Hey...

New to the forum. New to the world of synth gear. Not new to music or the keys.

Some of you may have fun answering these questions, some may be annoyed by questions that have surely been answered before (I did do a search though to research before I ask).

Regardless... I still need help.

I'm looking at buying a keyboard for my wife and I. We have an interesting thing going. Right now we have a cheap m-audio 25 key controller hooked to a laptop. She gets a gnarly overdriven synth bass (maybe a sawtooth thing, can't remember). The sound comes from the laptops recording software/usb midi. Then she takes a second keyboard... some old wal-mart special, and plays leads / accompaniments on that. The walmart special is crap-cheesy, but not in a cool way. If we are feeling up to it, occasionally we drag out a second lap top and use the wal-mart's traditional midi with a usb converter to access the secondary computers recording software instruments. Then we go headphones out (of the 2 laptops) in to an old PA. Sounds great. Bass with the left, accompaniment with the right ala new wave distorto Ray Manzarek.

I play guitar/marshall-stack and we have a drummer.

The end sound is a crazy punk rock ala Ramones-ish thing with a new wave crazy driving synth bass (m-audio 25) with whatever she decides to add in on the walmart keys.

Good enough I suppose... but the dual keyboard/dual laptop rig is a royal pain in the ass to set up and scroll through (LOTS of trouble-shooting). And I wouldn't dare to drag all that mess out to a bar. So we are looking to buy a new synth, preferably one that does it all.

O.k. here's the solution: buy a good Roland Fantom or maybe a cheaper Juno-g/d.

Whelp...errr, sorry. Just don't have that kind of bread right now (we've already spent way too much on gear).

So. I did some research, visited a couple music stores, and I found the Casio WK-500. It seems to have a good number of sounds, played well, looked pro. Maybe not exactly the sounds we want, but I'm thinking maybe I could just run it through some guitar pedals or something (what EVH did right?). Plus, apparently she can split the keys up and have two sounds going at once.

I'm doing research and I keep seeing where people are saying to go with the Yamaha's instead. Like PSR-3000,700,550 etc. But when I looked at the PSR series they seemed really cheap, like toys. PLUS... the Yamahas are anywhere from $500 to $1,000+! It seems like if I was going to pay that much, I'd save up for a real keyboard (Juno-D is just over $500).

The PSR-E413 is the closest Yamaha in the WK-500 price range. The wk-500 has 670 sounds... the psr-e413 has only 500.

Am I missing something here? Are there other options that I'm not thinking of? Yeah, maybe I'm being cheap by not wanting to drop a grand on this... but I also don't want to get stuck with a $300 piece of junk.

I don't know why they just can't make a good solid 61key keyboard with tons of sounds for less than $500. It seems if they cut the crap internal speakers, nix all these recording features, nix the crappy drum beats, and all the beginner "learn to play" software... a good cheap quality synth could exist.

Also, is this an option???? What if I kept the m-audio 25 key controller, bought a secondary m-audio 61 key controller, then bought an external synth modulator. Would that work? Would one synth modulator run the two m-audio keyboards, or would I have to buy two? I know a guy who will give me an old Roland JV 880 (not sure what sounds it has or if it'll work).

Alright... I'm sorry for dragging this out for so long, I just wanted to be thorough on what I'm trying to do and what I've been thinking about. There seems to be a wealth of knowledge here and I can't wait to see what you folks will suggest.

THANKS!

Well yikes to that perfect synth.I however would have a fit if i could no longer record!
Go get yourself a used Yamaha Motif for like $500 through a private sale on something like craigs list.

Jay,
I'm a dealer who sells both the Casio and Yamaha keyboards.
Here is my opinion. The Casio WK-500 has 76 semi-weighted keys ( a nice feature) and a lot of functions I can get into but not yet. The Yamaha PSRE413 has only 61 keys and is not semi-weighted. The price of the Casio is $299 and the Yamaha is $229.
The main difference besides the number and fell of the keys is SOUND!
The Yamaha sounds are more realistic. Especially Trumpets, Sax's, Guitars, Flutes.
The pianos are both very decent.
The other big difference will be the drum sound quality if you like to play styles. The yamaha is more realistic, especially their cymbal sounds.
The Yamaha also has a couple of knobs that you can use to edit the sounds like a synth. The two knobs can be assigned to abut 16 different paramaters.
The Casio allows you to program different etnic tunings and you can combine different style tracks to create unique new styles, but there are no paramaters to edit the sounds. A plus for the Casio is that it has seperate stereo outputs and stereo inputs and a mic input and the Yamaha only has a stereo headphone jack which doubles as a line output but then the internal speakers are shut off. There is a Yamaha with 76 semi weighted keys call the YPG 235 but it is $339.00.
I hope this helps to shed some light on what the differences would be to someone who is a musician and cares about the quality of sounds.


------------------
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com

Increase your budget a tad and get an MM6....Mini Mo

Its exactly what I think from your post what would fit the bill. Arranger keyboards are not going to cut it for you guys......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R4T5WJ5WjE

One of these days, there REALLY has to be some standardization of terms for keyboard 'touch'.

Personally, I would call the cheap keyboards 'unweighted', if the word 'semi-weighted' is used for things like G70's and K2500 (not 2500X 88's). 'Weighted' keyboards usually refers to 'full' weight 88etc., that feel like pianos, 'semi-weighted' refers to a halfway position, and 'synth-weight' refers to keyboards like MotifXS, FantomG, etc.

We need a new word for all the lightweight, basically no resistance keybeds like PSR, that aren't even as good as the MoXS FSR keybed.

Some people don't care WHAT the keybed feels like, some care a lot. For those people, some kind of adhered to standard description (rather than ad men just making it up) of touch would be a great help...

I'd take your buddy's JV880. You don't want to spend a bundle, so his price is right. And I guarantee it'll shade out your killer Wal-Mart jobby by some margin.

[This message has been edited by 124 (edited 05-05-2009).]