I have been given the task of searching for a new keyboard for my church. At the moment we have a 10 year old Roland one (not sure of the model), which has increasingly been playing up of late. With the economics being as they are at the moment budget is tight and I'd say we'd have £1000 as a limit, but obviously the less we can spend the better. We need a good piano sound but also some nice, simple pads/string sounds. Please can you make some suggestions of what might be a good option Thanks Mark
that's a very nice budget, and there are several stuff you can get. The question is weather you want a simple stage/home piano or a workstation so you can tweak and create your own sounds. Korg TR-88 and Korg M50-88 are both in that price range if i'm not mistaking. The lack of good pianos can be compensated by adding some 3rd party samples (at least for the TR. The M50 has usable pianos since it's brand new). Both keyboards are Workstations, and KORGs so you'll be able to do lots of cool stuff - especially when it comes to pads/strings since that sections is very powerfull when it comes to KORG keyboards - even at midrange workstations such as TR and M50. On the other hand - if you want a great Piano - you should get a Yamaha. There's the CP33 and the P155 in that price range. If you're lucky you might find a CP50 which is a brand new stage piano but i believe it costs more then the 2 mentioned. CP33 and CP155 don't have the option to tweak sounds and have only 20ish sounds on board but those are brilliant - especially the pianos. There's the Kawai ES6 (cheaper model) and the MP5 in your price range I can also recommend.
Thanks for your reply - sorry I'm only just re-posting. The ability to tweak sounds isn't really required. Some nice piano and string/pad sounds (some organ sounds are nice too - especially Hammond) are all that are required. I will have a look at the ones you have mentioned.
If you don't need to tweak, the M50 and TR-88 will be overkill. (And I feel I need to respond to the rampant Korg fanboy-ism with some rampant Roland fanboy-ism ) I'd check out the Roland FP4 and possibly the R300GX, although the latter may be a bit of a stretch for your budget. If portability isn't an issue, you might have a look at some of the low end Yamaha Clavinovas as well, but as they seem to bring out a new variant every week, I can't give you model numbers
the yamaha s90 would be best for you i think, you can find a used one for around there. Tomlins keyboardist Matt Glider and Hilsongs main keyboardist use them!
