88 Key MIDI Master Keyboard advice request.

anhe · Post by **anhe** » Fri May 02, 2008 6:08 pm

Hi!

I've been looking for quite some time to get me a 88 master keyboard (midi only) with "grand hammer action". Thing is, there seem to be roughly 2 price ranges, ~500 EUR and ~1000 EUR (Swedish Eur. prices on a major european online vendor). The thing is, where i live there seem to be little to no interest from the local vendors to take home demo hardware of atleast some of the available keyboards, so i was hoping for some advice and/or opinions.
Now I don't plan on lugging the keyboard around that much, but it shouldn't need to be handled with extreme care, also I would like something similar to a "real piano" key-response.

// anhe

Diego · Post by **Diego** » Fri May 02, 2008 7:14 pm

Hi!

IMHO if you're looking for a good piano action, the CME UF series is not that bad.
About MIDI capabilities, nothing can beat the Oberheim MC3000 (8 MIDI ports, 8 zones, 8 pedal input, mouse input...amazing!).
Studiologic makes some good controllers, too, with a good piano action.

But....if you don't need so much midi capabilities (just need to control programmed and splitted modules), why don't you consider a good stage piano?

regards

anhe · Post by **anhe** » Fri May 02, 2008 7:20 pm

I'm open for any suggestions, but the less things that can break, the better.
But regarding stage-pianos, any suggestions? id i remember it right, the FP-4 (or was it FP-7, got a bit unsure now..) had kinda nice key-response, tho.. was priced at around the same as the more expensive midi keyboards.

// anhe

Diego · Post by **Diego** » Sat May 03, 2008 8:29 am

Well, the Oberheim is rock-solid, and has great midi capabilities and good action (maybe not the best out there). CME are solid, too, aluminium case makes them quite stable.
About stage pianos, I would suggest only Yamaha: they have a very good keyboard feeling, CP300 especially is one of the heaviest I've ever tried! I don't like Casio at all, I don't mind Roland, but at the top of the list there is Yamaha...Korg is in the middle of my top 10 list...

of course, just my 2 cents...

Regards

candlewick · Post by **candlewick** » Sun May 04, 2008 3:53 am

I've got a CME 88 model that I purchased for home use (son in piano lessons). Very impressed by the feel, and very pleased with the price. Nothing too fancy for my module as I am using it to control an X3R. I would definately give the CME a look.