Upgrade from Yamaha CP300 to something lighter and better!!??

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Hi
I have a Yamaha CP300 stage piano, which sounds great, but is ridiculously cumbersome to carry into gigs. The strings and hammond sounds are good, but the Hammond sound is one limited example of the range a Hammond can give of course. I am not good at this type of thing and the range of keys out there is bewildering. Where do I start to look for a ligher keyboard with decent Hammond Sounds and preferably weighted keys?
 

happyrat1

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What's your budget?

Decent performance workstations run between $1000 USD and $2000 USD and up.

A few suggestions include Roland FA-08, Roland Juno DS88, Korg Krome 88, or even Casio Privia PX=5S or PX-560. (Don't kid yourself. Casios have come a long way these days.)

Or if you can swing it, perhaps a Kurzweil Artis or SP6 or Forte or a Nord Stage?

It all depends on your budget and what you can test drive at a local music store.

Gary ;)
 
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Thanks Gary, I will work through your list, I need a starting point which is what you gave. I am a guitarist with classical piano background and a long lay off so am still playing catch up here!
It sounds picky wanting a lightweight keyboard but at 1 am in the morning trying to push past drunks in the bar and slithering on ice outside, well, you get the picture!
 
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Weighted action boards with above average Hammond organ capability (including the ability to control the drawbar settings) would be: Roland FA-08, RD800, and RD2000; Korg Kronos 73 and 88; Kawai MP7SE; Nord Electro 5HP, 6HP, Stage 3 HP76 and Stage 3 88; Kurzweil SP6, Forte (all models), Artis (88), and PC3K8. All are lighter than the mammoth CP300, but the lightest are the Kurzweil SP6, Roland FA08, and some of the Nords. Of those, Nords give you real-time drawbar control, Kurz and Roland do it through menus, though I believe Kurz also lets you do it through MIDI (i.e. if you have some other source of sliding controls). In Nord, the Stage models are probably overkill for you, the Electro models would probably be fine (though the 88-key Stage has a better feeling action than the rest). Sonically, the Nord probably as the best sounding organs of the bunch. Lots of other options without weighted keys, which is better for organ but not as good for piano (though some are better than others). For those, with at least 73 keys, you could look at Kurzweil Artis7, Roland VR-730 and FA-07 (VR730 probably the better of the two for you), Vox Continental 73, Nord Electro 5D-73 and 6D-73 and Nord Stage 3 Compact (again the Stage is probably overkill), Dexibell Combo J7, and the forthcoming Numa Compact 2X.
 

SeaGtGruff

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I don't know whether the original poster is still looking, but Yamaha just released their new P series keyboard, the P-515, which looks pretty interesting.
 

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