keyboard for bar band

[Morgan Ellington]

Hello, I play rhythm guitar and keys in a bar band and I'm looking to upgrade my consumer level yamaha keyboard.
Looking for standard piano/organ sounds to be great and also need some pads and lead sounds from time to time.

My biggest gripes about my current setup are
1) no leslie sound for organs (does not have mod wheel)
2) piano and some other sounds are noticeably noisy/low resolution samples
3) saving user defined sounds/splits is awful
4) effects default to on and are time consuming to turn off.

My interests so far were the roland juno series, yamaha mm6 and (through internet recommendations) the korg m50. based on some things I've read about the mm6 I don't think it would work for me. I would prefer to buy used, but I could swing $500 perhaps.
here's what I'd like to have in a new keyboard

easy recallable splits with naming ability for custom sounds
separate audio outputs for splits to do left hand bass sometimes
ability to switch very quickly between two different sounds
leslie simulation with two different speeds on organ patches, or at least leslie on/off!

Since I also play guitar in this band I really don't want to use two different keyboards as we run out of room and setup time. Also, I'm not being cheap -- I'd love to have a $1000 board but I couldn't risk it getting damaged at weekly bar gigs.
Thanks for your patience and wisdom

Morgan

 

[happyrat1]

I'd say also add the Korg X-50 or Korg TR76 to your list.

Your best bet though, is to keep scanning your local craigslist for a couple of weeks until someone lets something really cherry go for a great price.

That's really the only way you'll find something that sounds decent in your price range.

Gary

 

[delaware dave]

Roland VR09. Here is one at a great price:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Roland-V-Co...8370448?pt=Keyboards_MIDI&hash=item19e6eb6b10

Demo:

 

[Morgan Ellington]

thanks for the suggestions dave and gary.
I come from playing other instruments and it always blows my mind how I can do years of gigs with $300 basses + guitars, but when it comes to keyboards I need to shell out a grand to be happy with it!

 

[happyrat1]

Well to be fair a bass or a guitar is just a well crafted block of wood sporting some wire strings and a couple of pickups and a bit of hardware.

Modern keyboards are a frankenstein cross between a complicated keybed and a custom computer with a custom operating system. Way more moving parts and a hell of a lot of custom programming and debugging.

Honestly when they first came out back around '72 the Polymoog sold for $5000. In 70's dollars that was a sizable down payment on a decent house or the Fairlight started out as a $100 K instrument. The cost of a small McMansion

Be thankful we can get our hands on this technology today for a fraction of what it cost a few decades ago.

Gary

 

[happyrat1]

BTW, another good one to look at in your price range is a used Casio PX-3S stage piano. It'll cover all the basics in a heartbeat.

 

[Lenster]

Roland VR09. Here is one at a great price:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Roland-V-Co...8370448?pt=Keyboards_MIDI&hash=item19e6eb6b10

Demo:

I use a Roland VR 09 when I don't need to have specially tweeked sounds. Right out of the box it does everything you need, except maybe the output split thing you mentioned. It's around $800 new. My only issue is the brass sounds are not as crisp as a Korg. the organs have awesome leslie control by either button or just wave your hand over the d-beam. It will do the job for you and you will love it. and it weight about 10 lbs. . Lenster.

 

[daviel]

Look at a Casio XW-P1 http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/XWP1/. Great B3 sound -9 drawbars, percussion, leslie effect, Piano, synth engine, and presets (brass,strings, etc.) I'm gigging with one tonight.

 

[happyrat1]

I own an XW-P1. The synths and organs are great but the pianos and pcm sounds are very weak unless you're ready to do a LOT of tweaking or stack them in a hex layer

 

[delaware dave]

IMHO the organ is also weak.

 

[happyrat1]

Yeah but Dave, yer the ultimate Hammond Freak You're not happy unless you can hear the crosstalk between the tonewheels.

Gary

 

[delaware dave]

This is true.

 

[Morgan Ellington]

thanks for the polite correction on the cost of keyboards, happyrat, very good points. I think the casio px3s is the board I saw someone using where he hit a mod button to activate a convincing enough leslie effect with spin up time.
It's rather odd, my yamaha has decent piano sounds but the organs are not so good. Our lead singer's casio he loaned me has better organ sounds but the pianos are awful. For a while I was using both but it takes up a lot of vertical space.
our local craigslist shows a Roland Juno G for sale for $350. I'm planning to call and check that one out.

 

[Morgan Ellington]

if I could resurrect this thread a bit . . . I tried out the xwp1 at the guitar store, it was okay -- but then I tried out the korg kross and it sounded sooo much better to me. Different speakers probably, but for what I'm doing I think the korg would be much preferable. smaller, with easy recall of different sounds. (sometimes you know the singer calls for a different tune mid-set and I have three seconds or so to call up the appropriate keyboard sound!)