How many 88s?

[ewall08530]

I have 3. 
Roland Rd 88- main gigging keyboard for solo, duo. 
Casio PX-3000- back up and my wife’s band rehearsal board 

Kawai EX 520- practice keyboard  and occasionally used for solo piano gigs. 

[Spider76]

Only one, and it stays home: the Kawai console DP in my living room.

For gigging, I moved to 73-keys boards only: Nord Stage 2EX Compact and Yamaha P-121. Couldn't be happier with this setup.

[octa]

Kawai VPC1 - home use, too heavy for gigging.

Yamaha YC88 - main gigging kb, would like a lighter board for this but digging this action and the features are great for this mostly single board user.

Roland FP-10 - for on-the-go practice & occasional gig.

 

Thought I had too many 88's 'til reading this thread. 

[brenner13]

Only one weighted 88: Kawai ES100…that sits propped up on on end, in the corner, in the case. Thought I needed to step up and get my piano chops back, but have terrible technique after decades of synth and organ playing. Wound up injuring myself. Still keeping it for when/if I start taking lessons again.

 

Two semi-weighted 88’s: both Studiologic; Numa Compact 2 that stays in the studio and a Numa Compact 2X that sees nearly every gig. Pretty dang good onboard sounds and pretty dang good controllers. The aftertouch is excellent, very expressive.

 

I’ve always preferred 76’ers:

Roland JX10 (my first real synth bought with my teenage lawn mowing money way back when)

Rhodes VK1000 (a pretty terrible early clonewheel, but made tons of gigs when I was a young-en)

Yamaha EX5 (really broadened the sound palette gigged on top of the VK1000; what a monster rig that was!!!)

Fantom X7 (I was getting older and the VK1000 was just too damn big to bother with; felt too confined with the X6 and had to trade up)

MODX7 (got an early demo model at a price too good to pass up; BOY do I miss aftertouch on that board and have dreams or nightmares about trying to Franken-synth the Fantom X’s keybed into it…HA!)

 

 

[The Real MC]

(1) Kurzweil MIDIBoard for studio

(1) Kurzweil MIDIBoard for gigging

(1) Kurzweil K1200 for simple piano events

[allan_evett]

I have three 88s right now: Kawai K-2 upright piano, Yamaha MODX 8, and Yamaha YC88.  The K-2 is my go-to for technique maintenance, etc. After being gigged steadily, the MODX 8 is now my workspace 88.  The YC88 replaced a Roland RD88 last summer, and has been on a handful of gigs so far.

Sometimes wish I'd kept the RD-88, for the conveniece of light weight and on-board speakers, but it wouldn't have been the wisest budget move at the time.  I find the YC88 to have a much more intuitive front panel interface for live playing; the FX options alone are immense, and highly musical. For core piano and EP tones it's a top-notch instrument. Though the synth 'section' editing is a bit unusual, the available tones - not seen in the factory presets - and features allow for a lot of creativity.  I recently discovered an outstanding set of free, custom patches (c/o Bill Blair on YT) and have been slowly integrating them into the YC - along with edits of my own.

 

Still, having a super-light 88 w/speakers... for rehearsals, open-mics and so forth. The Numa Compact 2X is a frequent temptation; still have the RD-88 case .

[skipeb3]

About that Yamaha from the Palomino Club...

Dave, it's a G1. 

AussieKeys, it has battle scars for days.

[timwat]

As I look at this thread, it seems we may all be on the same holy quest, that 88 that:

 

1) feels just like the finest concert grand

2) sounds just like the finest concert grand, through whatever amplification we throw at it including a Roland muppet hide amp

3) has built in speakers, that magically don't add to the overall weight

4) hopefully weighs something substantially less than 20 pounds

5) yet still has a full length, wooden weighted action

6) also has a killer rhodes, wurlie, CP80 (or no CP80, dammit)

7) and we'd love to have a full tone wheel engine with 9 sliders (because even James Bond insisted on 9 drawbar sliders)

 

But 7 is optional, because we're realists.

 

And so for me it was Helpinstill (but hey you still need to tune a real piano) to CP70 (Optimus Prime breaks into two pieces, but each had anvil cases) to Quadrasynth plus piano (ummmm nope) to RD300 to K2500 to K2600 to Kawai MP4 to CP4 to PX3 to PXS3000 and back to CP4. 

 

I like playing the CP4 substantially more than playing the PXS300, truth be told (and no surprise to those familiar with each). But tomorrow's gig I'm bringing the Casio, because sub 25 pounds and it's a backpack case schlep from the car.

 

 

 

 

[Mighty Motif Max]

I have access to four 88's, with two being "my own" 88's (i.e. the others are home-use digital pianos from when I grew up - Yamaha CLP-130 and CVP-305 Clavinovas). There's also a Yamaha P22 upright at home.

 

The 88's I actually own are a Yamaha Motif XF8 (my do-it-all board), and a Kurzweil PC4 (for use at college with limited space, and lightweight gigs).

[MathOfInsects]

Mason & Hamlin grand for me.
Hamilton (Baldwin) upright for the kids. 

No other 88-key keyboards, weighted or otherwise. But probably >500 total additional black and white keys spread out across a variety of boxes, slabs, and devices. 

[AUSSIEKEYS]

5 hours ago, skipeb3 said:

About that Yamaha from the Palomino Club...

Dave, it's a G1. 

AussieKeys, it has battle scars for days.

 

And a G1 too.

 

2 battle scarred G1s a world apart.