Williams Legato for cheap but good piano tones?

[Rachel]

Im looking for something cheap and only interested in piano tones really, is this something I should buy? I've heard good things about it, I'm playing in a punk band, so it'll be every now and then, nothing concert hall quality just wondering if anybody has one and would recommend it for occasional stuff? Also how's the organ tone on it? Any good? I have a sound module for that but would be nice to have a decent organ tone as well just to play around on without hooking up stuff.

 

[Mighty Motif Max]

Hi Rachel,

Avoid Williams keyboards if at all possible. Unfortunately, there is very little dynamic range and they sound terrible. They would only be good as a MIDI controller. I've played several. The Legato only has 32 notes pf polyphony, which is very low.

What do you consider to be "cheap"? <$500? <$300?

The only thing <300 that I can think of would be the Casio CDP-135. Used there might be some stuff if you look carefully.

Around $500, you have much better options. Yamaha P-45, Casio PX-160, and Korg B1.

After that around $600-700 you have the Roland FP30, Yamaha P125, Korg D1, and Casio PX-350. The Yamahas beat the Casios in my opinion, but I've never heard the Korgs.

If you don't need rotary speed switching on the organs, and only need one or two generic organ sounds, than these should work OK. Not the greatest, to be sure. As an occasional sound, I think they would work OK.



Hope that helps,


-Max

Edit: forgot the Kawai ES110 @$700/729.