Hi everyone,

I was looking for a discussion on the Kronos, Montage, RD-2000, MODX etc and did not find any. Since I feel like many of you might have a lot of experience with some of those and alternatives I thought I might as well start one...

I was thinking of getting a good stage piano for a while now and yesterday I finally went to the store to try a few models. I was hoping to get some good advice from you guys.

First I tried the Roland FP 90 and the sounds were amazing and I liked the inbuilt speakers pretty much, but I really missed options like in the lounge lizard vst, where you can change hammer action, pickup, tine bar etc. And there was no pitch bend

Then the montage had more options like that but to me the sounds or the keys (not sure) lacked "life".

And the Kronos was absolutely great. Keys and sound. But it has much more options than I would need. I don't need drum track options or the karma engine (an arpeggiator as far as I understand it?). I would do something like that in my DAW. So I would pay for a lot of stuff that I don't need. And it is double the price of the other instruments I tried (the vendor said I should consider the MODX8 instead of the Montage).

I want to get an instrument like this for personal use at home, because I don't enjoy playing through vst. I even tried keyscape and I could not get rid of latency issues and the velocity never seems right for my e-piano. The lounge lizard is good, but when playing the FP-90 or Kronos I just start dreaming

Specifically I hope to find an instrument that has a good piano-like weighted 88 keys keyboard and good emulations of rhodes, wurlitzer, clavinet etc with options for settings as well as grand pianos. Some pink-floyd-like synth would be the sugar on top :D Do you guys have any recommendations or should I stick to the Kronos?

Cheers and thanks a lot

 

Last edited: Apr 28, 2019

Hey Swing Swing.

The Kronos is a great keyboard, but a little pricy.
The MODX8 is also a great keyboard.

If you looking for good Rhodes/Wurly/EP sounds both can do this, but there some really good plugins too if your budget won't stretch.
Arturia does good Wurly/Rhodes and DX7 Clavinet plugins.
https://www.arturia.com/products

Gospel Musicians do really nice EPs that run in Kontakt and UVI.
https://gospelmusicians.com/sounds-and-samples/uvi/

There is the Scarbee 88 as well that sound really nice and load more that I have not mentioned.
If you go the plugin route, make sure you have a decent computer PC/Mac with lots of RAM.

Personally, I would not go the laptop route.
I did and it was not good, CPU overload all the time.
Desktop was better for me in the end, but it's up to you.

Hope that helps.
Best wishes.

Daisy

 

88 full size weighted keyboard with pitch, modulation etc. will cost you even if you just get a controller. I run a Yamaha ypp-200 with 88-3/4 size keys and and an old sy22 (got both at a pawn shop) into Arturia. I blend the VST and the yamaha sounds for lots of fun and huge pads, sequences, etc. So i can play either/or.

 

Last edited: Apr 28, 2019

It's fine if it is expensive, but I am still interested if there are alternatives that concentrate more on modelling of classic electrical pianos and grands. I have really just played with these few and I imagine there are a lot more out there that might fit my needs. The Kronos looks tough to beat, though. I will definitely try blending the sounds, too

 

Kronos is top of the line when it comes to workstations. I had one and I can only say positive things about it. The reason I sold it was because sometimes I felt a little bit limited with sounds and presets, it works great for a while but I ended up using the same sounds over and over. You can of course create your own sounds if you're good at that, it has a lot of synth engines. You can also buy good sound expansions.

I'm a hip hop producer and I for that price I could get bunch of quality vst:s and a good midi keyboard. So I bought NI Komplete Kontrol S88 Mk2 and keyscape for piano sounds, and it sounds amazing. But if you need an instrument for live gigs just go with Kronos in my opinion.

 

if price is not a problem, I would probably buy a Nord.https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/NE6HP73--nord-electro-6-hp-73-key-hammer-action-keyboard

 

Maybe you'll find one or two alternatives here

https://www.thomann.de/gb/stage_pia...500&price-first=0&price-last=3500&rating[0]=5

 

I use a Kronos 61 and a Roland A90 for the 88 keys.