2nd board recomendations

[paulmapp8306]

Thinking of changing my top board. My lower is an RD2000 which Im more than happy with. Takes care of all my Pianos/organs (though I play those from the top synth action board), EPs, Clavs etc - basically all "key" related traditional sounds. The strings and pads are also OK for layering - but not (IMO) up to scratch for solo work.

My current top board is an FA07 - partly because of the price, partly because I thought it would give what I needed. It does, and doesnt.

There are things on it - such as the sequencer - Im not using, some things that I lie but could be better - SNS stuff, arpegiator etc. Some things I love - using the 16 pads to select sounds in a stage set is fantastically easy and quick, but some things its really not good at (not surprising due to price)

What is HAS done, is nail down what I want from my second board. What I want is the BEST orchestral/string/acoustic instruments I can get - but ALSO a VA style synth section - from waveform up. The Latter does rule out the Montage, which probably has the best orchestral/acoustic stuff (from what Im lead to believe).

Im, guessing the obvious choice it the Kronos - though there is a downside - 61 not 76 (or even 73) keys, and I do like that range - but its not a complete deal breaker. BUT while no worse than the FA its real time synth control is limited - though the FX and mod options are better.

Im actually wondering if the DSi Prophet X is worth a look - expensive yes - but Id guess a FAR better synth than any other option - and with the Samples on board, may do the orchestral/accoustic tones well enough? Has the arp and step sequencer which is good enough. Not sure how easy it would be to set up so it can control the RD (for organ tones) without generating sound itself though - and only guessing on the sampled tones.

Is there anything else worth looking at? (maybe a used Jupiter 80?) adn what would be our choice for this purpose.

 

[happyrat1]

I think you've covered the bases with a DSI or a Kronos. One other to consider might be a Kurzweil PC3K or Forte. Not sure about the Forte but the PC3K has a pretty decent VA engine and 9 programmable sliders/drawbars, great orchestral sounds, kickass K3B organs and a huge community library of preprogrammed patches available for zero or nominal cost.

The VA synth engine is very deep but awkward to program and the patch editor from soundtower is worse than useless. It crashes unpredictably and can corrupt the memory so almost nobody uses it.

I own a PC3K8 (also available in 6 and 7 versions) and though it's been around for over a half a decade now it's still a popular choice for musical theater productions.

Great quality FATAR keybeds on them too.

The documentation is a bear though. The basic manuals are about 1 or 2 thousand pages in total as well as a companion book written by a third party of another thousand pages or so.

If you want to commit to the learning curve and program your own patches you can accomplish amazing things with it or else you can be lazy like me. I have about a thousand third party patches loaded up and another couple of thousand archived.

Basically if it quacks like a duck I can make it sound like one.

Gary

 

[delaware dave]

The Kurz kicks @ss...

 

[paulmapp8306]

Not sure id be happy learning a complex system. I struggle to get motivated programming relatively easy workstations, and tend to rely of tweeks to presets if possible.

Its another reason why the Kronos is off putting - lots of deep editing and the graphics are a bit small fo rmy older eyes. The DSI, if it produces the sounds I want may be a lot easier.

The down sides, from the manual - Midi is assignable, but in the deep menu, so I cant assign midi channels on a patch by patch basis. That makes using the board as control board for the RDs organ sounds a bit more tedious (or rather changing from control, to standard synth mode in a live situation - and possibly in the same song).

 

[happyrat1]

One good thing about the Kurzweils. The user memory is non volatile so once you have it set up it sticks.

Gary

 

[ptooner]

These choices are really too personal to offer a simple answer, but I would suggest you take a look at the VR09. I am using one on top now and I love it for the ease of use. I hate wading through programming, especially on stage. My current setup is a FA08 on bottom and a VR09 on top. YMMV