[musictlk] Electronic Keyboard Questions

[Richard Holloway]

One other idea I had as to possible solutions was a Roland Integra 7 rack module. These have about 6000 sounds and a great reputation for sound quality— apparently most of the better sounds on the Fantom FA series come from the Roland Integra 7. These were really expensive as modules of this sort go, but now can be found used around $1000 on a good day. (Not cheap, but for 6000+ interesting sounds, really a fairly good deal.)

I have heard the sounds on the Famtom units- many are quite nice, but the Integra 7 has been discontinued, so I’d have to find one to possibly explore, and while Guitar Center or the like may not mind us sitting and playing with equipment by the hour, that’s harder to do to explore a used piece from an individual... I’m confidant they (Integra 7’s) sound good though. As I think I mentioned, we have an Akai mpk88 that could control an Integra to play it via MIDI. I’m not sure what could be mapped on the Akai to change sounds though, and reaching back and forth with a rack module (as we do with the Radias) can be a hassle, and limits physical placement of the gear pretty heavily...

There is, however, an app for iPad to explore, and I believe possibly it could be used to direct-select sounds in the Integra 7. I’m not sure the app is still supported since the Integra is discontinued, so it may be that the current (or at least future) iOS version(s) wont work with the app. So again wherever I turn, I seem to find more questions than answers.

With all all of that said, I still doubt there are as many handy pre-mapped setups for existing well-known artists and specific songs as on the Kronos, as I mentioned before, and some of what the Kronos has are really (IMO) knock-your-socks-off quality sounds...

I understand that there is little choice but to sort through a lot of sounds sometimes to find precise matches for needs, but I really like the idea of having as many interesting solutions for her as possible which don’t require lots of tweaks once they are found and loaded to have usable sound to play and record. I was listening to / playing on both a Kronos and a Fantom yesterday at Guitar Center. The Kronos sounds were particularly impressive. I’m mostly concerned that the interface could become overwhelming with the Kronos. Have any blind users here tried them out?

The thing that keeps jumping in my head with ALL of these machines is that they all have USB ports, if not Bluetooth (I have yet to see bluetooth options but maybe they exist?) and in fact the USB is (as I understand it) the standard way to connect all of these machines to iPads. (You need a camera connection kit which is basically an adaptor that allows the iPad to have a USB port.)

I’m looking at this much like I looked at guitar solutions for my daughter a while back (her two main things are playing guitar and keyboards). We have no doubt played on and explored hundreds of guitars over a number of years. We have bought a dozen or more over time, and still own/play on several. That was the required process to get things down to having a handful of appropriate guitars that suit her playing style. We still to to Guitar Center and play what is new, and look through used equipment every week or so. Rarely does anything seem to compare more favorably with what we already have. I don’t see many guitar changes in her future for quite a while. They will come, but  we have now settled in and know what is comfortable for her and what meets her needs. 

That’s where we seems to be headed with keyboards. Our process (like many, I suspect) is to go from playing around and exploring many different things to honing in our equipment needs and then ultimately spending more time making actual music with our preferred tools. Unfortunately, exploring keyboards is a more complicated process than seeing how a guitar feels when it is picked up and in your hands...