Hello, i just wrote this long post and then deleted it, Im going to get right to the point, ive got 3k and i need a great feeling midi contoller, 88 weighted keys, aftertouch, mod wheels, and no sounds, just a board, here are brands that i wont buy, casio, maudio, studiologic, yamaha, roland, korg, nord, kurzweil,... the kawai mp10 felt the best out of all of them but its big and i dont need all the sounds, so Im wondering if theres something out there with similiar action thats just a board...Doepfer lmk4 and numa nero are close to what im looking for but doepfer aesthetically unappealing and fatar, and numa has a pile of bad reviews, any other lesser known brands I can check out and explore, this is half the fun! IF not then the mp10 might have to be my choice, thanks for the replies!

The board you want doesn't exist. Even the MP10 doesn't have aftertouch. And I think your list covered all the possibilities in weighted 88s. The only other thing I could suggest is the Infinite Response VAX77, which has a unique but, by most accounts, a very playable action for piano, and it has polyphonic aftertouch, no sounds, and is not big and heavy like the MP10 (in fact, it folds!). It does not feel anything like an MP10, though, so if that is the kind of feel you prefer, you may not be happy with it either. And possibly the biggest compromise would be that it is a 76 key board instead of 88. But every board will be a compromise.

You pretty much eliminated every brand except Kawai, so I think the decision has been made for you .

Nothing available for you.

Well then lol, I guess im roasty toasty, I just wasnt sure if there was something that I was missing out there, and ugh, I didnt realize there was no aftertouch on the mp10...im so sad right now......the kawai keybed has ruined me to all others its just so good

MP10, or wait...

James
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Any idea clues as to the weight, and the wait, James? ;-) You've probably said too much already.....

Oooh! Intriguing....

Yeah well it's a good opportunity as both Yamaha and Roland ditched their 88 key weighted controllers and the others on the market are rubbish Fatar actions etc So it's a opportunity for Kawai to introduce a product into the market that has no competition and with the excellent control aspects of the MP10 as a base (this has the single best interface of any keyboard ...period) I can't see how they could go wrong actually. Kawai see opportunity where Roland and Yamaha see none and blind freddy can see that since the KX88 there has been nothing worthwhile on the market with 88 keys so it would be filling a hole in the market.

If poly AT is vital to you, you should check out the VAX77 (but be aware that it has 77 keys and no hammeraction). Otherwise the Roland FP 7F is a competitor to the MP10

I'll wait. If you have the time I suggest you do the same. The board youre looking for doesn't exist (yet). A lot of us are probably looking for the same thing and since the big brands stopped making pure master keyboard controller boards (I don't count all the computer controller keyboard crap out there) , there has been a void. Hopefully James points us in the right direction and makes it worth the extra waiting time. Of course he can't say more....

As long as its going to have after touch....a big lack on most alternatives these days. There's no real good piano feel keybed with AT - perhaps its not possible on such keybeds , I don't know...

J

Kawai does not currently produce a digital piano action with after-touch. I think the last Kawai instrument that did was the K5000 synth, but that was obviously a completely different action.

But to be honest, if you're after a realistic piano controller, why would you need after-touch?

Cheers,
James
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Yeh, the moment I wrote that I was wondering the same thing. A real piano touch doesn't really have much use for after touch because you'll probably play synth and organ parts on a lighter keybed anyway. Such a keyboard fits the non piano sounds better. Closest thing to piano+AT so far are Numa master keyboards or the top workstations from kurzweil, Clavia, Roland and Yamaha . But they don't offer the ultimate best piano keybed.

Still if the 'piano like' master keyboard controller is the only instrument you carry around, then after touch would be a nice feature, since you play all parts on it. If its possible at all without compromising the keybed and wouldn't add too much to the price (just a piece of rubber with sensors as far as I understand).

No deal breaker, but a nice extra sales argument, especially when non of the competition offers the same feature.

I appreciate the point you're making, however I maintain that after-touch in a piano-oriented controller isn't necessary. Moreover, the actions were not designed to use after-touch in the first place, so bolting it on as an extra feature may impair the realism/quality of its key touch.

Cheers,
James
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OTOH, people raved about the Kurzweil MIDIboard... a great piano-like action, and it had polyphonic aftertouch. Too bad it weighed about 100 lbs.

Well James, your post answers my question; it will probably compromise a perfect piano like keybed design. So to retain the best touch, better no (after) touch ;-)

If its desirable at all, remains a point of discussion , but if the keybed will suffer, than its a no go.

Thanks. J

Kawai already makes an excellent 88-key controller at a sensible weight - it's called the MP6. (No aftertouch, of course.) The fact that it has built-in sounds is irrelevant: you just set it up to control your modules/computer/whatever. The action is very good, too. Plus it doesn't cost silly money.

On a side note, I am so hoping that the "wait" will be worth it: full on, no holds barred, no corners cut, outstanding PORTABLE instrument.

So the reason aftertouch is important is that many vsts, east west, vienna, NI, include symphonic patches that utilize aftertouch, brass, winds, drums, they use aftertouch for expressions, and these instruments still feel great to play on weighted keys, I used to use a triton extreme 88, but even those keys felt too plastic, so ultimately the magic combination is 1 excellent keyed 2 mod wheels 3 aftertouch, 4 nice looking, need them all, and willing to pay for them, does anyone know how the roland a80 compares keybedwise to the rd700nx?

I'm thinking now that ill get something on the cheap like the a80 just to pass the next few months and hopefully winter namm will bring us something special.

I agree with Origen on the after touch wish, but I keep on having the feeling there are just a handful of people that would like such action to appear . Since I had boards like that in the past from korg , gem and kurzweil (all 88 weighted keys) , I was accustomed and always used after touch for many presets , regardless of the weight of the keys (many non-piano sounds were still very playable on these keybeds). But since then the AT feature seems to have become an afterthought on non-high end workstation keyboards. Could be because of compromises to really good piano-like keybeds, as said before, or just that nobody cares anymore. Don't know..

One board to rule them all, One board to find them, One board to bring them all and in the darkness, beat them down and show them whose their daddy

You can map controllers to the expression pedal on the Kawai mp8ii and I would imagine, mp6 mp10 and mpX. The pedal has to be bought separately as it's not included. Or you can map controllers to key velocity; that is sometimes interesting. And then there's the mod wheel, which can operate different controllers if you tell it to. It won't help you for live playing, but you can add PAf to the sequence in Cubase or whatever you use.

You sound like a two-board kind of guy, to me.

I don't think it would necessarily kill a DP action to sense polyphonic aftertouch.

I don't know about polyphonic aftertouch (well, I know what it is, just not how it's implemented), but channel aftertouch is nothing more than a thin pressure strip located under the felts. There are usually two strips from what I've seen - one under the front lip of the white keys, and another further back to catch the black keys. It's about the thickness of a piece of duct tape, but the keys do have to have enough "give" at the bottom of their travel to activate the strip, but not so much that you get "nuisance activations". Polyphonic aftertouch is probably the same way, but the sensor strip is circuited differently (channel aftertouch is all the same loop of wire).

That's called a Synclavier .... got $250k spare ?

A80, A90 or the KX88 ... any of these will do your bidding.... but you won't buy Roland or Yamaha ...so your stuffed.

i posted above a few lines that I'm gonna look for a used a80, and use that until something comes out at a little less that 250k, hopefully in the next few years something will come up, the reason i was hasty in eliminating those boards was after playing the mp10 and those other brands at local, yammie, roland and kawai dealers as well as everything at the boston g.c., the mp10's action really blew everything away, other than the rd700nx, but even then, it was better. Like people say though, its personal preference.

Also keep in mind that you can't eliminate an entire brand based on one model, as most companies use different actions in different models. Even the Kawai MP6 does not feel like the MP10. So if you eliminated Yamaha because you didn't like, for example, the feeling of the CP5, that doesn't mean you might not like the feeling of the S90XS, or vice versa. Similarly, a Kurzweil SP4-8 feels different from a PC3LE8.

Note that the Kurzweil PC3LE8 and Yamaha S90XS are 88 weighted boards that have aftertouch, which are in your price range.

There is a second hand Kurzweil Midi board for sale over here in the Netherlands . Don't know we're your from. Has adjustable attack and release velocity and both polyphonic and channel after touch + weighted keys. If you're really interested in getting a master keyboard . Of course it's a million years old and weighs a ton, but it seems to be in good shape.

Otherwise compromise.....I think that is the only solution in the end. The perfect master keyboard controller doesn't exist. Unfortunately ...