MOTUnation.com

Due to my day job I have been out of the loop on the music writing front for the past 6 years, and am now finally getting back into it. I am working on upgrading my home studio - I left off with a Blue & White G3 running DP 3.6 on classic OS 9, external sound modules running through my A90EX, mixers, freemidi issues, etc. - you get the idea. I have a lot of upgrading to do, and it's gonna be a while before I am once again proficient in working in a studio environment.

In the meantime, I am looking for a new keyboard that will allow me to lay down my compositional sketches in the quickest and fastest way, and preferably allow me to burn them onto disc on the spot, rather than having to fuss over Digital Performer, mixing, burning w/ the computer, etc. I am a pianist by training and write most of my pieces on an acoustic piano. As I said, I plan to upgrade my home studio and invest the time and energy into re-aquainting myself with DP, but in the meantime I want to get a self-contained keyboard - complete with built-in burner - for those days when I only have 20 minutes to sit down and work on a composition and don't have time to boot up the computer, turning on all the peripheral equipment, getting lost and confused with relearning DP.

Can anyone recommend a good unit? Assume that price is no problem, but that too steep a learning curve is...

Most of my compositions involve piano, strings (some orchestra), some choir vocals and heavy percussion. An audio interface for the keyboard would be a plus, but not a must.

Thanks in advance for your help!

If you can deal with a four-track overdub limitation, you might enjoy GeneralMusic's PRP700 or PRP800 digital piano, which can be had for under $1000 and have pretty good keybed action as well as excellent physically modeled acoustic and electric piano and a few token string and vibraphone type patches.

Slightly higher-end but with similar scratchpad recording capacity are the Promega 2 and Promega 3 from the same vendor (aka GEM).

As I recall, you can take a sound-on-sound appraoch and do more than four track if you start combining and overdubbing in the scratchpad. But I do not recall if it's audio-only or also allows saving as MIDI. At any rate, you can do multiple takes on a track, but you can't really rearrange per se. For that you would need a MIDI sequencer built-in.

And if that's what you need or want, then a workstation is the way to go. But it is hard to predict whether Alesis, Kurzweil, Roland, Yamaha, or Korg would be the most intuitive for you. I personally think they're ALL hard for a beginner, just in different ways. If working in MIDI vs. audio is not a requirement but you still want to remix and rearrange, you might consider a keyboard plus a standalone digital multi-tracker like Yamaha's or Korg's, which typically run for under $1000 and offer up to 16 tracks (or 32).

Dear mhschmieder,
Thank you for your helpful suggestions. I will investigate the keyboards you mention. Your response also reminds me that, in addition to great standalone capability, I will want this keyboard to replace my A90EX as the centerpiece of my new DP rig. With that in mind, I may repost this message in the DP Forum.

If money is not a problem, then I would recommend Korg M3, the 88 weighted keys version. I don't own it, but from the reviews I read, apparently it can do most everything you say you need.