I’m interested in knowing how the keyboard players here like to play their instruments. What features are important to you, and what can you live without? Key size, velocity, aftertouch, gated sequencers, arpeggiators, polyphony, pitch wheels, mod wheels, joysticks, touch/ribbon sliders, etc.
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Key Size it’s gotta be full if I’m gonna play it. Velocity yeah, gotta have it. Aftertouch honestly I don’t make use of as much as I should. I’ve got a Prophet Rev2 here and the aftertouch is great I just…don’t care to use it? Arpeggiators are always fun. Polyphony is a yes. I wish I had gone with the 16-voice Prophet but 8 voices is fine. Pitch wheel I really don’t use that much either, but I hear people do really expressive things with them. I always think I should practice it more but have trouble getting it to not be cheesy. Mod wheel for cliche stuff–filter openings and LFO depths. I should experiment with that more, too, but never do.
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Keybed is very important. Velocity and mod wheels are definitely needed, there are times when there is no other way to get a specific sound without them.
I also look for the ones that are easy to program, and by that I don’t mean less parameters, there is just certain ones that feel right and require less trying to remember where things are.
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Nice quality full size keys is the only must for me. Pitch and mod wheels would be next. Not absolutely necessary, but very fun to use. Especially if the mod wheel is assignable. I don’t love touch/ribbon sliders, but they are a decent alternative to wheels. I’ve never played a synthesizer with a joystick but it looks pretty fun.
I’ve never been able to gel with velocity playing. I love the idea, but it never feels right physically. I think keys need to be really heavy for velocity to feel right. I prefer aftertouch, but I’ll never care if that’s omitted either.
When it comes to polyphony, 4 voices is more than I’ll ever need and duophony is ideal. But I prefer playing monosynths over polysynths.
The only thing I can’t deal with is mini keys! I’ve also never played any sort of ‘touch’ keys like the Microfreak or a Buchla-style thing.
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I have nothing against mini keys, but as most I do prefer full size keys. Two octaves is not enough but I don’t have space for larger than four octaves so I’ve settled with my Analog Keys with it’s three octaves. It’s perfect. In our band I’m mostly the monophonic ”bass player” so three octaves is plenty.
Velocity sensitivity is usually more of a nuisance for me. I tend to always turn it off if possible. But then again I love aftertouch and the extra amount of expression it offers. As I’ve grown accustomed to my AK, I tend to prefer the joystick instead of pitch/mod wheels. When I’m not playing with my band I use my keyboards mostly for programming notes into my MPC Live so I don’t really need a 88 key hammer action waterfall keyboard. The AK and my KordBot are my go to keyboards.
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Full sized and at least 41 keys are a must for me. For a long time now I’ve only had access to a Keystep and I realised a few days ago that it has drastically lessened my ability to play fluidly and expressively. Aftertouch has also been missed. Over the years I’d pretty much mastered velocity and because of that I started to feel the urge to have an additional source of modulation directly from the keyboard. Pitch/Mod wheels or a Joystick are preferable. I don’t like touch strips very much but I do like an XY pads. Always love an arpeggiator on a keyboard.
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If just a single keyboard, full size keys with a minimum of 4 octaves (though mini keys with less octaves are useful due to their smaller footprint). Definitely velocity sensitive, wheels as opposed to a joystick and not bothered about aftertouch as I much prefer to use an expression pedal plus sustain pedal.
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The key-size thing isn’t a personal taste issue, it’s physical and objective. There are probably a whole lot of piano lessons deep in your past if you’re even a casual keyboardist, but even a self-taught person with skills knows (in their hands) that there are small rotations your hands have to make because thumbs and pinkies are so much shorter. That means that keys often get pressed far enough up the key so that the difference in leverage is way too big with shorter keys, which force you way up to the top of the key. You just can’t play with a normal fluidity that way. Sure, you can still play, but so much is sacrificed that it’s more like data entry than jamming on a keyboard. Sometimes you need to do that, but that part’s a chore.
The best mini-keys situation I’ve ever encountered is my Jupiter-Xm. Its keys are less mini than most, so you feel like you’re giving up quite a bit less than, say, a Keystep. I like the Xm for its practicality, and I currently don’t have room for a keyboard with full-sized keys, but I’m hardly satisfied with my present accommodation.
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Glad this thread has popped up.
I’m in a mini dilemma.
I love my OB6 module but since downsizing and selling my DX7 I have missed a keyboard, aftertouch, and more than 3 octaves. I was playing my module with my Sub 37 but boxed it up to focus on using less. I also had to really reach for the knobs and it’s only 3 octaves.
I’m currently playing it via midi with my DX100… mini keys with no aftertouch.
I also have a very small space. I can’t really play but I love sitting on my stool and pretending I do. I’m looking at different options out there and I think I’m going to pull the trigger on a CME X-Key. It’s only 37 keys but the form factor and everything else it has going in its favour seem to fit the bill. I also had my eye on the Keystep but was unsure about how there almost full size slim keys actually feel. I have really small hands so it could be perfect. The other option was to pick up 2 keyboards. Either 2 CME’s and set them to different oraves or buy one CME and a cheap Mk1 Keystep. I don’t really need the Keystep Pro.
Anybody with CME X-Key experience?
I was also looking at the Lumi Keys. Something tells me that the X-Key will be a better option.
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I have two X-Keys, but they’ve been in storage for three years, the past four months in a quarantined location with two more months to go. I did like them a lot, and they’re much more pleasant to jam on than a Keystep. Of course, the Keystep is a great utility that I always keep handy. I set up my X-Keys on either side of my laptop, with the X-Key on the left sequenced backwards so that fingering patterns are the same for both left and right hand. You can’t do that with a Keystep. You’d think this is nuts, but it’s remarkably easy to play this way because, oddly, your left hand mostly already knows what to do to “play backwards” by keeping in mind the mirroring feel in relation to your right hand’s muscle memory. It’s actually more practical, even natural, to have the lowest note under your thumb on both hands instead of under the pinky on the left. Chord shapes feel the same when mirrored.
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Wow!
I am so glad I asked! I always tread an untrodden path and your method sounds like a lot of fun and it was very entertaining to read. For however many years I have been delighted and frustrated at just free styling and seeing what stuff sounds like. Vangelis doesn’t have any theory but knows what to press to evoke certain feelings and emotions.
I’m going to go for the X-Key. Thanks for your information!
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I’m pretty easy to please when it comes to keyboards (I’m also not much of a player). Sounds on the keyboard and the ability to sequence it/program it via midi are what’s most important to me. The ability to modify and save the sounds would be the next important feature. I do like mod wheels, even strips, but if a synth doesn’t have ‘me, it doesn’t bother me. 
Since getting a digital piano with proper weighted 88 keys, I’ve become a bit of a keys fanatic. Much as I like ‘compact’ I can’t deny that a full-size board is better for songwriting and more expressive. So give me all the keys and all the velocity sensitivity and aftertouch seems cool though I’ve never actually had a board that uses it.
Never really been much of an Arpeggiator guy. Fun to play with, but it’s not a feature that would sell a unit to me. And I’ve never understood the one-finger sequencer thing. Totally useless as far as I can tell.
Isn’t that kinda the wrong way to play keys though? I can’t get my fingers to lay flat on the keyboard without feeling super uncomfortable…
I don’t find any real difference in comfort between mini and full size keys. Then again I’ve been a guitarist for 30 years and nobody complains about fret spacing getting smaller up the fingerboard…
You’re right that getting your fingers to lay flat on the keyboard isn’t a goal. Sorry if I implied that, but frankly I don’t see that I said anything like that, and wouldn’t.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to demonstrate, but what I’m trying to demonstrate you might be able to see by playing an Eb major chord (Eb-G-Bb-Eb) with good, relaxed, controllable technique, as any elementary-level teacher will teach. On the Keystep, your hand needs to claw up for that Eb, though not as badly as your all-white-key contortion, which I beg you to never do again on a keyboard of any size. What’s more, the clawing and tension required to play that Eb on a Keystep still puts your index finger about 4/5 of the way up the G and your middle finger at the end of the Bb, making you lose all the leverage over those two keys, and so their controllability. On a full size keyboard, your hand can play Eb with good technique because the distance between the tip of your thumb on the Eb and the tip of your middle finger on the Bb can be much greater, and you can play and move tension-free (with practice). Plus, a little counterclockwise rotation can happen so that your pinky can quite comfortably play the high Eb and also the Db for the Eb7.
Ah yes I kinda see what you mean now. That said, trying this on a fullsize keyboard, the finger I used to play the G is still fairly high up the key.
lol, I must admit I’m no pro keys player; my technique probably borrows too heavily from my guitar technique, hence my somewhat clawed positions. I was just trying to demonstrate that the same key stretch is equally awkward on both mini and full size keys, which I realise is not quite the point you were trying to make.
There are different approaches to technique out there, but I’m sure you know from guitar that minimizing tension is a common goal for all of them, regardless of instrument I imagine. Yeah, your middle finger will ride up relatively high on a fullsize, but that won’t matter much on a full size keyboard, a design that’s evolved over hundreds of years to provide at least just over the threshold of what you need for any non-extravagant situation. But that damn Keystep and its ilk actually force your middle finger well past the end of the key, so that you’re forced to claw significantly. It’s all fine for quick stuff and data entry, but it’s never fun.
Eh, I’ve had plenty of jams with a friend who is a jazz piano player, often with him on a keyboard with mini keys (and at that, one borrowed from me so he’s not even accustomed to them), and he never seems to be uncomfortable. I know he’s not an example of everyone’s experience, but neither is saying that mini keys are objectively bad…
I’ll stick with “objectively bad” at least in the sense that no one (with a minimum of keyboard training) prefers playing on minis over full size.