Someone help me out here. I"m a gigging musician in a 5 piece indie rock band. I've widdled it down to the above two keyboards or maybe just a controller with sound board/laptop. I need: 1 - Weighted or good semi-weighted key feel. 2 - Great piano sounds and decent electric and organ sounds. 3 - Easy pre-set buttons to switch quickly between sounds during and between songs. A lock-button would be nice so I don't accidentally hit a button during a song. 4 - Light weight! Tired of lugging around 40-50 pound boards. 5 - 76 keys prefered for stage constraints, but 88 is not unheard of (I"m using an 88 Yamaha YPG-625 now for gigs). 6 - $1,000 or under. After researching and researching, It's come down to the Casio PX3 or Kurzweil SP4-7. The Juno Stage seems nice too, it's close behind in the No. 3 spot. I do like the 76 keys on Kurzweil, but the feel is obviously not as nice as the Casio's weighted keys. Both are priced and have the right weight (around 23-25 pounds each). Kurzweil seems to have better sounds. I've read on a couple of forums that the Casio PX3 has sustain issues on occassion, like a note or two getting stuck... only to be fixed by turning off/on the keyboard (not sure if this is an issue with keyboard or the crappy sustain pedal it comes with). I could ditch both keyboards and just go with an M-Audio weighted keyboard (76 keys) and a laptop or some sort of sound board. My fear is this might be clunky to dial up sounds while on stage. Would much rather have simple, pre-set buttons on my keyboard to access my various sounds. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Paul
My tuppence worth - either of those or the Juno Stage. Not the laptop solution. Live band with drums - set-up switch on and go is quickest and best. I've a Juno Stage for that type of work (working with live drums + guitars). Good luck
