end 

[Synthaholic]

I haven't read through entire thread but I'm betting I'm the only one citing the Alesis Quadrasynth+Piano. Definitely the most useful for me, as the best board for bread & butter sounds in the 1990s and somewhat beyond. I also enjoyed it immensely.

[pawelsz]

39 minutes ago, Losendoskeys said:

 

Most enjoyable: ARP Prosoloist - just hitting those Banks solos with the original synth makes my hair stand on end 

 

Dear Behringer, are you reading this? You know what I mean  please act

 

If I already joined this thread I would say:

The best: Yamaha P-515 for its action and general quality. 

The most useful: Roland FA-07 I don't have anymore but it was a great all-rounder at the time I was using it.

The most enjoyable: Korg SV-2 for its sound and coolness

 

 

[Iconoclast]

Nord Stage 3. There's a few things I wish they'd change/add, but right now I don't know what I'd do without it. It's made for the working musician and strikes a great balance of simplicity and ease of use, with quality and flexibility. Paired with Mainstage or a VST host, it's pretty much got it all. I wish they made a 7x key version with the Forte 7's keybed, real drawbars (with LEDs like the YC), a real pitch bend wheel, poly portmento, and expanded the effects section/routeing. Then it would be perfect.

[Aynsley Green]

The Yamaha YC88 with the v1.2 firmware.
It's everything I wanted the Nord Stage 3 88 to be - an action that isn't made of molasses, sounds that aren't a Disney-on-ice rendition of the instrument in question, a no-nonsense interface that isn't gummed up beyond comprehension with bullshit like morphing and aftertouch and a million 'Shift' functions written in tiny lettering, a professional looking-colour that can't be confused with a prop from a children's television show, a reasonable price with reasonably priced accessories, and from a company that has a reliable domestic support network, instead of having to send things away to Sweden and hoping they don't have a public holiday for the next three months.

[Spider76]

5 hours ago, Aynsley Green said:

The Yamaha YC88 with the v1.2 firmware.
It's everything I wanted the Nord Stage 3 88 to be - an action that isn't made of molasses, sounds that aren't a Disney-on-ice rendition of the instrument in question, a no-nonsense interface that isn't gummed up beyond comprehension with bullshit like morphing and aftertouch and a million 'Shift' functions written in tiny lettering, a professional looking-colour that can't be confused with a prop from a children's television show, a reasonable price with reasonably priced accessories, and from a company that has a reliable domestic support network, instead of having to send things away to Sweden and hoping they don't have a public holiday for the next three months.

Haha dude, it looks like you really had a bad time with your Nord!

Morphing and aftertouch are usually very high on people's list of reasons why they love their Nord Stage.

I agree that the "shift+button" functions are not ideal, but at least on the Stage you have a proper screen to guide you through that (on other Nords you don't even have that convenience).

The red color is of course a matter of taste, while Nord's reliability and customer support is normally considered another one of their strong points...but it depends a lot on the local service and distributor: in my country it works great, maybe in the US the situation is different.

 

But I agree that a global giant like Yamaha will always have several advantages over a small boutique company, especially with capillary distribution, availability and aftersale service

[lsj]

my korg poly six

[Aynsley Green]

14 hours ago, Spider76 said:

Haha dude, it looks like you really had a bad time with your Nord!

Morphing and aftertouch are usually very high on people's list of reasons why they love their Nord Stage.

I agree that the "shift+button" functions are not ideal, but at least on the Stage you have a proper screen to guide you through that (on other Nords you don't even have that convenience).

The red color is of course a matter of taste, while Nord's reliability and customer support is normally considered another one of their strong points...but it depends a lot on the local service and distributor: in my country it works great, maybe in the US the situation is different.

 

But I agree that a global giant like Yamaha will always have several advantages over a small boutique company, especially with capillary distribution, availability and aftersale service

 

I still have a Nord Stage 2 88 at work, I hate it so much 🤣. I had an Electro 6D for a time, which was a good portable bread and butter machine with a good organ action, but the hammer action on the 88- key Nords have never been up to par for me, especially given the price.
Have put in the procurement order for the YC88 at work, should be here in a month or two - then I'll actually be able to switch patches without the sound cutting out 😒

[brandon kraemer]

On 3/16/2022 at 3:48 PM, wineandkeyz said:

consider best, most useful, and most enjoyable as three different categories.

Best:  Hammond XK-5   dear lord it's way more than I ever deserve to play on.

Useful:  probably my SL-73 weighted action midi... although I have a love hate relationship with it.
Enjoyable:  Back to you XK-5

[Docbop]

For me it's the new Nord Stage 3 I got a week or two ago.   It sounds exactly like I hoped it would, I like the controls and I've only learned the basics.    I was playing a Kronos before it and it was just WAY TO MUCH keyboard for me and the learning curve for what I want to do just too steep.   The Kronos is great, but just not for me. 

[McMike]

A Yamaha S80. I bought it in 2000, pounded it for 22 years and its still going. My 1957 C3 beats it for total longevity, but I don't play it that much anymore. I play the S80 daily.

[ShadowMan]

Most fun: Korg CX3

 

Most useful: A series of Nord Electros

 

Most special: The Spinet piano my folks bought for me to learn on - and still sits in my living room 50+ years later.