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great organs, pianos and epianos under $1k?


zzzxtreme

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Ok, managed to sell my guitar effects and bcos of that, im willing to sell my korg 01w to my friend.

 

Other than roland vr09, which other light keyboards has good vintage organs and epianos under 1k?

 

My tr-rack, which i fail to sell, has good organs, but i no longer like modules . I love the weight and look of vr09, but if i can save more money why not

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Hmm, "light" might rule it out...but I recently got a used Kurzweil pc361 for live use, organs being a major issue with my former board...and I could not be happier.  My only regret was not buying one years ago.  Again it's not light, especially for the 76/88 key models, but it is compact and easy to handle if that makes sense.  The action is very nice too IMO, it's the same one as on the Virus keyboards.

I won't say the organs beat a dedicated clonewheel, I haven't played any of those enough, but compared to my older Motif it is night and day, not even in the same ballpark.  I think it would beat the Krome handily on organ, and compared to my buddy's VR760 (same organ as the VR09) they both sound good but pretty different.

The piano gets a bad rap for being an older sample set (so I hear) but it sounds great to me in a band setting, and my bandmates have all expressed how nice it sounds.  If I sound like a Kurzweil rep I'm not, but this thing has really gotten me excited about playing.  It actually takes the place of two boards as I just use my old midi controller to play a different sound via midi so my setup is way simpler.   I got mine used from guitar center (shipped); you get 30 days to return used gear locally and the prices are not bad.  If you go that route buy it with a hard case even if you have a case and then return the new case (GC's  recommendation after the first one I bought got destroyed by UPS).

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zzzxtreme wrote:

 

Other than roland vr09, which other light keyboards has good vintage organs and epianos under 1k?

 

 

 

My tr-rack, which i fail to sell, has good organs, but i no longer like modules . I love the weight and look of vr09, but if i can save more money why not

 

Under $1k, the only other board with drawbar-level organ control is the Casio XW-P1, but its organ and EPs are not as good as Roland's. If you don't need drawbar control and just want some presets like the TR, pretty much any board has some. If you like the sound of Korg's organ presets, you can get them in something as cheap as a PS60. (Or Microstation, but I assume you want full size keys.)

 

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I was at a music store this weekend blowing out the VR-700 for $999. I wish I had $999, it sounded great. Organ and internal Leslie sim were excellent, and the piano was usable even for Boogie-Woogie. I think it was discounted this much because it was a floor model and is now discontinued.

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A lot depends on the level of editing you need to do and  what kind of key action you want. I have my eye on the roland RD64.   If I didn't need weighted keys I'd be all over the VR09.

Not mentioned in this thread was the mox6.  Retail is over a grand but you could find a gently used one if you look.

If you do A LOT of tweaking the wurly sounds on Casio's WK series can be nice.  And they have digital drawbars too.

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Thanks guys. Krome , mx and mox is good suggestions. As for casios, having drawbars doesnt necessarily mean it sounds good right? Rd64 is a bit heavy and limited in sounds.

 

I can PROBABLY re-think about wanting only light keyboards. That would increase my options eh?

 

i do remember my-sold kurzweil pc3le having good organs and vintage sounds. Back then i had no use for those sounds, and the

16part performance split/layer is an advantage over vr09.

 

Im i wrong to think ps60 is more 'dull' than trinity?

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Hogger, the Long & McQuade location in Ottawa (Canada) has it for that price.

 

maakr, if I had bought it, the wife's car would still need a clutch next month. And I would need a new place to live! haha.

 

But what a DEAL. Leaving it there made me want to cry.

 

Wes

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my friend will be taking the 01w tonite. Good bye beautiful strings :-(

 

My Wavestation has beautiful inspiring strings, just not as warm

 

Id probably get the vr09, bcos i cant stand the mx49 and ps60/krome keys. Juno gi has pleasant keys and i assume vr09 is equally nice.

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I have the MOX6.  It has all of the Motif XS sounds for half the price ($1199 vs $2499).

 

The MOX boards are workstations, in that they have onboard sequencers.

 

The MX61 is cheaper ($799), but doesn't have the sequencer - it is just a performance instrument with sounds (although it does have 16-part multimbrality for sequencing with a computer).  Yamaha's site says the MX has "Motif XS sounds" and "over 1,000 sounds from the Motif series."

 

I bought the MOX when it came out (wanting the Motif sounds) but today would opt for the MX61 instead, given that it is $400 cheaper and I never use the workstation features anyway.  There are likely other diffferences between the MOX and MX, but I'd guess the sounds are the same.

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Just a quick note since you mentioned the pc3LE...it has few limitations compared to the pc3(61) but one of them is that it can't use the "big leslie" due to having less fx power.  Now, I've seen many people post that they don't end up using it anyway, but I happen to use and like it on my organ patches.  You also get a fader for every drawbar if that's important to you.  Personally I like the Mox and would consider getting one (currently just using a weighted controller as a second board midi-ed to the pc361) but the organs don't really do it for me...not much better than my motif classic from what I heard.  Same with the m50/krome.  I think it may depend on the type of organ sound you are looking for.  I thought the casio had a decent basic jazz-sounding organ tone but didn't like the leslie at all (in fairness only tried it for a couple minutes).  

Another option might be a used electro 3.  They were getting down to 1100 or so a few months ago.  I considered one, but ultimately decided I needed better synth capability and I really disliked the keybed on the electro...too stiff for me.  I would also not have been able to do what I'm doing now, have a midi controller play a different sound from what its own keys are playing locally (ie it is not multitimbral).

Good luck with anything you pick, there are great choices out there!

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