Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Stage piano for Rock gigs

Hello!
I want to buy my first stage piano and I want it for rock gigs. We will play Doors and psychedelic music so I need it to have many good organ sounds , rock organ, leslie etc..
I don't know what to buy, I don't know which brands are good. I don't know If perhaps it is better for this situation, to buy a synthesizer, or not. Please help me.
I can't spend more than 1300 euros.
What's your opinion about Kurzweil SP6 in general and especially for my situation?
Is MIDI necessary for my situation?
Your help will be very much appreciated!
Thanks in advance!

Do you need 88 keys and a hammer action? Will you play any piano parts? How big of a role they play? Maybe you don't need a "stage piano" per se? Or maybe you do if the piano is an important factor.

Why do think you think that MIDI might be relevant? Would the stage piano/synthesizer produce all the sounds? Or would you like to control external devices? Or maybe control the stage piano via midi somehow? Make a setlist of presets or something?

There's also e.g. the Kawai MP7SE that's almost within the budget. Casio might also have some cheaper ("less good") options like PX-5S and PX-560M. Some StudioLogic models could be relevant too. And the Korg SV-1 probably is too expensive.

But seriously speaking I don't have experience of stage pianos and/or performing. Just giving the discussion a nudge forwards...

I was a bit harsh on Casio. Some models do have a lot of potential of course:

Two questions:

* Do you want a keyboard feel (action) that is optimized for piano and not really great for organ, or an action that is optimized for organ and not really great for piano?

* Do you need to split the keyboard to play different sounds with your left and right hands? (Doors' Ray Manzarek often played a bass sound with his left hand while playing another sound with his right.... but that's not necessary if you're playing with a bass player.)

For an organ-centric (as opposed to piano-centric) board, I'd look at Vox Continental (the 73 key since you'll also be playing piano on it), if you don't need splits. The other main choice in that price range would be the generally more flexible Roland VR730 but it's not as good at the transistor organs (though it might be good enough). I'd also give the Vox the edge over the Roland on EP sounds, which is another staple of that era.

Everything you're looking at will have MIDI. It is not needed to do what you want (assuming the keyboard does have sounds you're happy with), but it gives you more future expansion options.

[quote=clothearednincompo]Do you need 88 keys and a hammer action? Will you play any piano parts? How big of a role they play? Maybe you don't need a "stage piano" per se? Or maybe you do if the piano is an important factor.

Why do think you think that MIDI might be relevant? Would the stage piano/synthesizer produce all the sounds? Or would you like to control external devices? Or maybe control the stage piano via midi somehow? Make a setlist of presets or something?


1) Yes I need 88 keys and a hammer action
2) I have important role
3) Yes i am not sure if i need a stage piano
4) But yes I want to be able to play the piano in this instrument too.
5) The piano will not produce all the sounds. I don't know If MIDI is important this is shy I asked.

[quote=anotherscott]Two questions:

* Do you want a keyboard feel (action) that is optimized for piano and not really great for organ, or an action that is optimized for organ and not really great for piano?

* Do you need to split the keyboard to play different sounds with your left and right hands? (Doors' Ray Manzarek often played a bass sound with his left hand while playing another sound with his right.... but that's not necessary if you're playing with a bass player.)


1) I want a keyboard feel that is optimized for piano
2) We have a bass player but who knows in the future? So yes I would like to be able to split the keyboard.

What sounds do you need that you do not expect to find inside the keyboard you buy? What device will you need to connect to get these sounds? (The connection will be via MIDI protocol no matter what, but there is the possibility of using standard MIDI jacks or MIDI over USB.)

Anyway, for an 88 in your price range with above average organ sounds (with drawbar setting adjustability), the Kurzweil SP6 looks to be the board of choice, with the Kawai MP7SE and Roland FA-08 also available at just a bit outside your budget. There are pros and cons to each... travel weight, feel of action (both for piano and for organ), quality of the sounds that matter to you, patch navigation, sound editability... and I don't know how their transistor organ sounds compare.

The 3x bread & butter sounds you need for Rock are: Organ, Piano and Synths. Whatever your setup those are the main sounds you need to cover. (EPs are used occasionally, but are more useful in other modern genres.)

Most of the rock rigs I've used and seen use 2 keyboards. The main keyboard is usually a workstation to cover Pianos and Synths with the 2nd keyboard for Organ.

He said it was for "Doors and psychedelic music" so not much synth, it didn't really exist in popular music until you get toward the end of the psych era. Well, okay, theremin for Good Vibrations. ;-) Even things like covering strings or horns isn't much of a concern for that stuff, though there could be some (Doors' "Touch Me" comes to mind... though you don't necessarily need to try to duplicate the orchestration). Definitely some EPs. (Riders on the Storm Rhodes, though you'll certainly find Wurli/Pianet in the era, like She's Not There). Harpsichord. Putting sounds through effects. Maybe Mellotron, which gets you things like the Strawberry Fields and the Stones' 2000 Light Years From Home.


I find the synth+organ combo for the second board more common, though personally, synth on the piano board works well for me too.

Getting back to this...

I had said that whatever's not in the piano would be triggered by MIDI, but not necessarily. If these are samples you're talking about, sometimes you can load them into the keyboard. The FA-08 lets you trigger custom samples from its pads, for example.

If two boards is an option, I would recommend a second-hand Nord Electro 3 (61-key), partnered-up with something like a Casio PX-160 to serve as a weighted-key controller.

EDIT: Just remembered that the Casio does not feature a MIDI out connector (just USB-MIDI)...

Kurzweil SP6 seems the best keyboard for that purpose and within that budget.

Hi Lento,

These in my opinion are the board's I'd choose between giving your stipulations.

Korg SV-1, Korg Grandstage.
Nord Stage 3
Hammond SK-1 *88 note version
Kurzweil Artis or Forte
Physis K4
Kawai MP7SE or MP7
Roland RD800 or RD2000
Roland VR-09

Out of these, the Kurzweil's are known to be good for durability. Obviously the downside to Kurzweil from a Piano POV is that they use Fatar actions. However, if you're gigging and playing organ, perhaps you want a hybrid action such as the waterfall type hybrid action in the Hammond SK-1.

The Kurzweil Artis / Forte, Kawai MP7/SE and Roland VR-09 as well as the Hammond (obviously) have great organ sounds. The Korg SV-1 has amazing EPs (modeled), as does the Physis K4 (which is a good midi controller like the MP7 is).

For that budget, I think you're best looking for a used deal. That way, you get a much better set of functions for your live playing.
The Nord Stage 3 is also great. Don't know if you can get a used Nord.

I would certainly look to try:
Korg SV-1
Kawai MP7 (great value and built like a tank with it's metal casing)
Roland VR-09 (modelled organs)

All of these are good value and fit the organ sounds requirement.
The Hammond maybe a great idea---finding one to test might be an issue.

Kind regards,

Doug.

Not sure where the OP is but there were a couple of Hammonds on the shop floor in Bonners Eastbourne the other week. One was an SK3, but I don’t know about the other one. It sounds to me like the OP is starting out, so I’m not convinced buying a Hammond is one way to go.

Good point, Bonners do have some Hammonds!

Seems the OP doesn't specifically say that they are a beginner, just that this is the first time they require a stage piano and that the OP has an important role.
So I assumed a more accomplished player.

Hi LentoDoloroso,

(I'm not affiliated with Yamaha or any music store). Having read your requirements, I recommend testing out Yamaha CP88. It's in the same price range of the other models recommended in this thread, yet it's one of the lighter ones. It's an important consideration if you don't have a fixed venue that you gig at. Hear how it sounds yourself, because the only person who can like/not like the sound is you.

For the user interface, having gotten used to my CP73, I can say that I like the new CP's approach. Splits, octaves, and layers are directly accessible without going to the menu / looking at the little screen.

I also like their SSS (Seamless Sound Switching) feature where you can switch sounds but the recently played note(s) will still play. The RD2000 doesn't do that (or at least the model that I tested could not).

I hope you'll find what you're looking for.

EDIT: I forgot to add, using the Yamaha Steinberg USB driver you can use the CP as an audio interface. The sound is then produced out of the stereo outputs (both jack and XLR ones) of the unit. What this practically means is that the sound coming out of the CP will be both the on-board sound and the sound from your software, e.g. Apple MainStage, Cantabile for Windows, etc.

Organ and Synth sounds are below mediocre in CP88. Kawai MP7SE does seamless switching too.

In my humble opinion, CP88 is more suitable for specific genres of Jazz that doesn't need Organ and Synth sounds!

As an SP6 owner that plays a lot of Rock & Pop across many decades, the SP6 has been great for that. The SP6 sounds very good and has really good bread & butter sounds in addition to other 'key' sounds. Just last night we were talking about doing "Use Me" by Bill Withers and sure enough there is a Clavinet patch that sounds very very close to the original. It is very flexible in that its easy to program multiple splits and layers and is a very good midi-controller. I also have a Roland VR-06 that I have used on top of the SP6, but really if I had it to do over again I would have bought the VR-730 or preferably the Vox Continental instead of the VR-06. The SP6 has a very good organ emulator, I rarely us the VR-06 anymore. My only complaints with it are draw bars controlled by knobs is limiting for live performance and I wish it had more than 5 favorites. I ended up marking the patch numbers for songs on the setlist, it doesn't take much to enter it in, but I would rather just press one button and play. For a stage piano for the kind of music I play it's almost perfect. Been thinking about adding a mac book and mainstage or an iPad for patch selection but only because I already own them.

The choice is yours, LentoDoloroso. It's your tastes in organ sounds that matter.

For that era you need piano, electric piano Rhodes suitcase, Hammond B3 sounds, and transistor organ sounds such as Vox Continental or Farfisa.

The cheapest reasonable option probably would be a Roland Juno-DS88. The piano sound would be inferior to some of the above mentioned keyboards for classical piano repertoire, but would be effective at being heard through the dense mix of electric guitars in a rock band, and would work fine for rock solos. The keyboard is one of the lightest available with weighted 88 keys, and can run on batteries.

Electric pianos on this keyboard are excellent. Organs are good. You will need to route the organ patches through the built in tremolo effect if you want a Leslie effect.

The Juno-DS88 has a virtual SRX slot which means that if you want to add some sounds to the keyboard, instead of buying an SRX hardware card to add, you can download then from Roland’s axial site to a USB thumb drive and load them into the keyboard via USB.

The Ultimate Keys SRX card has a large variety of keyboard sounds from the 60’s. Instead of paying $200-300 for the card for earlier keyboards, you can download the sounds you want for free from Roland’s axial site. As an example, you can get Mellotron patches that way.

Whatever you decide, be sure to consider a floor monitor (so you can hear what you are playing during a performance), practice amp for rehearsals, and the amplified sound when performing in your budget. A common approach is to route keyboard output into a mixer to send to a band or house PA for performances, and then have a small practice amp for rehearsals that does double duty as a floor monitor when performing.

Yeah, a DS88 is probably about the cheapest 88 that has a good selection of the particular sounds needed... but I think the SP6 would be better for most of what you mentioned (EPs, organs, even mellotron), and it's not that much pricier (it's still within budget. Plus it's noticeably smaller/lighter, making it easier to move around for gigs.