Recommend me a keyboard

Roland

My singer needs a keyboard to play the occasional synth, piano, or organ part in a few songs. It needs to be small, no more than two and a half octaves, so that it doesn’t get in the way, or provide a barrier between her and the audience. It’s going to be used for motifs, pads, and the odd solo. She will play standing up, and won’t play while she’s singing. 

As far as complexity goes, it needs to be easy to operate on stage. I’m happy to do any configuration off line, but operationally it should be either press the button for patch X and play, or I’ll change patches by midi from my AxeFX.

What can you recommend?

monquixote

Microkorg 2
Mini freak
Hydrasynth Explorer

Axe2Grind

I'd say either the Akai MPC Key 37 : MPC Key 37 | Akai Professional | Akai Pro

or

The new Arturia Astrolab 37 : Arturia - AstroLab 37

Both look very capable of covering your requirements but the Astrolab more so. Both in the same price range.

monquixote

Axe2Grind said:

It say either the Akai MPC Key 37 : MPC Key 37 | Akai Professional | Akai Pro

or

The new Arturia Astrolab 37 : Arturia - AstroLab 37

Both look very capable of covering your requirements but the Astrolab more so and might be more wallet friendly.

I'd be concerned about the MPC as it's more of a groovebox.

Benn Jordan did a video about using it live and was not impressed (lots of latency on patch changes etc). 

Astrolab could be a shout, but it has a weird tiny control panel.

Axe2Grind

monquixote said:

Axe2Grind said:

It say either the Akai MPC Key 37 : MPC Key 37 | Akai Professional | Akai Pro

or

The new Arturia Astrolab 37 : Arturia - AstroLab 37

Both look very capable of covering your requirements but the Astrolab more so and might be more wallet friendly.

I'd be concerned about the MPC as it's more of a groovebox.

Benn Jordan did a video about using it live and was not impressed (lots of latency on patch changes etc). 

Astrolab could be a shout, but it has a weird tiny control panel.

Yeah I think you're right on the MPC Keys. 

I think the Astrolab would make a great gigging keyboard for the OP. I've played the 61 note version and surprisingly the display is pretty cool and easy to use but does look weird.

midiman1962

+1 for korg microkorg - my version has a pc editor which makes patch creation and ordering a lot easier 

horse

Another +1 for microkorg given the OP requirements

octatonic

Someone called Roland should have.... a Korg.

bassbora

@thecolourbox always has good suggestions as well.  Maybe he has some ideas.  

Basher

It seems like quite a big ask to me.

The current suggestions are for synthesisers. Many of these now come in the required mini key size. They are great for synth sounds (basses, leads, pads, fx) but the op mentions piano and organ parts.

A synth might do a decent organ or Rhodes sound but is unlikely to do a very convincing acoustic piano. I suppose it all depends on the degree of authenticity required (you probably don't need a massively realistic Steinway D). Also budget is clearly crucial.

Anything that combines synth sounds with realistic piano and organ sounds is typically called a "stage keyboard" or "stage piano". Being more player focused these tend to have full-size keys and at least 61 of them. Something like the Yamaha CK61 would fit the bill sound wise, and is easy to operate, but is too big.

There are the Yamaha Reface series but they come in epiano, organ and synth variants so not much help. 

Maybe an old "rompler" would be a better fit? You could get all the sounds in one unit and play them from the specified mini controller keyboard. 

thecolourbox

bassbora said:

@thecolourbox always has good suggestions as well.  Maybe he has some ideas.  

I think you may be overestimating me here my friend! I'm only useful on the piano side of things and even then only from a player point of view, not a gear point of view. I dont know anything about synths I'm afraid - I'd probably echo what Basher has said above though, the examples given seem more synth based and wouldn't really be great for piano or organ. Unless the MPC/Astrolab ones come with some kind of generic piano & organ sounds?

I suppose if they do, and the brief is just to play single handed basic chords etc then they might not be too bad if the aim is to just get away with a few sounds here and there.

I have a Yamaha MX49 which is bigger (49 keys) than those listed above but has loads of piano, e-piano and organ sounds as well as some synth sounds. But it's very light and flimsy so in a gig situation I'd want it bolted down as I feel it might fly away if somebody walks past too quickly

octatonic

Basher said:

It seems like quite a big ask to me.

The current suggestions are for synthesisers. Many of these now come in the required mini key size. They are great for synth sounds (basses, leads, pads, fx) but the op mentions piano and organ parts.

A synth might do a decent organ or Rhodes sound but is unlikely to do a very convincing acoustic piano. I suppose it all depends on the degree of authenticity required (you probably don't need a massively realistic Steinway D). Also budget is clearly crucial.

Anything that combines synth sounds with realistic piano and organ sounds is typically called a "stage keyboard" or "stage piano". Being more player focused these tend to have full-size keys and at least 61 of them. Something like the Yamaha CK61 would fit the bill sound wise, and is easy to operate, but is too big.

There are the Yamaha Reface series but they come in epiano, organ and synth variants so not much help. 

Maybe an old "rompler" would be a better fit? You could get all the sounds in one unit and play them from the specified mini controller keyboard. 

Yep.
It is tough to find all this in a tiny keyboard.
There are loads of 61 note keyboards that will do the trick.

The Roland Go Keys is the one I see a lot in teaching rooms- they are not high end but they do a decent job of bread and butter sounds and are only £300 new. They sound... adequate. They are the SM58 of keyboards.

Then up to £600 you get the Roland VR-09, Yamaha MX61etc. This is the sweet spot for a lot of people.

Then you jump up to something like the Nord Electro, and you are into better feature set, keyboard action and such.
I have a 76 key Electro 6D in the studio and it is brilliant. But £2k. You can pick up the 61 note for around £1100 if you are patient.

With 37 full sized keys... there really isn't much. The Astrolab, the MPC Key 37. I have no experience with either but I would trust Arturia to do a much better job of it than Akai. 

There are loads of controllers and you use a laptop but that isn't an easy option.

stickyfiddle

I know nothing of this stuff but that Astrolab looks brilliant and I want one 

Basher

As both @octatonic and @stickyfiddle have said, the Astrolab looks closest to meeting the OP's requirements.

I jumped on before checking it out. Definitely branded as a stage keyboard so it'll do the sounds and to a pretty high quality, knowing Arturia. 

It's still slightly larger than the spec, keyboard wise but surely it's not too big?

Roland

Update. The microKorg meets the size requirement, but doesn’t have the sounds we need. The Arthurian Astrolabe 37 has the sounds, but is more than she can afford. Unless a secondhand one turns up …

monquixote

https://www.andertons.co.uk/korg-microkorg-xl-plus-synthesizer/

There you go.

Has pcm also.

octatonic

Roland said:

Update. The microKorg meets the size requirement, but doesn’t have the sounds we need. The Arthurian Astrolabe 37 has the sounds, but is more than she can afford. Unless a secondhand one turns up …

You will be extremely lucky to find a used one right now- they have just been released.
The 61 has been out a bit longer.

monquixote

Also an op6 in the classifieds which will do piano and organ sounds although of the 80s FM flavour.