Question for DSI users in regards to keybed

[LoboLives]

I was curious. I'm more into synth action keybeds myself. Even with stuff like Nords and Kurzweils I always try and gravitate towards 49 or 61 synth action keybeds.

However I'm curious what everyone would think if DSI were to bring out a piano action analog synth like the Prophet T8 or the Yamaha CS-80. Aftertouch and hopefully MPE included but what would everyone's thoughts be on that? I think it would be a totally different feel and would put people off for a bit but what would your thoughts be?

[DavidDever]

I was curious. I'm more into synth action keybeds myself. Even with stuff like Nords and Kurzweils I always try and gravitate towards 49 or 61 synth action keybeds.

However I'm curious what everyone would think if DSI were to bring out a piano action analog synth like the Prophet T8 or the Yamaha CS-80. Aftertouch and hopefully MPE included but what would everyone's thoughts be on that? I think it would be a totally different feel and would put people off for a bit but what would your thoughts be?

I don't think it would happen, given the bar to exceed the feel and performance of the (somewhat legendary) Sequential Prophet T8 weighted keybed.

More importantly, as I explained to my wife the other night, the paradigm of the pianoforte as the quintessential expressive keyboard instrument has (I believe, anyway) passed (as has the idea of every musical home owning an acoustic piano), much to my chagrin.

With products such as the LinnStrument and the Continuum out there, it's hard to justify lugging around a weighted piano-style controller (let alone maintaining one, in-place, at home), unless the premise of mimicking piano-style instruments is important to you (and a piano becomes too expensive to hire in).

[Paul Dither]

Difficult, as a synth is something else than a piano, which also includes that you might wanna be able to play it differently. There are different types of keyboards for a good reason: a standard synth keyboard, weighted piano-like keys with or without hammer action, and the waterfall keyboard for organs. Weighted piano-style keys are painful and useless if you wanna slide across the keys like an organist or a mono synth soloist. Conversely, they're the only way to go if you wanna play piano sounds or samples, as they allow for a far more detailed velocity articulation. The latter would of course also work for playing back pads or generally slower stuff, also in addition to poly Aftertouch. There's a reason why the T8 was mostly kept as a master keyboard in the end. But the need for that is pretty niche and mostly studio-related, where everybody who needs a piano-like controller already owns one. I'm not sure a synth with an overly expensive piano action type of keyboard would be worth the time and money from a developer's or manufacturer's perspective.

I'd rather get something like the Kawai VPC1 for that purpose and hook it up to other gear via MIDI: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/VPC1

[LoboLives]

I was curious. I'm more into synth action keybeds myself. Even with stuff like Nords and Kurzweils I always try and gravitate towards 49 or 61 synth action keybeds.

However I'm curious what everyone would think if DSI were to bring out a piano action analog synth like the Prophet T8 or the Yamaha CS-80. Aftertouch and hopefully MPE included but what would everyone's thoughts be on that? I think it would be a totally different feel and would put people off for a bit but what would your thoughts be?

I don't think it would happen, given the bar to exceed the feel and performance of the (somewhat legendary) Sequential Prophet T8 weighted keybed.

More importantly, as I explained to my wife the other night, the paradigm of the pianoforte as the quintessential expressive keyboard instrument has (I believe, anyway) passed (as has the idea of every musical home owning an acoustic piano), much to my chagrin.

With products such as the LinnStrument and the Continuum out there, it's hard to justify lugging around a weighted piano-style controller (let alone maintaining one, in-place, at home), unless the premise of mimicking piano-style instruments is important to you (and a piano becomes too expensive to hire in).

Darn

[Sacred Synthesis]

A piano action would certainly influence the type of music one would make and the sounds one would use on a synthesizer.  It would result in more percussive type patches and playing.  Whereas, the traditional organ-type keyboard most often found on synthesizers allows for legato-type playing, which is the connected style that synthesizer music most often uses.  Just try to play legato on one of the Nord or Roland piano action keyboards that offer organ, acoustic and electric piano, clavinet, and synthesizer presets.  It's very awkward, and you settle into favoring the piano-oriented sounds. 

A few years ago, I had a Roland FP-80 Digital Piano.  It had the usual assortment of preset sounds, including pipe and drawbar organs.  Playing such sounds on a piano keyboard was just bizarre, and there was no way you could achieve a perfect legato.  So, I think it's for good reason that the organ-type keyboard has become the norm on synthesizer.

[LoboLives]

What if it was 76 weighted keys...but with MPE? My reasoning is it seems easier to control the MPE expression on weighted piano keys than on synth or organ action.

[Sacred Synthesis]

Even the shape of the key influences one's playing, as well as whether or not it has that slight piano bounce, and at one point in depressing the key is the sound triggered.  The latter is tremendously influential in one's playing.  A piano key requires a deeper press than an organ, which then makes smooth connected playing difficult.  Whereas, organ keys can be triggered even with a slide of the thumb from one note to the next.  On piano keys, such a technique can literally hurt.

I think for most synthesizer playing, a high-quality organ key is perfect.  But that's not to say your idea wouldn't be useful for other types of synthesizer playing.  It would be, but it would also limit the instrument's usefulness quite a bit.

[Paul Dither]

What if it was 76 weighted keys...but with MPE? My reasoning is it seems easier to control the MPE expression on weighted piano keys than on synth or organ action.

On the one side, the time for monster-sized synths is over. On the other side, weighted piano keys just like any traditional keys are not really the ideal interface for MPE. There is a company that offers stickers with sensors that you can attach to your standard keyboard so that you can enhance the sheer up and down movement with the other necessary dimensions. For everything else, I'd agree with David. Far more sensitive controllers can already be had in the shape of the LinnStrument, the Continuum, or the ROLI seaboard.

Piano action keyboards are good for piano-related instruments, even virtual ones, as they can help in emulating the response and control you experience with acoustic or electro-mechanical instruments of that kind. At the same time, a piano action keyboard is absolutey not imperative for synths, be they based on virtual or hardware engines, because there is not even a traditional or acoustic model for that relation.

[LoboLives]

Wasn't Synton trying to bring a MPE based keyboard?

[Paul Dither]

Wasn't Synton trying to bring a MPE based keyboard?

Yeah, but their site has been down since 2016, so I wouldn't hold my breath. There's TouchKeys instead: http://touchkeys.co.uk/

[LoboLives]

Wasn't Synton trying to bring a MPE based keyboard?

Yeah, but their site has been down since 2016, so I wouldn't hold my breath. There's TouchKeys instead: http://touchkeys.co.uk/

HOLY MOLY! That's awesome thanks for the link. Nice to see them do a CS-80 demo for it. It's interesting that so many people are requesting a CS-80 reissue yet totally forget that it had piano action keys. Honestly, I get what you are saying that MPE hasn't been fully accepted by most musicians but for boutique synth manufacturers like for The River or The Schmidt...I mean at that price point I would expect MPE keybeds...yeah I get you can do it with an external controller but still.

[DavidDever]

I've been chasing poly-aftertouch for years (even a decent mono-aftertouch would have been nice)...every player has their own sense of what constitutes an expressive degree of pressure, or the "correct" feel under the keys. Even when I've "calibrated" various manufacturer's synth actions to their spec (all over the map, of course, though I do credit those that actually use weights), it's just not consistent enough to become a thing.

A full-sized Linnstrument in a synthesizer keyboard form factor would be prohibitively expensive, and would lose the mathematical geometries of note position that make it unique as a controller (in a manner similar to that of, say, a Chapman Stick), but if one was willing to lose some functionality, it's a pretty good place to start.