Hello

I'm sure something this must have been covered before but if it has, my searching skills aren't up to finding it.

My main keyboard set up is a midi controller with a laptop running Elektrik Piano, NI B4, Akoustic Piano and the rest of the Komplete bundle. It's great soundwise, but as I'm playing live a bit more now, I want a hardware keyboard for extra reliability and simplicity. Need Rhodes, organ, clav and occasional acoustic piano sounds.

Which naturally led me towards the Nord Electro, but they're sooo expensive, especially when I prefer the sounds I get from my plugins. So I'm wondering if anybody knows of something similarish to the Nord Electro but for around £250, or less if poss... I know it's a big jump down but I'm basically just looking for something that will do a competent imitation of those instruments - we're not really playing on top notch PA's so I'm not worried about that last 5% of sound quality as it just gets lost anyway.

Very grateful for any suggestions

Thanks

Tom

Last year I sold my fully spammed up Kurzweil K2000 for 170 quid. If you can pick up another anywhere even close to that I think you'll be happy with the results. All of the sounds you mention and more.

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An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

EMu Vintage Keys/Pro? I can't vouch for it myself! So here's Paul Ward's take on it...

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr03/articles/emuvintagepro.asp

"The Clavs are excellent, with all the grit and cut you'd want to expect."

"The electric pianos are also marred by the use of over-obvious hard and soft switched samples, and although the Hammond organs are excellent, they represent but a small selection of the many possible Hammond sounds, and the choice may not be to your taste"

Maybe not then?

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http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale
http://www.mixcrate.com/richieroyale

Thanks both.

The Elf - from a bit of looking around, seems like you were pretty generous in selling your Kurzweil for £170! Ebay price was more like £400.... But actually there weren't any bids at that price so maybe they were just trying it on. Second hand is definitely a good idea though.

From a look through the reader ads, there are a couple of Korg Tritons on. I remember these being the instruments I used to fantasise about buying when I was about 16! Anybody tried out the classic keys sounds?

Richie - good call on the EMU modules. Do you happen to know anything about the keyboard sounds on the EMU vintage keys? All the articles/demos I've found are more about the synth sounds. There seems to be more about the epiano sounds on the Vintage Pro.

But if the Vintage Keys would do it, def looks like a cheap solution

The vintage Keys ROM will cover most those basses reasonably well, except the acoustic piano, which from memory it doesn't have at all (well there's a not too bad CP70 piano) The Electric pianos are OK, some of the hammonds are actually pretty good, and then a smattering of 70s/80s synths from the likes of Oberheim, Moog, and Sequential many of which are excellent, there are a few pretty good trons.

It is massively improved by the addition of effects, the whirlie and rhodes particularly like some chorus.

Any of the proteus boxes (P2K, Vintage, MoPhat, etc) will accept any of the EMU ROMs from that era, as will the keyboards like the Vintage Keys, the PK6, etc, so a possible solution is to get hold of any of them and get a vintage ROM.

The quite rare Ensoniq Halo keyboard had a ROM that contained all of the Ensoniq ZR76 sample set including the (then) rather good Coakley Perfect Piano and combining that ROM with the vintage ROM in one of the EMU boxes or keyboards would cover pretty much everything you are after.

Don't expect modern workstation performance, but it would get you by on stage.

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New album 'Fantasy Bridge' available now!
Making of Fantasy Bridge Diary

+1 on the kurzweil K2k. Elf you did someone a big favour at that price! Should be able to find one for 300 or a bit less though.

It doesn't have a big variety of rhodes, hammond but it has lots of very usable keyboard sounds of all shapes and sizes, and if you like tweaking it's a dream. Lovely for sound design if a tad complex to learn.

triton would be a good alternative - even a trinity maybe? - I don't know them very well but they are very nicely priced s/h and a serious keyboard that plenty of people have used.

Alternatively there's always the rack options as presumably you have a controller kybd already. Roland JV2080 or XV5050 have huge ranges of quality sounds.

I've always found the EMU stuff a bit disappointing somehow, the sounds don't seem to inspire much

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musics

it's definitely worth trying the assorted Proteus modules. They can often be found very cheap. The Vintage Keys has most of the sounds you need, and if you don't like the piano's on that, the Proteus has a good selection. Worth an audition at least.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Another +1 for the Kurzweil, my ageing K2vx is still regularily gigged, I've had it for 12 years, never let me down and its never been serviced. Still sounds great, its also still very rewarding when you feel like programming new synth sounds. I'm about to sell my 2 year old Roland rd700gx, to replace it with a Nord electro strangely enough. Would I sell my Kurzweil? Never, I would actually like a second K2 as a back up. £400 sounds a bit steep.
With best regards,
Mark

Thanks very much to everyone for advice on this. In the end I went with a second hand EMU PK-6, the keyboard version of the Proteus 2000 at £145. It's pretty good. Organ sounds particularly have a lot of character. Clavs are fine, EPs perhaps a bit flat but that always seems to be the way with samples. The weakest point is the acoustic pianos, but I guess it's a hard instrument to capture in 16MB or whatever it is they have.

I haven't really got into the sound design possibilities yet but it's definitely a bonus to have them