Keyboard to play live that can be loaded with or can sample sounds.

[anotherscott]

There may not be any need to sample your existing keyboards as the tones or at least something similar may exist in a new Casio keyboard.

Checkout their CT-X 5000 and the PX-S3000

I would be surprised if the sample-based CTX boards included samples from Casio's 80s keyboards.

 

[CowboyNQ]

It doesn't help that none of us have asked exactly WHAT the sounds are we're trying to recreate. And why.

Reminds me a bit of a new tribute act I've just joined. The very well-meaning lead singer and band leader gave me a thorough run down of how he thought I could recreate various samples etc, rather than actually telling me what he wanted to hear.

I ended up politely saying "thanks mate, you just let me know what the end result should sound like, let me worry about how I get there".

But lots of good options for OP to explore in this thread already.

 

[happyrat1]

"An African swallow or a European swallow?"

"I... I... I don't know!!! AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeee!"



Gary

 

[Biggles]

I would be surprised if the sample-based CTX boards included samples from Casio's 80s keyboards.

Maybe and maybe not, still worth checking out.

Also one of the new Casiotone models may have the cheesey 80’s tones and adding one to the gig setup would certainly mean just two keyboards and a small local mixer rather than computers and tablets.

 

[Eli_Kyiv]

If your budget is really tight, Roland JUNO G could be a solution. But it's firmware should be v.2.0 or more, and pay attention to the screen, earlier version of this synth were prone to failure there.

 

[Philomena]

Hi
Sorry I haven't been on for a while.
Wow some great suggestions that I need to work through.

Lots of ideas here. It'll take me a while to look through them all, but, I seem to be getting much closer to a decision.
Our first booked gig after lockdown isn't til Feb! (At the mo) so I'm soaking it all up from this forum and learning at a great rate of knots.

Thanks for all your help.
I'll be posting again soon, (after chasing up all these recommendations) with an army of further questions no doubt

 

[Philomena]

Lots of great info here from the guys.

Not to invalidate or disregard any of it but I wonder though if we’re getting lost in the weeds a bit?

You need 10 sounds for a 30 minute set if I understand OP correctly. Also need to go from multiple keyboards and laptops to one unit. Also don’t want to spend lots of moolah.

If those were my objectives, I’d buy zero keyboards, just take your favourite or most capable existing one, and run the samples off your (hopefully existing) phone or iPad. Might cost you a few pennies for a sampling app but that would be it.

If that’s not cool I’d grab a dedicated sample pad and still stick with one ‘board.

If none of that’s cool - is it really that difficult to obtain a close approximation of the sound of a crusty old Casio with a modern keyboard? Maybe rather than sampling you’ll find a sound that’s quite close if you were to buy a more budget option like the aforementioned Juno DS. Maybe you’ll find even better weird sounds!

If we’re still not cool - as you were and I return you to normal programming!

Hi I think, having spent ages reading through and researching all the info given, that we need much more experience of all this stuff.

This post hits the nail on the head.
While I would like us to move to one piece of equipment. At the moment we have everything we need to reduce it to one midi keyboard and one tablet - if we learn how to sample and use sounds.
So I think our first port of call for live gigs is to get some sampling software and spend time learning how to use it. I may even have stuff I can use here attached to Ableton and cubase. (But recommendations would be useful)

Then I thought we may jump in at the low end and get something like a juno ds to continue the learning. It's in the range of not too much cash if we choose a different route.

That way I think we could make a better choice of the higher end stuff we could use in the future. Rather than jump in and spend lots only to get frustrated. This way we could actually find out what we actually want (half the problem) (Realistically a setup that gives the mixing desk 1 channel to worry about and that we can plug in in 2mins rather than loads of toys and wires.)

Thanks everyone. I'm enjoying the start of my learning curve.

 

[Philomena]

It doesn't help that none of us have asked exactly WHAT the sounds are we're trying to recreate. And why.

Reminds me a bit of a new tribute act I've just joined. The very well-meaning lead singer and band leader gave me a thorough run down of how he thought I could recreate various samples etc, rather than actually telling me what he wanted to hear.

I ended up politely saying "thanks mate, you just let me know what the end result should sound like, let me worry about how I get there".

But lots of good options for OP to explore in this thread already.

That's true. It changes so much though.
As a band we keep buying old toys and keyboards (current favourites are Casio sa1 and a stylophone!)
We use them successfully in recording but when gigging we either have to take them all and plug them all in or compromise and pick a different sound.
If we just played the same 10 songs I could list the samples we need here, but, we keep changing stuff and writing new stuff.

From reading everything I think we need decent equipment but I'm going to start myself on a crash course sampling and midi use. Then buy cheaper stuff and work up.

Thanks as I said before I'm enjoying this.

 

[williamwill]

I have a Kurzweil PC Performance Controller and I will say that you will spend an enormous amount of time learning this keyboard.
The manual explains the controls and such but no examples or how to do things.

It was very difficult in the beginning for me but it was the good people at Kurzweil, specifically the technician/programmer whom I visited multiple times via email and Dave Weiser, a former Kurzweil programmer who made himself indispensable of which I am grateful. I caught on pretty quickly and now have a much better understanding though always learning something new when I sit down on my Keyboard.

 

[Biggles]

Enjoy your learning.

Sampling is a double edged sword as many keyboards simply load a Sample into a user location and that is then assigined to a Pad.

Assigning a sample(s) to the whole keybed is another matter.

Whilst the keyboard used in this video is probably not one you will consider it is the process they undertake that you may well find to be very informative.

These guys are from Korg UK and they have a monthly live interactive webinar of which past events are available to view.

Sampling with Korg Pa arrangers - Crowdcast

Join Adam and Luke as they show you everything you need to know about sampling with the Korg Pa series of keyboards.

www.crowdcast.io

 

[Philomena]

Enjoy your learning.

Sampling is a double edged sword as many keyboards simply load a Sample into a user location and that is then assigined to a Pad.

Assigning a sample(s) to the whole keybed is another matter.

Whilst the keyboard used in this video is probably not one you will consider it is the process they undertake that you may well find to be very informative.

These guys are from Korg UK and they have a monthly live interactive webinar of which past events are available to view.

Sampling with Korg Pa arrangers - Crowdcast

Join Adam and Luke as they show you everything you need to know about sampling with the Korg Pa series of keyboards.

www.crowdcast.io

Hi yes that's what I'm learning it seems a bit tricky.
My first thought is to use software, a tablet/laptop and a midi keyboard. Then move onto something more self contained. I have all the stuff bar the sampling software to start having a crack. Hopefully then I can be in a position to learn more from the webinars and vids recommended.