piano woes

[jwgh]

On Thursday, Chris Turner mentioned to me that Keith Munslow (pianist in the Superchief Trio) has to get a new keyboard every two years.

I've had my current electronic piano, a Korg C-150, since 1999. I've been very happy with it; it's not exactly like playing a real piano (no keyboard can quite match that), but it's the next best thing and has a good sound, a full-sized keyboard, and weighted keys. (The two big advantages over an actual piano is that it never needs to be tuned and is relatively portable.)

In recent months, however, I've noticed that on occasion it will change sounds in the middle of a song, so that suddenly I'm playing a harpsichord in the middle of a blues song. This doesn't happen that often, but it seems like its years on the road are catching up to it.

I think I will keep it for home use, because it is a good keyboard and has built-in speakers, but I think I should start looking in to getting a new keyboard for use at shows. I still want a full-sized keyboard and weighted keys. I definitely don't want built-in speakers this time, as they weight a ton and I am tired of carrying that much weight up the stairs to my apartment early in the morning after shows.

Comments

Go component?

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

I haven't really looked in a long time and I definitely don't know much about realistic imitation instrument sounds, but even the best synths I try out on my occasional trips to Alto Music have damn cheesy keyboards. I'd look at keyboard controllers and synth/sampler modules separately rather than trying to find both in a single good box. I'm thinking a good combination for me might getting a Roland JP-8080 and controlling it with my sad old Korg DW-8000 (one of whose many winning features was the least cheesy keyboard of the new synths at the time), whose MIDI output is its one reliable part left, and then checking out the various semi-weighted 61-key controllers that seem to run around $200.