Help... Im a beginner

[Dr Teeth]

I have been playing piano for about 8 years. I am new in all this of music tecnology. Now I want to start my own studio and I need a keyboard whit sequencer, but I also need a stage piano to play in a church. I was thinking in buying a Sp88x(kurzweil) to use it as a controller and a alesis QSR, but i have found an incredible price for a K2500R at www.musiciansfriend.com. In the topic K2500R Vrs. Triton i read that the triton has many more waveform memory... But i have no idea what it is??!!!... could you help me?. Also please give me any tips for a beginner like me... I have pratically nothing of synthetizer and all that words and concepts... Is there any web page that has all this basic information?. Also I want to know if it is posible to conect some of that yamaha drum pads to a key board and play the brum patterns there... Thank you so much... and God bless you all

[Dave Bryce]

Some questions:

 

Have you played these instruments?

If so, which appealed to your ears and hands the most?

What is your budget?

 

I'm inclined to think that a K2500 may not be the ideal instrument to start out with - it is one of the most powerful synthesizers ever made, and may not be the best way that you can spend your $$$.

 

Consider getting two separate keyboards - one for home, and one for church. You may want to consider the Alesis DG8 for the church application - it has three totally different stereo piano samples onboard, it's ridiculously easy to work so it'd be good for a beginner, it has an unbelievable onboard sound system, and you can expand it with their Sanctuary expansion card which has many great sounds for worship applications.

 

Also, consider using your computer to sequence at home, instead of going with a workstation - that will greatly broaden the range of instruments that you can buy to use there, greatly increase your sequencing capabilities, and save you money.

 

dB

[pianoman_nsyahoo.com]

First of all..... if you give a price range people will be able to help you more.... Ok, let me give you a few simple definitions that should help...... (I hope)

 

Waveform mem = The amount of memory (like a hard drive on computer, somewhat) that the sounds are stored in...... a higher number generally means more sounds and higher quality sounds.

 

Polyphony = The number of notes that you can play at a time..... unlike a piano, a keyboard has it's limits in this area. The higher the better.... 48-64 should be sufficient for most stuff (most patches [the sounds] on most keyboards use more than one tone [the basic block of sound] to produce the sound..... this cuts the polyphony in half, or in thirds, or in quarters.... etc.) so if you have a "patch" that uses two "tones" (or voices) you will only be able to play half as many notes as your polyphony (you might have already known all this..... but you said "beginner"

 

Multi-timbral,timbrality,etc. = the number of "parts" you can record with a midi sequencer..... it should be 16 or 32 or something like that.... 16 is standard I would say.

 

Arpeggiator = These things are pretty cool..... you just play a chord or whatever else you want...... and the synth plays a pattern such as guitar strumming, or piano comping or etc, etc, etc

 

Ok...... for what it's worth.... here's my recommendations: If you absolutely need all 88-keys, I would say look at the Yamaha S80, Roland XV-88, and the Korg Triton ProX and the Kurzweil K2500 or K2600(the first two I listed [Yamaha and Roland] DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT!! have sequencers onboard.... you'd have to use an external sequencer such as a computer or a Roland MC-50 (or other hardware sequencer)) or like you were thinking to do..... go with a controller and then get a sound module. I have the Roland XV-88 and I think it surpasses both the Triton and the Kurz in just about every category..... it has more waveform memory (64Mb) than either of the others, more polyphony (128), more expandability (20 expansion cards now, I think) etc, etc...... plus, it's about $1000 less (I got mine for $2150) than either of them (well.... maybe not the Kurz.. I haven't seen MF's price on it yet.)

 

Now if you can get by with 76 keys.... you might look at the Roland XP-80 and the Ensoniq ZR-76.... both of which are supposed to have very good sequencers and good sounds in general. The Roland XP-80 is also (like the XV-88) very expandable (18 cards for it now??) Well.... hope I helped some...... you could also go to www.synthzone.com and go to the bulletin board there (not to take anything away from DB and company.... but it's always good to look at many different sources of info)

 

 

Oh..... I almost forgot..... yes you can hook up a Yamaha drum pad thing (I assume your talking about one of the DD-** series) as long as they have MIDI connectors on them.... you can run a midi cable from the DD-** to the keyboard you get and use the sounds on the keyboard or sequence from the keyboard (although this might take a bit of work to setup, and get it working right)

 

Ok... that's it...... hope it helped.

[dansouth]

Latin - the K2000R is a very nice unit, and as you mentioned, you can buy one for very little money these days. Keep in mind that it is a RACK mount unit, meaning that it has no keyboard of its own. You'll have to have another MIDI keyboard or controller in order to play it's sounds. The K2000 series has very good drum sounds - full and punchy - along with many other good sounds. The unit is easy to use, but as you get to know it, you'll find that it has an extensive feature set that can keep you going for years.

 

One word of caution: check the unit out thoroughly when it arrives. I've had some trouble with Kurzweils out of the box. Two of them had to be sent back for replacement or repair. Also, consider purchasing from Sweetwater ( http://www.sweetwater.com ). They have a lot of experience with the Kurzweil line.

 

Hope this helps.

[stratman_dup1]

I don't have near the experience most people on this board have but I would give one suggestion. If you want to do sequencing and are strictly sequencing in your studio, don't need to take sequences with you, I HIGHLY recommend using your computer for this.

 

I made the newbie mistake of getting a Keyboard workstation because I wanted to do the same thing. Only when I got the workstation and found out just how lacking it's sequencer was, not to mention how hard it is to program with that tiny screen and numerous menus, I turned around and got a sequencing program for my computer anyway.

 

I could have saved some cash or gotten a better synth if I had just gotten the sequencing software in the first place. Software sequencers are much easier to use, see, and more powerful (most of the time), than what you will get with a built in sequencer.

 

Just my opinion, you may agree or disagree at will.

[dansouth]

I agree. If you HAVE a computer (one that's not too old), software sequencers are much more powerful than hardware sequencers. But if budget is a problem, some of the hardware sequencers are quite nice, the Kurzweil and the Triton especially.

 

I'd like to try to explain the concept of waveform ROM a little more thoroughly for anyone who's still confused. One type of synthesizer that is very popular these days is the "sample playback" synthesizer. Some examples are the Roland JV and XV series, Yamaha S80 and CS6x, Kurzweil K2x00, Korg Triton, Trinity, 01W, etc.

 

When the engineers design one of these instruments, they go into a recording studio and make digital recordings of single notes from a variety of real instruments: pianos, organs, trumpets, guitars, saxophones, even other synthesizers. These recordings are stored on a memory chip. If you read that a synth has 8M of waveform ROM, it means that this chip holds 8 megabytes of recorded waveforms.

 

When you play a piano patch on one of these synthesizers, you are actually playing back the engineers' original recording of the piano, hence the name "sample playback". The synthesizer has a number of computer functions that can change what that piano sounds like - subtly or radically - but the fundamental sound comes from that original recording.

 

Analog, FM, and analog modeling synthesizers work differently. They create sounds using other methods, i.e. they are not playing back a recording.

 

When comparing two sample playback synthesizers, one spec that you can compare is the amount of sample ROM. If, for instance, one synth has 8M of ROM and another has 16M, the second one may have more waveforms, or it may have fewer waveforms, but those may have been sampled with more generous memory, giving them higher fidelity (with all other factors held constant). The Kurzweil K2000 and K2500 have 8M of ROM, but the waveforms sound very good, because Kurzweil's engineers went for quality over quantity. Some other synths squeeze more waveforms in the same space, so they have to use compression and other tricks which can lower fidelity.

 

One of the more important criteria in selecting a sample playback synth is the quality of the initial waveforms, because you can only get so much mileage out of processing and effects. If you don't like the basic waveforms, you'll probably tire of the instrument very quickly. Keep in mind that some synthesizers allow you to install plug-in boards that contain additional waveforms. This can expand the instrument's capabilities significantly.

 

Good luck!