Although I was never a fan of either, but I would have to say if I had to choose between them, I like the dual direction joystick better like the one on Roland arrangers. Especially to turn on/off Leslie on Organs. It just feels right & tension is good too and very easy to access while playing vs the high located wheels on Ketron arranger Kb's which were difficult to reach when I owned and performed with them.. why they put it there in an un natural is a total mystery? I in turn am more of a let my fingers, style of playing, velocity and articulated sounds work for me...but that's me ......what do you guys think?.....I also see many players OVERUSE the stick or wheel to a point where it sounds weird and takes away from their playing because its not done to a point of realism. With the improvements of SA voices, velocity triggered sounds etc, etc, will joy sticks, mod/W, be a thing of the past? And where do beginners & pros begin to look for a place where they can learn to use these features "CORRECTLY" on different sounds? Instead of just thinking they are doing it right. Using them is an artform in itself.



[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 10-13-2009).]

I prefer the stick. I had the wheels on the SD1 and now the stick on the SD5... and back again to the wheels on the Audya. Unfortunately, the Audya has the wheels located about an inch higher than on the SD1. The fact is, though, you can adjust and become comfortable with whichever one you're using on a daily basis.

AS far as proper/improper usage, you have to be familiar with the instrument you are trying to emulate... pedal steel guitar is a good example. You have to know just when to mod and when to bend, and how much, for it to sound right.

Glenn

I like the Roland bender okay...that's what's on my Jupiter 8, and I also like the pitch/mod wheels on my Yamahas...it's all in what you get used to.

I only tried the Korg briefly...it was a synth, a Triton I believe...a joystick type affair that seemed pretty decent as well.

I had a big old Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer that I had restored and then sold to a collector...it had a horizontal strip just above the keys that let you bend pitch....the center was always where you first put your finger...you could do trills, flutters, and all kinds of tricks with it....it had a sort of felt-like covering; very cool.

I favour the mod wheel because it can remain where you pushed it, especially nice for activating the Leslie speed on the Tyros3 and S910.

Pretty much all of the systems have their strengths and weaknesses. I am not too big a fan of putting the wheels in the Ketron position (quite a lot of 88 controllers put them there, too) as, especially for the arranger player, getting to it and getting back to the keyboard involves far more distance than at the end of the keybed.

Roland have a very good system, one I've got used to over the years, but it has one fatal flaw... if you use the lever for modulation, it always returns to zero when you let your hand off. Now, this is great for note vibrato (you don't tend to want to leave it on all the time) but it is terrible when modulation is used on say the filter cutoff, or to crossfade between fast and slow Leslie samples of an organ, etc..

Unfortunately, this is EXACTLY what Roland have done, especially in regard to the Prelude and GW-8. There are a lot of patches that modulation does timbral things rather than vibrato, and sadly, no way to do it from any other controller. The problem is that these arrangers are derived from the Sonic Cell module, which is designed to be run from a MIDI controller keyboard. And most of THESE have sliders as well as levers or wheels for modulation. So, even if you have a controller with a Roland or Korg paddle/joystick, you can still set the modulation with a slider. On the G70/E80, most of the patches that do this have been programmed so a slider can be used (but it doesn't send mod commands, it's different controller# and the patches are written for it). But unfortunately, a lot of the SRX cards have the same issue... and the slider can't address them.

Somebody at Roland is asleep at the wheel

If you have a GW-8, I suggest a call to Roland. It would only take a minor OS fix to task the mod command to one of the 'analog modify' knobs and you would be in business. But without this, quite a few patches lose at least half of their usefulness (although, use them in style or SMF mode, and you can program the mod values in - it makes for some excellent organ parts in some of the styles).

I've already posted about how great pitch strips are... love 'em! (had a CS60 back in the day, too - first thing I played with a strip). I kind of prefer Korg's paddle to the Roland one because up/down can have a different negative function to the positive direction, and it has better resolution, plus my Triton has paddle AND strip - best of both worlds. But, push comes to shove, I think the K2500 has the best possible system. Wheels, small strip AND large strip, tons of faders buttons and keypads, and an OS that allows you to basically make any of them do anything whatsoever, no matter HOW whacked out your twisted mind can imagine you need!

But I always come back to the Achilles Heel of the arranger... no matter HOW good and sophisticated the LH controllers get, you can only pay them lip service because of the primary need to keep inputting the chords, no matter HOW repetitive they are. Most of the juiciest times to do bends is EXACTLY when you need to make a chord change. What's a boy to do? Foot bends (even for those lucky enough to have an OS that allows them) are generally in one direction only. We'd all bitch like hell if the pitch bend wheel or lever only went up OR down! And your feet are pretty busy already... (at least, mine are!)

Some way of handing this task off (playing the chords of a repetitive section) really needs to be introduced (or 'reintroduced' ) before we can start to impart the expressiveness that those working with SMF's or MP3 tracks have at their LH's command...

The pitch wheel on my Yamaha CS01 mini mono analog synth, is designed to only bend notes up.

http://www.vintagesynth.com/yamaha/cs1.php


Ian I used to love mine back in the day ....used for LH bass...sat right on top of my KB..

btw you got mail


[This message has been edited by Dnj (edited 10-13-2009).]

I prefer the Joystick, but can use the wheels also. The stick on SD5 was nice. Don't much like the wheel location on Audya.
The puny little E50 is much easier to play.
DonM

My first synth, back in 1975, a Micromoog, had both the pitch ribbon and a mod wheel. I'm definitely a fan of the pitch ribbon, really tactile. i still have the old girl stashed away in a case - haven't touched it for years, though.

Joystick everytime !

Once I tried to play a demo Roland E series, don't remember which one... almost broke the lever.

I was used to "slap" the wheel up with my thumb, and forgetting that for the same effect I had to move the lever to the right, I just pushed it up and after maybe one cm of travel it hit the end. More like a switch. Lokked around, no one heard the abuse. Thankfully it handled the slap.

I love the way YAMAHA has them 2 separate things, same as on the Korg Prophecy uh.

I've had a Minimoog and many other synths with wheels as well as a Yamaha CS60 with the pitch ribbon and wheels. Also several Rolands over the years with pitch lever and Korgs with pitch/mod levers.

The problem with the original Rolands like the Jupiter 8, the lever only bent pitch and modulation was triggered with a button allowing only Off or On and nothing in between. The the following JX's added Mod by pulling down on the lever, but still was only Off or On. The newer Rolands have continuous mod amount by pulling down on the lever but the travel is so short that it is not very usable to me at least. The Korg lever I feel is far more usable since there is good travel left/right and up/down. Plus up and down movements can be routed to many different destinations other than just modulation. Very nice. I do still prefer the wheels as long as the mod wheel is not spring loaded for center return. My favorite of all though is the trackball of the GEM WK8 even though the mod still centers. It is very comfortable to use the trackball for adding live vibrato like with a pitch wheel but you can also do the slap type thing if you want. The down side is that the mod (up/down) centers and cannot be routed to any other function. I would love to replace the lever on my Pa588 with a trackball and a small thumb button to the right of the trackball to lock in the vertical position, that would be the best as far as I am concerned.

------------------
Wm. David McMahan
LearnMyKeyboard
JazzItUp Band
The Modulators

I agree, Dave...having to use the button isn't the most elegant way of adding modulation.

I was fortunate in getting a later model JP-8 which is equipped with the very rare MD-8 midi interface, so I can use a controller to access the Jupiter's mod.

The track ball thing sounds interesting...a friend of mine had a Bachman keyboard...almost a digital piano, that had something like that for control.

Ian

Mind you, there's something to be said for preset mod amounts, just as there is something to say for non touch sensitive keyboards. It gives you a VERY even, predictable sound, great for recording.

Yes, we can criticize these early synths for not having many of the bells and whistles we use now, but it didn't seem to stop the top players of the day from making GREAT music on them... And perhaps it HELPED

I deactivated my 'Pitch Bend' springs ages ago,i had serious issues with the wheel always having the upper hand over me!Didn't take long at all for me to 'know' exactly where to leave the wheel after i was done 'pitching'.I like my springless wheel because it allows me to set the setting to -12 in the settings and then i can go down yet another octave without having to go into custom voices.

Good point. I never really liked using the mod wheel to add vibrato because it applies a static rate to the pitch modulation. I much prefer using the pitch bend device to add live vibrato. Speaking of which, one of the best pitch bend devices I can remember (and it's funny that most people hated it) was the PPC (Proportional Pitch Controller) on the ARP Odyssey which consisted of three rubber pressure sensitive pads. The left pad bent pitch down, the right pad bent pitch up and the middle pad applied modulation. The harder you pressed, the stronger the effect. It was a little hard to bend notes to an exact pitch, but for adding natural vibrato, it was very cool.

------------------
Wm. David McMahan
LearnMyKeyboard
JazzItUp Band
The Modulators

[This message has been edited by WDMcM (edited 10-16-2009).]

Exactly, Dave. That's what I was getting at when I mentioned the Micromoog's pitch ribbon as being very tactile. Putting your finger on the centre spot and 'feeling' the vibrato the same way a guitarist does.

Diki, talking of early synthmeisters, I remember being absolutely gobsmacked by Jan Hammer's album 'The First Seven Days'. I'd love to get another copy of that.

http://www.amazon.com/First-Seven-Days-Jan-Hammer/dp/B00009VU2W

Jan learned from watching guitarists...

Dave, I had the older, 'knob for pitch' Odyssey. Tried the newer one, and HATED it! Being unable to consistently hit and HOLD a note using the bender was a dealbreaker! The mod thing was OK (but you couldn't leave it up, like a Minimoog) but the pitch control was a bust, I'm afraid. Went back to my older one...

The thing about strips that always gets me is that, although most of my keyboards have them (Triton, K2500S and KX-5), only the KX-5 feels TRULY natural under my fingers. Maybe it's because I play bass and guitar a bit too, but the wrist and finger position on the KX-5 strip allows me to do all the pitch tricks (including real natural vibrato) without even having to THINK. My mind imagines it, and it happens. There's always a feeling of a very slight disconnection when my wrist is turned over than when it is in the 'guitarists' position'...

Yep totally agree, just look at all the great work by Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, et al, who used early clavs and wurlis that didn't even have sustain pedals!!

They made them sing, purely through talent.

I remember the ARP's pads...one of the worst systems I've ever used...more of novelty than anything else(and of course, ARP wanted to be "different")

I had one here for several months until it was sold to a collector.

I also had the earlier one with the knob...not a lot better.

I can deal much better with the wheels, although Roland's bender is pretty good as well.

I remember when Yamaha made the PSR-4500/4600 with the "wheels" under, and in front of, the keys....we called them "roll bars".

They were actually pretty good, but Yamaha soon reverted to the more familiar conventional wheels.

Slight correction... Wurlis all had sustain pedals, AFAIK.

Ahhhh yes, the Wurlitzer...I had a 200...it came with a sustain pedal.

It was a nightmare to tune...adding solder to the reeds and filing it off, being careful not to get any on the insides where it could short out things...miss the sound and the great action it had (wooden keys, no less) but I don't miss the maintenance.

The S910 has a nice Wurly sound.

It sure does Ian There are so many nice EP's on the S910 I enjoy the stage & galaxy.

Best out and out Wurli emu in a keyboard right now, IMO, is the Nord Electro. Pretty realistic. No solder needed!

Yes, I agree....the Nord Electro is pretty well the best I've heard too....but it does not have any styles.

I don't like Nord's acoustic piano sounds.

The organ sounds are deluxe.

Have you heard the piano demos for the Stage? IMO, some of the best, non-clinical REAL sounding pianos in any hardware keyboard I've heard, yet (and you KNOW how picky I am!).

Word is, they load up just fine into the new Electro3...

What I liked best about the Electro's Wurlitzer was the connection felt when you played it...felt like there were actual reeds being struck.

I heard the new pianos for the Stage were really nice.

Nord makes interesting and innovative gear.

BTW, the Wurly on my S910 has the same kind of "connection" feel...just a much lighter touch of course, but it is very responsive...ditto the Cool! Suitcase EP.

The light touch of the S910 reminds me a lot of some synths I used to play...I guess that's why I'm drawn towards it more than semi-weighted. Those old Pratt&Read keybeds were nice to play.

The wheels are like old friends...reminiscent of my old Minimoog.

Like Diki, I've got so used to the Roland system over the last twenty-plus years, I can't adapt to anything else. As others have observed, it does offer the most natural recreation of the Leslie half-moon switch for those of us who are ex-organists. That said, I can also see the advantages that Yamaha's weird vertical wheels offer, even if their use seems counterintuitive to me.

That is so cool...I used to have a Roland VK-1000 (basically a 76 note organ) and the pitch bender lever would activate the Leslie speeds (just like the old Hammond half-moon)...that was a great instrument, and it also doubled as a pretty good controller as well.

The mod wheel sorta feels natural to change rotary speed, because of that effect's close relation to adding vibrato to the tail end of a note or phrase.

The thing I didn't like about joysticks, was they seemed too exposed and too easy to damage.

The things I don't like about the Roland paddle for Leslie are that a Leslie paddle activates from side to side (and stays there, so you can see where it is!) and the Roland paddle has to be flicked vertically, but the thing that REALLY chaps my behind is that, if you assign the Leslie to a footswitch, you can't UN-assign it to the mod lever. It means that, if you have an organ/brass split or perhaps a piano/organ layer at the bottom, and a solo sound at the top, if you use the paddle to vibrato the lead sound, it's going to affect the Leslie speed whether you want to or not...

God is in the details, my friends... wish Roland would address this one

I think I prefer my joystick to stay right here in my crotch where it has always been.

Right next to the floppy drive? Just north of Donny's crystal balls...?