Keyboard/Piano Hunting

I’ve been scouring the internets for the last few days in my free time for a good, cheap keyboard. Both of those qualifications are hard to come by together. Good gravy.

Currently, I don’t own my own keyboard. I have a digital piano at my house that my parents bought when I started taking piano lessons forever ago, but it has two keys that don’t work. One plays about five-hundred times louder than all the rest, and the other plays much quieter. Anyway, it’s from like the 80s or something. It’s very old for a digital piano.

So, I’m looking for something new. And I have unrealistically high standards. I want it to be cheap, I want it to be good quality, and I want it to have well-weighted keys. I also want it to have synth-ish capabilities. Too much to ask in one keyboard? Probably. Oh yeah, I also want it to be reasonably portable. Any suggestions?

I’ve been mostly looking at KORGs, because the keyboard I used in the student bands was a great KORG that I am quite partial to, and that’s all I really have to go off of. But, there’s also a Keytar from Roland (They’re now called “Shoulder Synths,” and I would love to have one. I think that would be the funnest thing ever to have in the band at Kids Camp! And in general…) Anyway, here’s what I’ve looked at so far: (They’re all about the same price, except for the keytar)

The Roland AX-Synth
I have always wanted a Keytar. The problem is, if I get this one, I won’t have a legit keyboard to play in Austin. Also, it only has 4 octaves; another reason that it wouldn’t work as a legit piano. I still think it would be awesome for kids camp though. Also, it’s too expensive for me: $1,200? I don’t think so. All the rest of the keyboards on this list are about half that.

The KORG X50
Okay, this keyboard just looks awesome. All the reviews I saw said that it was a great keyboard. They all said that it has a really great sound bank, but that the action is terrible. As in, the keys are barely weighted at all and don’t register as quickly as they should. Also, this keyboard is only 10 lbs. So it’s extremely portable. Also, it has 5 octaves, so it’s more playable than the 4 octave AX-Synth.

The KORG PS60
Another decent 5 octave keyboard, except this one has a BUILT IN LOOP STATION.

The KORG microSTATION
This is basically a smaller version of the last one.

The Roland JUNO-Di
This keyboard is just another reasonable one. Relatively inexpensive, but not badly made from the looks of it. 5 octaves.

The KORG SP-250
Okay, this one is different from all the rest of them. It’s actually a digital piano. It supposedly has the best kind of weighted keys of any digital piano. It doesn’t have very much of a selection for sounds, but it isn’t a synthesizer, so it’s not really supposed to have a bunch of sounds besides piano, strings and a few other patches. It also has a built in stand, which is cool.

Anyway, let me know what you think, or if you have any suggestions for keyboards! I’m still looking…

Cyborg Update

Here are some of the ways I’ve turned Mel and Trey into cyborgs so far for my project for Photoshop class. Click to see a bigger version. Enjoy!

Also, not shown are Melanie’s laser arm and Trey’s metal arm…

Comments? Suggestions?

Technojoy

Okay, so let me just take a paragraph or three (or five) to talk about the fantastically thrilling state of technology. WARNING: This post contains geek levels previously unknown to this blog. Please enjoy. (and a note to Molly: I WILL be talking about cinematography.

Too often I forget how amazing all the technology we have is, and how recent it is, since it is fed to us over the course of time. But every once in too great a while I sit back and try to appreciate it all from the perspective of my junior-high-age self. What would myself eight years ago have said if I showed me an a touch screen phone? The state of 3D movies? The BBC’s HD Planet Earth series? The size of my TV? The vast and virtually limitless amount of information I have in my pocket or within arm’s length at literally any and every hour of every day?

I would be dumbfounded. Flabbergasted. My jaw would hit the floor.

I just got out of the 10:30 showing of Avatar IMAX 3D. Based on the quality of the CGI and the realism of the 3D by way of double-frame-rate digital film projection and non-red-and-blue polarized glasses, my brain could probably pass a lie detector test stating that I had, in fact, just spent 2.6 captivating hours on a planet called Pandora inhabited by 10 foot tall creatures called Na’vi, fighting for their lives and flying giant lizard bat things around floating mountains.

I didn’t have a phone until eighth grade, when I was only allowed it for emergency use. I had a clamshell phone without internet or unlimited texting, without one touchscreen (let alone two), and without a QWERTY keyboard. Now I have a phone that can do basically anything I can fathom, and that’s without jailbreaking it. No one even used cell phones until I was in junior high. Now with mine I can see any place on the planet, along with many not on this planet, I can download and play hundreds of thousands of games, many for free. I can order movie tickets, check and mess with my bank account, email, facebook, twitter, music, and TV shows.

My first game system was a nintendo NES, which played only in two dimensions and, less than one-hundred different colors. Now I can control three dimensional characters in millions of colors with a pointer at the end of my controller which isn’t even connected to the console! (physically, anyway).

So yes, I am a geek. I love technology and it brings me joy to see isn’t advancement and to contemplate what it will be in the future. I’m just trying not to forget to appreciate how ridiculously far we’ve already come! Isn’t it mind-bending?!

Expect a future post on what I think about the future of 3D movies etc.!

That is all.

TECHNO LUST.

The HASSELBLAD H3DII-50 

50 megapixels of phenomenal sensitivity.

WANT. 

(to bad it costs more than a year of college)