…like on organs, but one of the manuals has a hammer action.

Does it exist?

If not, how can it be put together?

What approaches have people tried to put it together?

It doesn't exist but it can very easily ....two keyboards and a midi cable

Problem is horrific horrific horrific ergonomics with the keyboard manuals far far far apart, much much much further apart than organ manuals.

Close set 2 tier stand ...?
Or buy a C2D

Well, there's this ....

Below is a pic of the C2D. That would be it, if one of the manuals has a hammer action, but I doubt it. Details are scarce at the moment, but it looks like a pure organ.

Edit: Look at how close the 2 manuals are. If 2 keyboards can be put together that close then the problem is solved. The problem is which 2 keyboards (one hammer action, one synth action) can be put together like that?

Just a standard keyboard stack including, say, a p155, an Fp7f or an MP10 - wouldn't that do it?

The vertical distance between the manuals would be 6 to 7 inches with the keyboards touching each other (bottom of top keyboard touches the top of bottom keyboard)

On an organ the vertical distance between manuals is 2 to 2.5 inches. You can easily reach across manuals with one hand, i.e. one finger on one manual, the other finger on the other manual.

Yes, a keyboard like the P155 works well. The controls barely extend above the keys. You can rest the front of the 2nd board on the top surface of the P155, you just need a stand that can then support the second board from the back... which unfortunately is not that common, but there are some, or ones that are easily adapted to work that way, or you might even be able to use a separate stand for that back board with the front resting on the bottom board.

Ahh, OK.

My Kurzweil has dual manuals. Each one is about 2" thick!



I know, I'm not much help.

You should be able to find boards that get them closer than that. Boards like the P155 have probably less than an inch of "extra height", and there are unweighted boards that have a "bottom" that's under 2" (I just checked a Korg M50 and a Nord Stage 2). So it may be a matter of finding the right boards.


I've done that using the kind of setup we're talking about, i.e. to play the same note on both keyboards at the same time, with one hand.

Well, just measure the ergonomics.

There are companies like Orla that are trying to do stack suitable keyboards in custom stands, but the ergonomics still don't jive.

I am still looking...

Edit: Yes, it is a matter of finding the right keyboards to match. Will look into the keyboards mentioned...

Edit #2: anotherscott, if you stack the M50 on the P155 so that you can still access the narrow control strip of the P155 just behind the keys, what is the horizontal distance between the fronts of top and bottom manuals?

What do you exactly mean by 'hammer action' ? Velocity-sensitive, weighted and/or 'graded' action ? Because some organs like the C2D, perhaps the C2D itself, have velocity-sensitive (but not weighted and not 'graded') keyboards, so it is possible to play with dynamics.

‘hammer action of an acoustic grand piano’ is often considered the Holy Grail of ‘hammer action DPs’

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I better repeat the question in an earlier posting rather than having a second edit overlooked:

anotherscott, Dr P, or somebody else with lots of keyboards, if you stack the M50 on the P155 so that you can still access the narrow control strip of the P155 just behind the keys, what is the horizontal distance between the fronts of top and bottom manuals?

I dunno I don't have either board but I'm sure you could get it close, not as close as you like but close enough.
What you want doesn't exist so you just have to deal with it and adapt your playing to suit.
If I can play a Synth line on a top board while playing pads on a board 2 tiers down or even across from me on another stand 90 degrees away then you can too.

(that's another style of keyboard kung-fu)

@LesCharles73, it made me laugh!

What you really are asking, I think, is the depth of the P155's control panel space, measured from the back of the keys. I don't have a P155, but I'm sure someone here can measure that for you. Though also, you may not even need to leave the entire P155 control space unobstructed. All the buttons are in the bottom half of the panel. Depending on what you're doing with it and how well you know your way around those particular options, you may not need to read all the legends above them. For that matter, if you're using it just to control, for example, a piano sound in a computer, you might not need access to the controls at all.

The front lip of the the M50 adds no space at all. The front of the keys actually hang in front of the enclosure.

In a dual organ manual, the distance from the front of a natural to the front of the natural above is 4.25 inches. This cannot likely be achieved by stacking keyboards, I just want to know how large the deviation is.

Organ manuals (and the rest of the organ) are optimized for ergonomics that has evolved over centuries, and the ergonomics of any keyboard stack can be measured against the Holy Grail of organ ergonomics.

At this point, I tend to believe that organ ergonomics can only be approached by stacking actions as distinct from stacking keyboards. But stacking actions is not really a DIY job

On a Hammond B3, the distance between the front of the upper and lower naturals is about 6 inches straight back, or 6.5" measured keytip to keytip (i.e. diagonally up from the bottom manual to the top).

One more issue you're going to deal with here, besides how far forward you can manage to bring that top board, is the fact that weighted action keys are longer than unweighted action keys, usually about 6" as opposed to about 5.5", so you'll lose a half inch just by wanting a weighted action.

I would guess (and someone here can probably verify) that the P155 keys are about 6". You'd still need to know how much to add to that depth to keep the control panel clear, but as I mentioned, I don't think you even need to keep the entire control panel area clear, if your goal is to get the boards as close as possible.

This image might help:

http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/shop_image/product/40718-yamaha-p155-black-mahogany-large.jpg

The issue will be how you keep the M50 stable up there, what you do for rear support. Rather than a stand, I wonder if you could even somehow attach something to the back/underside of the P155 itself. Either way, I might even add a bit of velcro to attach the M50 more firmly to the P155.

A Korg SP170 might be better bottom board for 2nd-tier proximity (sound and action aside), because it has no control panel at all. It also weighs a lot less (and is half the price). I'm not sure whether or not its back surface is as flat.

http://www.korg.com/uploads/Images/SP170_6_634546131607670000.png

Another possibilities might be Yamaha P95

http://www.gearnuts.com/images/items/1800/P95-xlarge.jpg

What I meant by stacking actions, is something like this: take off the top of the bottom board, take off the bottom of the top board, brace them together, and put any controls of the bottom board on the side(s) of the smaller top board.

Not sure if I ever become this crazy to launch such an attempt

I don't think stacking actions in a custom enclosure and moving their electronics around would necessarily let you get the keyboards any closer to each other than doing what I described, though it would give you a wider range of keyboards to choose from.