Home from the snail race

[mdlbear]

Well, after some four hours of [edit disk-grinding, clicking, and] downloading, Tiger finally got installed on my Mac laptop at work, at least to the point where it will run finagler and mr_kurt's software that we for the demo on Monday. Spent a couple of hours debugging the demo with Brad (it's peer-to-peer stuff; so the final version of the demo will involve four laptops and a USB keychain drive). We'll beat on it some more tomorrow.

Still not particularly impressed with MacOS X.

Meanwhile, my ancient Roland HS-60 keyboard, which has been gathering dust for most of the last two decades, has been misbehaving -- we hauled it out of semi-retirement so the chaoswolf, who's taking beginning piano this quarter, would have something to practice on. Problem is that in a lot of the patches the notes just don't cut off properly. I suspect a bad envelope generator or VCA.

So I'm now in the market for a keyboard, preferably 88 keys, with good feel, and not particularly bulky (since it may get lent to visiting keyboard players at local cons). Preferably on the low end of the $500-1000 range. A pure MIDI controller is a possibility, since I have an old but still functional computer with a MIDI soundcard that I can probably figure out how to hack into a sound module. Any suggestions?

Comments

[johno.livejournal.com]

I just heard a good review of the M-Audio keyboards on the "Home Recording" podcast.

[elimloth.livejournal.com]

So I'm now in the market for a keyboard, preferably 88 keys, with good feel, and not particularly bulky

That's a tough order. How much are you willing to pay? If you want the weighted piano feel, the keyboard will be bulky and heavy. Otherwise, you will end up with (and this is not entirely bad) a lightweight synth keyboard. If you can handle the light feel, there are many Roland D-10 or D-50s out there in the $200 range, though they have 61 keys.

[mdlbear]

I'm willing to go up to $1000, though as I mentioned in the post I'd rather stay closer to half that. There are a number of 88-key controllers under $500, and some "stage piano" keyboards under $1000. I'm sitting here looking at the M-Audio ProKeys 88 stage piano in the Sweetwater catalog for $600.