Is $500 for a Roland Ax-7 a good deal?

[pugofdoom]

Hay guys I'm 15. I've played several years of Piano, and I'm now getting into keyboarding. I have a very basic keyboard right now, nothing special. I was interested in getting some more high end keyboards, and I know it's not cheap. I've been excited for the Ax-synth, since I really want a keytar, but and Ax-7 also sounds nice. I don't know if $500 is a good price for an Ax-7, though. D:
What's your input? Also, how long after release until the Ax-synth drops from $1,249?
Oh and sorry if this post has no "flow" to it. It's 2 AM here. I'm very tired.

 

[Sargas]

As far as I know, the new AX-synth is the first (and yet only?) keytar with build-in sounds, all the others are MIDI-controllers ONLY. So that thing you said about "the ax-7 also sounds nice" must be some kind of misunderstanding somewhere.

As it's probably only a midi-controller, you will need something to connect it to if you want it to make any sound at all. You say you have a "very basic keyboard" atm, which makes me doubt that it has a MIDI IN port, and could therefor be used as a sound module.

I think $500 is a good price for a keytar, if I had the money, and something to connect it to, I would probably go for it, and I think it might take quite a while before the ax-synth start dropping in price.

But as mentioned, make sure that you actually have something to connect it to before buying, so you won't be buying a silent keytar that ain't making any noise at all (just ask if you don't know what I'm talking about, I quite reasontly learned about MIDI myself (I'm 18) so it wouldn't surprise me if you don't know what I mean )

 

[pugofdoom]

As far as I know, the new AX-synth is the first (and yet only?) keytar with build-in sounds, all the others are MIDI-controllers ONLY. So that thing you said about "the ax-7 also sounds nice" must be some kind of misunderstanding somewhere.

As it's probably only a midi-controller, you will need something to connect it to if you want it to make any sound at all. You say you have a "very basic keyboard" atm, which makes me doubt that it has a MIDI IN port, and could therefor be used as a sound module.

I think $500 is a good price for a keytar, if I had the money, and something to connect it to, I would probably go for it, and I think it might take quite a while before the ax-synth start dropping in price.

But as mentioned, make sure that you actually have something to connect it to before buying, so you won't be buying a silent keytar that ain't making any noise at all (just ask if you don't know what I'm talking about, I quite reasontly learned about MIDI myself (I'm 18) so it wouldn't surprise me if you don't know what I mean )

I had someone try to explain MIDI to me, but I Reeeaaallly didn't get it. XD By "MIDI controller," do you mean it only works with other synths plugged in? (From what I understand.)
Thanks for replying. =)
BTW, Is $1249 the actual price for the Ax-Synth? D:

 

[Sargas]

I'll see if I can give you a good explanation:

MIDI is short for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, and is is pretty much like a digital sheetmusic paper.
A sheetmusic paper will not make any sound in itself, you need to pick up an instrument and play what the paper says.

Same goes for MIDI, a MIDI controller will sends signals telling the receiver what to play, it won't be making any sound by itself.

The receiver could be either a sound module, which does basicly the opposite; it cannot decide what to play, but has to be given orders via MIDI. However, it can produce the sounds, and make you hear what you play.
Or it can be another keyboard. Some keyboards (I guess mostly the more expensive ones) have a MIDI IN port, so that you could use the keyboard itself as a sound module, using that keyboards sound, but with another keyboard. Let's give an example to when that might be of use:

You have one keyboard currently, where you have some reaally nice sounds that you really like. Suddenly you find yourself in need of using 2 sounds at once (i.ex Strings and a Lead sound), which both might require too many keys to be able to simply split the keyboard in half. You realize that you will need to get one more keyboard to make it happen, but you still really want to have that fat lead sound of yours on the other keyboard.
Instead of buying one more keyboard of the very same model that you have, and then having to recreate the lead sound again from scratch (which would be a waste of both time and money), you just go and buy a really cheap MIDI controller, and connect it to your current keyboard, assigning the MIDI channels so that your new cheap controller will have the lead sound on all keys, and your other keyboard will have the strings on all keys.



I felt that this explanation turned a little fuzzy at times, due to my lack of english knowledge ^^. Hope it made you understand

EDIT: the Roland AX-synth is currently on €1015 in Europe ($1451), haven't found the US price yet.

 

[pugofdoom]

I'll see if I can give you a good explanation:

MIDI is short for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, and is is pretty much like a digital sheetmusic paper.
A sheetmusic paper will not make any sound in itself, you need to pick up an instrument and play what the paper says.

Same goes for MIDI, a MIDI controller will sends signals telling the receiver what to play, it won't be making any sound by itself.

The receiver could be either a sound module, which does basicly the opposite; it cannot decide what to play, but has to be given orders via MIDI. However, it can produce the sounds, and make you hear what you play.
Or it can be another keyboard. Some keyboards (I guess mostly the more expensive ones) have a MIDI IN port, so that you could use the keyboard itself as a sound module, using that keyboards sound, but with another keyboard. Let's give an example to when that might be of use:

You have one keyboard currently, where you have some reaally nice sounds that you really like. Suddenly you find yourself in need of using 2 sounds at once (i.ex Strings and a Lead sound), which both might require too many keys to be able to simply split the keyboard in half. You realize that you will need to get one more keyboard to make it happen, but you still really want to have that fat lead sound of yours on the other keyboard.
Instead of buying one more keyboard of the very same model that you have, and then having to recreate the lead sound again from scratch (which would be a waste of both time and money), you just go and buy a really cheap MIDI controller, and connect it to your current keyboard, assigning the MIDI channels so that your new cheap controller will have the lead sound on all keys, and your other keyboard will have the strings on all keys.



I felt that this explanation turned a little fuzzy at times, due to my lack of english knowledge ^^. Hope it made you understand

EDIT: the Roland AX-synth is currently on €1015 in Europe ($1451), haven't found the US price yet.

So, do you think If I went for the Ax-7, I'd end up paying a lot more than for the Ax-Synth anyway for keyboards with sounds I like?

 

[Mourndark]

Not necessarily - you can get some good second hand sound modules on the cheap and still have money left over from the AX-synth price. It's a fairly complicated way for a beginner, but certainly on this side of the pond, $500 is a very good price for an AX-7.

 

[Sargas]

So, do you think If I went for the Ax-7, I'd end up paying a lot more than for the Ax-Synth anyway for keyboards with sounds I like?

I haven't actually looked into the prices of sound modules at all, but if Mourndark says you could get some second-hand rather cheap, then I suppose he's right

But, as he also said, it might be a quite complicated way for a beginner, and I'm not sure if I would recommend it. But if you rather want a keytar than a standard keyboard, then you don't have that much choice. Either you do some research about MIDI and get to learn a bit how it works, so you can make your own decision about it. Or you buy the AX-synth. I will see if I can state some pros and cons about the both options:


AX-7 + Sound Module:

+probably cheaper
+probably easier to create your own sounds
+probably better sounds
-more cables
-a bit complicated
-more things to carry around

AX-Synth:

+more convenient
+easier to use
+less things to carry around
-probably more expensive
-as the screen is rather small, tweaking and creating your own sounds might be troublesome (if it's featured at all, I don't know actually)


That's about all I can think of atm, as you might see on the frequent use of the word "probably", I don't really know much about those things. But I'm doing my best to help you out anyway