KB Preference--What's Your Minimum Number of Keys?

[MathOfInsects]

For weddings where I also play cocktail hour (which is usually held separate from the reception area), I almost always play on a 61 for cocktail hour and then make it my top board for the reception. That way the rest of my rig is already set up, and if we have no turnaround time, as happens sometimes, I can just leave the cocktail board off completely until break (or forever).

I think I tried this once on a 49, for reasons I can't remember, and didn't think it was awesome, but didn't utterly hate.

As @ProfD says, for 37/49 to be really useful you have to be pretty nimble with the octave switch. Those youtubes of the ninjas at this are awesome, and also I'm not one of them. So 61 is my smallest "second board," and also my smallest "only board."

73/76 is probably my biggest board, for any live gigging, even solo. I mean, don't get me wrong, if they have a piano there I'll play it. But if I'm doing the carting? I like not carrying 88 keys more than I like having the 74th-88th keys to play on.

[Baggypants]

On 7/11/2022 at 9:49 PM, Al Coda said:

It's enough for christian contempary worship.

[Ed A.]

I used to think 61 was my minimum, but lately I use a KeyStep 37 most of the time.

[EricBarker]

Stupidly depends on context…

 

I saw a cat souly on bass duty using 2-octave Bassstation in a fusion band, and he rocked my world. I’m a piano/organ guy, but I’ll augment with any number of diminutive boards: 2 octave Seaboard, 3 octave PolyD. Etc.

 

For organ, I don’t want anything more than 61 keys, it just screws with my head. If I’m doing solo piano, 88 weighted, though 76 I could work with (unless I’m fucking around with some Ravel or something like that). I have a Casiotone that I use for jamming and outdoor rehearsal. And it’s actually been better than I anticipated at only 61 keys.

 

I say get comfortable with as much as you can, you can easily end up in situations where it makes sense to scale down, and you should be flexible enough to be awesome.

 

I’m doing a travel gig where the band leader wants me to use his 2-octave micro Roland synth, because we can carry it on the plane. I have a Nord Stage waiting at the other end for piano/organ stuff. Not usually my ideal setup, but it makes sense for an easy in-out situation.

[Mark Schmieder]

96 🙂

[Baldwin Funster]

1 hour ago, Mark Schmieder said:

96 🙂

Is that keys or tears?

[Al Coda]

7 hours ago, Mark Schmieder said:

96 🙂

 

69 works too !

 

 

A.C.

[SteveCoscia]

The answer to this question is.... it depends.

 

When starting out, I could only afford a 61 note keyboard (Univox Multi-Man) and was able to play everything required on 61 keys.

Years later, I bought a wooden, weighted action 73 key piano (ARP 4 Voice) and this became a sweet spot for years to come.

These days, I play an 88 key piano (Casio PX-560M) and the extra keys are nice but I rarely go outside the 73 key range. 

[vonnor]

For me it's more of "How many total keys do I need to cover all the different sounds for the song?"

 

Since I run with LOCAL=OFF on all of my keyboards, and send all MIDI events to the computer (Cantabile3 Live Host) before routing them back out to the appropriate combi/multi track on the appropriate keyboard, or internally to a VST instrument, I visualize the keys and sections of keys as generic controllers only.

 

Right now I have a 76 and a 61 and rarely have to do mapping or conditional routing magic to perform a tune. Conditional routing would be where say the bottom half of the kronos keyboard would route to combi-track-4 in the kronos when the Forte's foot controller is in the OFF position, but would route to DIVA (VST) when the foot controller is full-on.

 

Stuff like that.

 

~ vonnor (i heart midi)

[Viv Savage]

Like Iconoclast, I can do all the piano I need with my Forte 7.  I very rarely need more keys.   I like to keep a 61 above for synth/brass duties.  As an aside, with the Forte I can play neat MIDI tricks like having the Forte play an EP sound from the top board, while using the top board to play the Forte’s KB3 sound.  Took me a while to figure out how to get everything set up and retain drawbar/fader control from the Forte, but it works and it’s pretty slick!

[Dave Bryce]

10 minutes ago, Viv Savage said:

Like Iconoclast, I can do all the piano I need with my Forte 7.  I very rarely need more keys.   I like to keep a 61 above for synth/brass duties.  

 

 

dB