Who plays keyboard?

[uab9253]

I am one of those half assed kybd players - I'm really a guitar player.
I have a real piano downstairs, an 80's era Casio CZ-101 Analog synth, a Casio whatever home toy keyboard that I sometimes use as a midi controller (for song writing) and a Roland XP-10 which is my main board. I use some sounds from that, but I mostly drive VST synths and samplers with it like the Halion One and Prologue.

[soundlessness]

I've been playing piano for a couple years now. I have an upright piano and a m-audio keystation 88es for recording.

[Jeez]

Well, i can play a bit, but not any extaudenary. Self thaght, really a guitar player, but keys can be quiet fun

[windeguy]

I have played keyboard from the age of 8 years old (um that was 44 years ago, geez I'm old!). I started on a Thomas Organ. I have had Farfisa organs, Fender Rhodes Pianos, Arp Odyssey and Arp 2600 synths, a clavinet, Hammond CV and 147 Leslie, an Elka string machine and another piano like keyboard whose name escapes me.

I have played in bands that gigged since I was 15 years old. I would guess about 20 different groups over the years from Holiday Inns to the Haight Ashbury street festival, Gilroy Garlic festival and a lot of hole in the wall places. Mostly rock, pop and very light jazz. I also played in a church for a few years to make some additional money. My gigs helped me pay for my Electrical Engineering degree in microprocessor design. It would be hard for anyone to make the relatively good money that I made many years ago today.

Currently, I am retired in the Dominican Republic ( actually we rent some apartments in Cabarete to vacationers so I do have a small gig) and have a Roland XV88, a few old Ensoniq keyboards (Mirage, ASR10 ESQ-1), a Proteus 2000 sound module and have played around with soft synths.

My advice for those of you wanted to learn keyboard is to get an inexpensive Roland 88 note piano if you want to learn piano. There are many choices if you want a synth/organ style keyboard. It is easy to add to the sounds as you go with MIDI'ed sound modules. Good luck to those that aspire to learn. I myself am a frustrated guitarist/bassist. I have to time to learn, but not that many people here to jam with and I was never much of a solo player.

[rexde]

I play a bit. Took lessons for a few years as a kid, mostly classical training, also took guitar, drum, and sax lessons. Owned an Ensoniq EPS-1 for a few years. Although it had some major flaws (like it would occasionally just crash hard), I think I got a lot out of it. 20 character LED sequencing can really test your creativity. I had a baby grand for a while. It belonged to a friend who was travelling. It was shit, but it was tons of fun. Now I have an Alesis QS-8, 88-keys, weighted, etc. It's very nice, but still nothing like the real thing. Someday, when I decide I am going to live somewhere, I will get a real piano. For some reason (like maybe I'm the laziest SOB in the world), I am much more likely to sit at a real piano in my living room in my house and play, than I am to go into my studio and flip a few switches before I can hear anything. My laziness has also led me to more acoustic guitar playing (no cable to plug in or amp to turn on), and more fingerpicking (no pick to bother with).

Interestingly, I only bought the synths in an effort to improve my guitar playing. (Guitar is really my main thing). My thinking was to record some backup/rhythm stuff to practice with. 20+ years later, I'm almost getting around to that.

There was a time when I could play (keys) any Doors tune you ever heard, some Beatles, some Ellington, and Moonlight Sonata. There is no easier way to get laid than being able to play the piano at a party.

[jweite]

For me keyboards came first, (home) recording much later. Piano lessons from age 5, first band (a Farfisa organ!) in 7th grade, Hammond/Leslie at 19, various cheap polysynths over following 8 years, at which point I gave up on becoming a rock god, got married and concentrated on a more mainstream career. These days I play a mish-mosh of rock, jazz, classical, showtunes and coach my kids in the same. (Got my 15 year old daughter tracking her own material in Cakewalk, though I still try to poke my nose into her mixdowns.)

Piano always came first (and last.) Recently bought my first really good one (Grotrian). I use a Kawai digital for recording, occasional jams and nighttime practice, along with a growing collection of VST softsynths (mostly freebies). I picked the Kawai because it was the only one who's touch/tone was right for my occasional classical forays. (Not always the best tone for rock, but I make due.)

I picked up some guitar and bass along the way, and no doubt the music theory part of learning to play the piano gave me a leg up, but I don't think the playing itself made a difference. May have enen held me back. Both the mechanics and idioms are so different.

-J

[RiffRaff]

Own a cheap Casio . Its a great little toy for what it cost (less than 150 a few years ago). Has a MIDI in and out , aux out and heaphones/amp output jacks. Has 137 tones (piano,organ,guitar,reed,drums,sound effects) 100 rhytms, built-in metronome, built-in recording on seperate tracks.

For someone just wanting to dabble with keyboards and home recording its very handy and economical . I am using it as a supplemental learning aid for reading music so as to improve my guitar playing.

[Cailyn]

I'm a guitarist who plays keyboards. Pretty essentially these days I think to be proficient with a MIDI controller. I used to program most of my MIDI instruments right in the DAW but this tends to create lifeless instrumentation in the snap-to-grid environment unless you do a lot of tweaking after. I have returned to playing the performance on a keyboard and tweaking the weak points afterwards.

I spent several years teaching myself classical pieces on the piano but because I skipped all the necessary drills and scale exercises, I never really mastered any of the pieces I played.

[spike]

I use to be a guitarist, if you'll excuse name dropping I played a bit with John Lennon at school in Liverpool even before he formed The Quarrymen. Decided to teach myself the organ in the 70s but transmogrified to keyboards a few years ago with a Yamaha PSR2000. I have now upgraded to a Tyros2, Motif XS6 and Korg N5ex. I can't read a note of music but manage to get round most genres of music adequately. I've now bought (awaiting delivery) a Fostex MR16 so I can expand my musical horizons. At the moment I record with the onboard sequencer of the T2 and tidy things up with Cubase.
Spike

[MatsonMusicBox]

Originally Posted by CorporateMustache

Just wondering how many folks play keyboard on the forum? What kind of equipment do you use? How long have you been playing?

Well - old thread - but since I'm new and fit the category - I'll answer ...

I play keyboards and sing - not proficient at any other instrument. Been playing piano since age 7 (that was 39 years ago) - 9 years classical lessons, 20+ years in rock bands, Few years in there doing lounge lizard, band, teaching improv lessons, jingles, whatever would make a buck

Current keys include:
Yamaha Motif XS8
Korg M3 61
Korg CX3 Organ
Yamaha Motif ES6
Alesis QS8
Roland Juno G (actually my son's I guess)
Hohner D6 Clavinet
2 Minimoogs
Arp Odyssey