Remember the Yamaha GX1(edited). The Prophet 10.
Now we get keyboard splitting. Pfff. Not the full complement of keys. Bring em’ back please !
Also:
- Hydrasynth Deluxe
- Arturia Polybrute
- Novation Summit
- UDO SuperSix & Super Gemini
Have there ever been more dual layered keyboards for sale than right now?
These all have two layers of sounds, buy only one layer of keys. I am sure the OP was asking for more manuals.
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See people dont even remember the keyboards im on about. Apart from last 2 posters. Im talking two individual keyboards stacked. With a full compliment of keys. Where have they gone? As i said splits like the Nords arent the same.
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When I search for Yamaha GS1 it just seems to have the single layer keybed, were you thinking of a different model?
Dual manuals are mostly reserved for various kinds of organs nowadays. Having more than one keyboard requires the player to be quite proefficient with keys (which most synthesists aren’t) and can thus be a tough sell and an additional manufacturing cost.
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Most likely the GX-1 was meant in this case.
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Is it just me or did the end of dual tiered keyboards kind of end when MIDI began?
Sorry one of these think its the GX1
I know Hammond still do them but thats an organ. Nothing sadly in the synth world.
Crumar has the DMC-122 dual MIDI controller, with two 61 key Fatar waterfall keybeds, for 122 keys total. You can store up to 32 different configuration, and it has four separate 5 pin DIN MIDI connectors, so i think for instance you can split both keybeds. ( Hopefully wheels are going around how you might use that. ) I suppose you could also have it one very large 10 octave range 122 key keyboard too ? ( 121 notes ? )
It seems to me a reasonable price at $1600 USD. Obviously it competes with the option of just using any two controllers, connected in any way you choose, as obscurerobot, most reasonably suggests. Maybe you’d add something like Midihub to that.
I believe Crumar also sells a cousin to the DMC-122 called Mojo which has a synth engine built in. That synth engine is also available as a soft synth, if i understand correctly.
Image from Perfect Circuit.
ADDED :
Size: 96 x 15,5 x 49 cm - 37,8 x 6,1 x 19,3 inches;
Weight: 18 Kg - 39,7 lbs.
Not so bad.
I suspect the market isn’t there.
A two-manual synth costs more and is harder to move (a major consideration if you perform live in different venues). A lot of gigging synth players use a two keyboard over/under arrangement, but they typically use two different kinds of synth, and if necessary MIDI one to the other to play one synth from both keyboards.
That kind of setup breaks down to smaller pieces, and if one synth fails in combat you still have the other one.
There’s really no cultural tradition of using a two-manual synth among the whole home recording electronic music community—I can’t think of any famous electronic dance or ambient artist who relied on a two manual synth, so no one else thinks they need one. [Edit: It seems like Vangelis should have been a two-manual guy, but I don’t think he was.]
The Hammond Organ is kind of the outlier here—there’s like 70 years of performance practice built up about playing that instrument with two manuals, so some organ players still use a two manual Hammond or clone. Of course, if the organ lives in your church it’s a lot simpler.
I like looking at pictures of two manual Prophet 10s, but I sure wouldn’t want to have to move one.
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Keith Emerson from Emerson Lake and Palmer used the Yamaha GX1 a lot.
Benny Andersson of ABBA used a Yamaha GX-1 on several ABBA tracks
Keith was an important synthesist, but he’s not really associated with any of the electronic music genres that are still standing (like I said previously—dance/ambient). So what he used probably wouldn’t matter in 2023 to most electronic-genre musicians.
The ABBA guy’s gear is probably, again, invisible to current electronic genre musicians, although they may be influenced (directly or indirectly) by what he did.
I’m not trying to trivialize what these people did, good players, good bands. Just saying they’re not part of the electronic instrumental music cultural world—it’s different from posters now on synth forums who want a 303 or an 808 clone because so-and-so made such-and-such a sound on such-and-such a track with those instruments.
Hope this makes sense. You mentioned two good musicians, no disrespect intended.
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The GX1 was also used by a variety of artists, including Stevie Wonder, Tangerine Dream, and Jean-Michel Jarre. Are you saying these artists aren’t relevant? I know a lot of electronic musicians who have whole collections of these artists music.
I didn’t say anyone wasn’t relevant.
I said two manual synths probably aren’t made much because live musicians don’t find them practical, and home electronic musicians don’t see any of their role models using two manual synths.
But you’re saying Tangerine Dream and Jarre used the two-manual instruments, which contradicts what I was saying—I didn’t know that.
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But a lot do have them as role models.
Nothing to add
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