Portable keyboards

[SenhorLampada]

Nice song, OldRotten!

Got new things already?

[FedericoC]

As I've said elsewhere on the forum, I'm very fond of Korg's micro- line.

microPIANO has fantastic grand piano patches, and some others thrown for good effect.
No MIDI, but can be powered by batteries and has onboard speakers. 5 octaves.

microKORG / microKORG XL is the best option if you're into synths; XL has some normal (as in PCM sample-based) instrument patches as well (piano, organ, electric piano, clavinet), but it's not where its strength lies. Good fun with the onboard vocoder too. No speakers, battery powered. 3 octaves.

microSTATION is a quite nice workstation with all you could expect in one (including effects, dual arpeggiators, combis, a very good sequencer and a grid sequencer). Allows you to customize sounds to great extents, but you've probaby got to work a little bit to get the sound you're looking for. No speakers, can't be powered by batteries. 5 octaves.

microARRANGER is an arranger-kind of keyboard, meaning it has styles (bossa nova, disco, jazz semi-automatic but customizable backing). Very good for songwriting, great sounds, and some sound editing capability as well. No batteries, speakers onboard. 5 octaves –slightly wider and heavier than microSTATION though.

Hope it can be useful  

-- Federico

[Geir]

Thanks for that summary of the micros from Korg Federico !

From your list I see that it is indeed microKORG XL that I need. Small, batterypowered, both samplebased and synth sounds and a vocoder thrown in for good measure yes ...it's definitively on my wish-list !!

[FedericoC]

Again, them samples are not the best thing in the synth, and they are not many (no guitars, no woodwinds, and so on), but if you want synth sounds microKORG XL does it by analog simulation modeling, and I can assure it does sound different from usual synthy sounds you can find in romplers and workstation, and that's, of course a very good thing 

-- Federico

[na_th_an]

What can I say? I own MANY small Casiotone keyboards (and some big ones). They are old, cheesy, and cheap. A couple of good ones to use with the BR would be any of the SK-series (sampling keyboards, let you record a short, low quality sample and play all around the keyboard, plus have 4 note polyphony and some nice sounding registers), or the SA-10.

I own a SK-8 just like this one:


The SA-10 has 100 sounds and 4 note polyphony, but the samples have some zipper noise. I recorded a whole album using one of those and an old spanish guitar:


If you can afford more, the MT-70 is a winner. It's somewhat big, but the sounds are lovely, plus has a nice beatbox and a great arpeggiator. It's my favourite small keyboard.

[beleg]

The SA-10 has 100 sounds and 4 note polyphony, but the samples have some zipper noise. I recorded a whole album using one of those and an old spanish guitar:

Where can I have a listen?

[DannyB_KY]

Are all SAs sampling??

[Hilary]

The SA-10 has 100 sounds and 4 note polyphony, but the samples have some zipper noise. I recorded a whole album using one of those and an old spanish guitar:

I've got an SA-65 - it's alright (bit annoying because the keys aren't full sized). I recorded, I can't get no .... with it. The stickies with the notes on are for my kids' benefit, not mine!



https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=15691.0

[na_th_an]

The SA-10 has 100 sounds and 4 note polyphony, but the samples have some zipper noise. I recorded a whole album using one of those and an old spanish guitar:

Where can I have a listen?

Nowhere right away, but I will upload it to Soundcloud next week

It needs processing to get rid of the zipper noise. Adobe Audition hiss reduction or some EQ (for bass sounds, a low pass) make a great work. Bigger models don't have such a problem. I have a CTK-200 which shares the same engine albeit with more bit-depth for samples. Zipper noise is gone in such a model.

EDIT: I uploaded a song which was recorded using ONLY the SA-10 and some freesound samples here -> https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=16090.msg201223#msg201223