Members grantlack Posted February 16, 2009 Members Share Posted February 16, 2009 well i played classical piano for 11 years, and am finally getting back into it along with my modest home recording hobby. i dropped into best buy and played a privia px120, thought the action was quite good, but being that it's pretty much strictly an electric piano i'm considering going in other directions. i'm hoping to do a fair bit of sequencing, arrangement, vst instrument manipulation, etc, and i just don't know if the privia is going to satisfy that need. i've looked into getting a cme uf8 (or vx8 if driver class compliance is necessary) because i've heard good things about the action, which is pretty important to me. on the flipside i've heard awful things about their customer service and driver/firmware updates, but i'm assuming drivers are only necessary if connecting via usb? i'd be connecting via midi cable to my fireface 800, and since the fireface has rock solid drivers it should just relay the midi controls to the daw software no questions asked. am i right here? i guess what i'm hoping to find out is a) whether the fully weighted cme boards have action that's on par-ish with what i liked about the privia, b) whether a cme board is going to be better/cheaper than getting the privia plus another unit for controller purposes, and c) whether device drivers really matter if you're connecting strictly via midi port. i'd love to solve it really quickly by getting a fancy $1-2k 88-key do-it-all unit, but i've only got like $500 max in my budget for this one. college and other recording priorities take precedence. thanks in advance for any help i get on this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members zzzxtreme Posted February 16, 2009 Members Share Posted February 16, 2009 keep using ur privia with the softwares u mentioned (sequencer,vst,arrangment). privia will give u the action, but not the controls. but i assume u need controls (like knobs, sliders) for realtime electronic music thingey and stuffs. if u need those controls, u can get "midi surface controllers", a dedicated box of knobs and sliders. i connect my korg sp250 to my pc via an ESI midi mate cable ($40) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members llamastorm Posted February 16, 2009 Members Share Posted February 16, 2009 /me hands out a "y", an "o", and a shift key to zzz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members girevik Posted February 17, 2009 Members Share Posted February 17, 2009 I just picked up a Privia PX-320 after trying it and other digital pianos, including the PX-120. For my tastes, I found the difference in sound quality between the PX-320 and the PX-120 to be worth paying the extra money. Also, the PX-320 comes with a very basic sequencer. I haven't found any controller-only keyboards that are as good in quality as keyboards that have built-in sounds and can function as MIDI controllers. My advice, FWIW, would be to get the PX-320, figure out what MIDI controller needs you have that it doesn't satisfy, then pick up another controller (probably some kind of knob or fader box) later when you have the money to add that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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