Keyboard(musical) buying help

[isladar]

I adore you, that's the only reason I made a mad face at your absence, since I was hoping you'd see it!


I ended up buying the EV Cardinal about.. twenty minutes ago, Sam Ash restocked them and since I know I liked it, there's no reason not to snag it for $99. Will be saving up for the AKG Perception 420, but I found the Cardinal to be a workhorse as far as versatility, so I wouldn't be so angry with the 990.

As for the 990.. I couldn't give you technical reasons as to what I don't like about it. It's thin, and even being shoved through my Presonus tube pre, has no warmth. It's hyper-sensitive in the worst way, and has a tendency to pick up anything you don't want recorded within a 300 mile radius with alarming accuracy. When I first used the Cardinal, the washer was running in the background and it still got my voice perfectly. The 990 is murder on plosives, but if you're sitting back from it far enough to avoid that, you're muddy.

As far as latency/computer things: my old box was not equipped well, so no, you may have had something better than me. I've upgraded slightly, but now of course have no damn controller!

And I'm right with you bashing the M-Audio boards. I've yet to be impressed by anything that company makes, and their keys especially feel like absolute shit. I love Korg sounds, but buying a workstation in the age of VSTs is retarded, so go with the best feeling board, which is Yamaha, hands down. It's just terribly hard finding an 88-weighted MIDI that doesn't come with bells and whistles you don't need.. I just want to run my ridiculous Steinway samples.

[Woozie]

Wait, you don't need all the extra knobs and stuff? You just want 88 keys and weighted? The M-Audio digital piano fits that description, though as you pointed out, the feel isn't very realistic (and I hear the keys break easily).

When we used the MXL, we actually brought in a bunch of pillows and mattresses and sofas and stuff from all over her house (pretty much anything soft) and propped most of it up wherever we could (we get all kinds of weird problems if we don't deaden the room acoustics out). The house was pretty dead silent (even the dog was quiet while we recorded), so I guess that's why we didn't notice some of the issues. We had an annoying hum in the recording, but everything hums on my friend's setup, so I didn't blame the mic. It did take a while get to get the sound I was looking for (I don't know how to describe it. I wasn't sure if the mic was the problem or if it was the room acoustics. I tried to EQ it to sound the way I wanted, but couldn't really do it. Maybe if we had a better mic we wouldn't depend on EQ so much). If the cardinal is that good and only $99, I should probably buy one for my friend that uses the MXL. Well, before I buy her anything I need to figure out how to get the hum out of her setup.

Overall, though, the finished product was okay. We didn't it to sound professional, and I actually thought it would sound much worse than it did.

Just out of curiosity, which Steinway samples do you use? I've been downloading all kinds of samples lately and I can't decide which I want to use. At the moment, I have on my computer:

Steinway D (from sampletank digitally remastered collection)
Galaxy Steinway

Akoustik Piano, which has
Steinway D (different than the two above)
Bosendorfer,
Bechstein,
and some upright I don't care about.

Bosendorfer Imperial PMI 290 (East West, or whatever the company is called).
The Grand 2 (which has two pianos, but I'm not sure what the pianos are. The manual doesn't say).
Yamaha C7 (the one I posted earlier. Despite being free, it is very decent in quality).
Steinway D (a different one the the three I've already listed. I don't remember who made the samples or where I got them. I think it was part of Kontakt complete but I'm not sure).
August Förster (came with the steinway I just mentioned. I think it's an upright)
The Concert Grand from the Yamaha Motif (don't know what type of piano it is. Using this requires me to rewire with reason, which I hate because it eats up memory and I don't use Reason for anything else, so I'd rather get rid of it).

So that's a total of fourteen pianos (four of which are steinways). The reason I have so many is because I can't decide which one I like best. I was actually going to make a topic in spam with a video of me playing each and make a poll to see what everyone else likes the most. I'll probably make it this weekend if I have time. If you have a steinway that is different than any I listed above, I'd like download it (assuming it's available on demonoid. I'm not paying for anything) and test it against the other pianos when I finally get around to making the poll in spam. I'm trying to narrow it down to one bosendorfer and one or two steinways. I'll probably keep the C7 regardless. I may keep some of the other pianos too if people like them (I like them all, I just can't decide which sound the best). All these pianos are taking up too much space on my harddrive though.

I want to get the synthogy Ivory and the Galaxy Vintage D samples, but I can't find the latter, and there are no cracks available for the former (and I'm not about to pay for it).

As for what you said about workstations, I totally agree. My friend (the one I recorded with the MXL) has access to a Motif, but it was a hassle getting it around and then getting it back to its owner. She even talked about buying her own at one point. I kept trying to convince her that it wasn't worth the money or the trouble, but she wouldn't listen. I ended up downloading the motif sounds from a torrent just to prove to her that buying one wasn't worth the money. Now she uses the motif sounds and sampletank (and a few other programs and drum kits) and isn't even thinking about buying any workstation.

[SephYuyX]

Are you dead set on a keyboard?

Ive seen numerous uprights on craigslist for sub 300$ (alot free or under 100) that just need a good tuning.

I know keyboards are a hell of a lot versitile, and more compact, and people will argue to the death that they feel modern keryboards are superior to even a grand in a good acoustical room, but I could never imagine playing on a keyboard, it just feels so wrong. Granted I havent played on a keyboard in years now, so I know theyre completly different, but to me they just dont have that feel, smell or that enchanting aura that makes playing a real piano so good.

[isladar]

Just out of curiosity, which Steinway samples do you use?

It's a sample set on East West QL Silver Edition (which is pay software but if people actually pay for software that's news to me), called Steinway Dark. There are other settings, but for whatever reason, that out of the box has given me the most love.

[Woozie]

Wow, those samples are awesome. I'm on the website looking at the specs and listening to the demos now. They have the Bosendorfer, the Steinway, and the C7. And since these are the same people who made the Bosendorfer that I already have, I can definitely trust that this will be a good program. I think I may download this and delete most of the other pianos I already have, since this had the three pianos I was mainly looking to use.