I need your criticisms about Arranger Keyboards
Hi everybody,

I'm a french musician writing from Paris, so please excuse the poorness of my english, which I hardly practise more than one or twice a year...

Your experience and knowledge will be really helpful to me and mostly your unfortunate experiences withe the following arrangers whiwh I'm planning tu buy for professional live use. I pre-selected, after hearing their online demos and having a look in stores, the :
-Korg PA-50
-Roland EXR-7
-Yamaha PSR-1500

In fact, I already own a Yamaha DGX-300, and it's the biggest mistake I've ever made... I play in pro gigs, and the keyboard must be amplified though professional sound engineering systems. And the Yamaha DGX-300 is everything except a professional machine : it only has one audio output (jack) which sounds awful, and in my case, it's just unusable. The sounds are correct (I mostly use piano), and the ergonomy is, I must admit, fine.

But let's get back to the 3 machines I mentioned above. Does someone have had such a terrible experience with one of this keyboards/arrangers that he wants to prevent new customers from giving money to a bad product ? Your hate for a disastrous machine, if motivated, may be helpful for a fellow musician, so don't hesitate in sharing your bad memories.

My criterias are these (sorted by priority :
1-Quality of sounds (especially piano, but not only)
2-Quality of the audio outputs (in order to be amplified for big concert halls)
3-Solidity (I'll have to carry it all year long, plug and unplug jack cables, you know : live touring)
4-Weight : my keyboard is 10 Kgs (22 lbs), and since my back is already rather weak, I won't be able to carry a 20 Kgs (44 lbs) machine.
5-Price. I'd like to stay between 900 USD and 1500 USD (700 and 1200 euros).

Ergonomy would be appreciated : I need to quickly change sounds, styles, tempo, and manage starts/breaks/endings. But that's all : I don't need nothing more complicated than that, I won't be doing any sophisticated technical stuff with it : I use what's inside, and that's all.
What kind of use I need :
50% of the time, I play piano.
30% of the time, I play with synth and electric piano sounds.
10% of the time, I play piano but I have to add drums and percs because I play alone with the singer and the bass player
The rest of the time, I play all alone with the singer, and then I need the real "Arranger" functions, which means, in my case :
-selecting a style (e.g. bossa nova), a tempo, playing a chord and let the machine start playing with me.

Thanks a lot, I should even say : merci beaucoup !

i-Moi

Hello and welcome to the forum.....In my honest opinion, I would say for a few hundred dollars more than the psr 1500, I would go for the PSR 3000 and I'm sure you could buy one for around $1,500 US,....they
are a very professional K/B that comes with
great piano sounds thast you ask for as well as many other professional sounds and the in and outputs are what you ask for plus the weight is only about 11 kilos...I think this is the K/B for you from my point of view
I can't say anything about the Korg or Roland
you will have to wait for other input on them
good luck...
Tony Rome

I agree with Tony. The PSR3000 is the way to go. It is an incredible machine, and it has much more than the PSR1500 - especially in voices.

I play the PSR3000 professionally, day in and day out. In 10 months of performing - about 400 - 500 hours, I have not had any technical problems.

By the way, your English is outstanding - given that you only use it twice a year.

Beakybird

for a good price for the psr 3000 check out here,also try some other searches ,you may be lucky, mike http://www.rockingrooster.co.uk/showproductdetails.php?PID=195

Nardoni...I just checked out the rocking rooster site....goood site....can anyone convert British L859 into US dollars or Euros????....Just Courios....
Tony

Here you go, Tony:
859 pounds = 1634,7 US dollars
or
1261,9 euros

Andrea....Thank you...I guess this means that the 3000 falls within range of what he is looking to spend....it's a shame, they are so much cheaper over here.....
Tony

i believe psr3000 is a good choice if you can afford more than what you said. i am not gonna say otherwise.
but for the money you have, my personal pick is korg pa50.
if you will use the keyboard mostly for playing piano and once in a while something else, you might as well consider exr 7.

so, what to do? give it a try, take advantage of 30 days trial time, and test also the resistance to your use!
go for it!

Thanks so much for your help, I really appreciate.
Finally, since the Yamaha PSR-1500 and the Korg PA-50 both fit my needs (regarding the sounds and functions), the question has become more "which one of these machines have the best audio outputs for a pro live use ?". Thanks again and have all a good day.

Héctor

I'm with many of the others the PSR3000 is a great board. I have owned a DGX505 and was unhappy with it, I traded it in after only having it for about 4 weeks. I think it's worth the extra dollars to upgrade from the 1500 to the 3000.