11 replies to this topic

[biggav]

I am playing live music with my band and currently have a 10 year old yamaha keyboard which has great piano, organ, flute, strings and synth sounds. I dont need, use or want acompanyment, bass lines, drums or any of that as my band are all profesional musicians... (i don't know how i pulled it off!!!!) What i need is to be able to assign different sounds to different keys on the keyboard.... we play 80's rock and pop and in some songs, i need strings, sax, piano and organ... also the dredded orchestra hit for "View to a kill" by duran duran... i would also like to assign chords to a single key... it's not that i'm lazy and want to cheat, it's just that being the singer and front man, i have enough on my mind without trying to pull a 7th minor diminished out of a hat while singing a hi line with my eyes shut! on the subject of cheating... i could also do with recording my solo's and assigning them to a pad or key to prevent bum notes and stink ups. Does such a keyboard exist?

[Zacherius]

I am playing live music with my band and currently have a 10 year old yamaha keyboard which has great piano, organ, flute, strings and synth sounds. I dont need, use or want acompanyment, bass lines, drums or any of that as my band are all profesional musicians... (i don't know how i pulled it off!!!!) What i need is to be able to assign different sounds to different keys on the keyboard.... we play 80's rock and pop and in some songs, i need strings, sax, piano and organ... also the dredded orchestra hit for "View to a kill" by duran duran... i would also like to assign chords to a single key... it's not that i'm lazy and want to cheat, it's just that being the singer and front man, i have enough on my mind without trying to pull a 7th minor diminished out of a hat while singing a hi line with my eyes shut! on the subject of cheating... i could also do with recording my solo's and assigning them to a pad or key to prevent bum notes and stink ups. Does such a keyboard exist?

Unless you go out and literally spend a fortune (£1000s) on a keyboard, the set up you want can be achieved by having a couple of keyboards set up for the individual sounds. They even sell stands for multiple keyboards purely for this purpose. The old tune " KILLER " by Adamski and Seal ( showing my age ) was one that sticks in my head. Or even Jean Michelle Jarre. They all had to use various keyboards to get the tunes across correctly.

Hope this helps.

[Retro_10s]

Gav, you need a Midi trigger, you can set up a Mini keyboard like this too, whereby certain notes will trigger certain sounds, or certain sections of the keyboard can be assigned different voice patches.

Alternatively,.. get a keytar, this can be set-up in a similar way

[biggav]

I have a 3 tier stand and used to use a yamaha stage piano, korg synth and a 88 key midi keyboard with a Hammond Suzuki GM1000 midi box. Then i came across a yamaha PSR3... somthing in the summer of 2000 and it had all the sounds i needed, Proper Piano, Proper organ sounds and all the general midi stuff too... I guess i need a sampling keyboard which rips the sounds from the yamaha and puts them on which ever key i want.

I did think about getting a couple more keyboards but i need the simplicity of being able to not have to think about what i am doing.... i'm getting old!

[pariahcreative]

I personally would go for a slightly different approach.
I play piano/guitar/bass/keyboards/cello and drums and have a degree in sound production (even though I'm a graphic designer!)

I would get a laptop, a good velocity sensitive midi keyboard and a decent external soundcard.

A good setup would be an M-Audio fast-track sound card, which although aimed at guitarists has great sound, wont costs much and is very versatile.
Get a macbook and a copy of Logic. The cheaper express version is very very good and will provide you with everything you need and a whole lot more.
The pricier option is Logic Pro which also has a seperate workflow for live performances. You can play live with express fine without this but it does clear a lot of uneeded menus/options out of the way.
Both come with the EXS sample player built in which is a very easy to use and extremely high quality sample player. The samples included range across everything you can imagine, from a yamaha grand to street noises and 100s of very cool retro 80s synths.

This setup would be around the same cost of a good quality keyboard but is far more versatile and generally more user friendly. It also gives you the option of pro level recording/mixing/authoring etc.

As to the laptop, I would get a mac book. The cheapest new one will be more than adequate but if your budget is tight go for an apple G4 powerbook, which can be picked up cheap and do the job perfectly. Apple are pricier than other PC's but far easier to get to grips with and much more reliable.

As a side note, if you dont want to get software like Logic the mac will come with garage band, which is the consumer level audio recording/mixing software. Most people would say it isn't up to the job but they are being snobs. The technology used is the same as in Logic but without some of the higher end features, which most users ignore anyway.

I know this is a lengthy post but I hope it helps, or gives you an alternative you may not have thought of.

If you want any other advice feel free to PM me.

Rob

[biggav]

Thanks Rob!!!!!

I think thats what i'm after, i've been looking at £3000 keyboards and thinking.... there must be a cheaper way!!! i don't need all the bells and whistles, just to play 5 different instruments on 1 keyboard in different places.

[ZED]

another even cheaper way is to buy an old sampler, it needs you to set up your individual samples but then you can allocate each sound to it's own key on the keyboard, your orch stab, your chords etc back in the day we would have one keyboard set up like this for sound effects, think of it more as a trigger rather then played.

obviously you would connect the keyboard via midi

Zed

Edited by ZED, 12 February 2009 - 01:24 AM.

[Marky Tizz]

Got a laptop? Go with what the guy (can't remember your name, sorry) said about macbook and logic, but just get something cheap and easy like Ableton Live Lite, Cubase LE, blah blah blah, anything that can run on PC and use a midi controller. As you said, you already have a midi keyboard, so all you would need to do is get a hold of the software, load a sampler, then chuck the sounds you want in to the keys you want.

It is easiest using Logic and EXS24 in my experience, but if you need a hand with anything else give me a PM and I'll be happy to talk you through.

And just in case, I DO know what I'm doing, I just spent the last 6 weeks doing a very similar thing as part of my Music Tech degree

HTH

Mark

[biggav]

I have cubase 4... midi leads, laptop with good spec.... so i guess i got all i need.

[pariahcreative]

Don't use the built in sound card in the laptop. It wont be up to much. I'd still get something like an Mbox. Your sound on stage will be so much better.

But otherwise what you have will do the trick, with a little work and some good quality samples.

Rob

[Marky Tizz]

I have cubase 4... midi leads, laptop with good spec.... so i guess i got all i need.

Presumably you have a midi interface as well? Otherwise he can't use the built in sound card anyway As above, go with an Mbox (which will come with Pro Tools LE by the way) or get something slightly cheaper such as an M-Audio Fast Track Pro, which has midi I/O, audio, s/pdif etc, costs around £100 and I can strongly recommend it. Should also come with Ableton Live Lite 6 if you're lucky, but Cubase 4 should be fine.

[biggav]

Quick update... after studying how much each option would cost, breaking down the pro's and cons of each, discussing the issue on several forums, with the wife, the band and anyone who was interested, i took the following action.


















I have learned to play all the parts.