I am a bass player in a band but my background is in keyboards. I am now looking at adding some synth into our sound and I have very specific needs but nobody to help me address them. The folks at Sweetwater and Musician's Friend are nitwits that don't know the product they are selling.

Having said that, here is what I want:

1. Light and easy to sling over my shoulder in a cushbag.
2. 76 or 88 keys (velocity sensitive but weighted or not I don't care)
3. Lots of SERIOUS vintage synth sounds. Strings, Hammond, etc.
4. MUST have an up and down arpeggiator
4. Price $300-$800

I am open to buying used and here is the last piece of imformation:

I own a Roland JV-1080 head with no expansion cards already so I can buy either a controller and the vintage Synth expansion board or a full-out keyboard and ignore the JV1080. I was thinking of possibly using a Roland XP-80 workstation or even going older and buying a Jupiter 6 or Oberheim OB-8 but they are offly heavy and not expandable.

What to do? Would love to hear suggestions from you seasoned pros!

Thanks,
Russ

Im not really sure you are going to find a light, portable 76 or 88 key board, not like you are thinking. Buying an older board is always cool, but they are getting old and it is not a wise thing to gig with them.

Go buy a triton with the moss upgrade.
nuff said.

Well if you are looking at slinging it over your shoulder then forget 76/88 key keyboards. Even my Motif 6 with 61 unweighted keys would be as heavy as I'd want hanging off my shoulder.

I'd definately consider using the JV1080 with the expansion board and an external controller. That would be a relatively inexpensive way to to it.

When you talk about wanting an arpeggiator how were you thinking you'd synchronize the tempo of that to the rest of your band?


[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 09-07-2007).]

The band would have to synchronize with him.

Yep I guess so but the drummer would need a pretty clear monitor of the keyboard line to keep in reasonable sync.