Keyboards Soon To Be Dead?

[Vadim]

they won't be dead, they just will be in software version.

cheap keyboards like casio, and auto-accompaniment keyboards, will be alive.
I hope arranger-keyboards don't go into software, because i'll have to ditch software, and record music using hardware analog synths and live instruments, or something. So i wouldn't be mistaken for the bad guy, because many music producers and keyboard players get confused for "arranger keyboard players" because arranger-kbds look like workstations, many general public is used to think that keyboard players are using auto-accompaniment.

Maybe software will put an end to these auto-accompaniment devils!

[kanthos]

I think computers will be integrated into keyboards and rackmount gear. The OASYS and things like the Muse Receptors are first attempts at that.

[PianoManGidley]

So why do people use Keyboards? and will the be done soon?
He was saying that why people use Keyboards so much is because they don't know all that a PC can do.

Why do we use keyboards? Because I play the piano and do a lot of live recordings, and last time I checked, computers weren't coming out with 88-key full-weighted pianos keyboards attached to them.

[Timo]

Computers can do many things that keyboards do, but keyboards are like a calculator that you take with you. Computers can calculate much better but we still make calculators.

I think that comparison to music keyboards is flawed. People buy calculators because they're small, lightweight and don't need charging up every couple of hours. They are everything that computers are not.

However music keyboards by their nature are much bulky and heavier than laptops, for example.

Q. Will computers take over keyboards? not in the next 15 years,

Unfortunately I don't share your optimism. In the last ten-to-fifteen years things have changed beyond belief. People had the analogue mixer as the centrepiece, hardware samplers, a huge array of outboard, and an equally impressive array of keyboards. People laughed and said "computers can never take over the mixer, the outboard processors, and the boutique keyboards!". But computers pretty much have done, as of now. Computers were cheeky, and sly. They started out by being basic sequencers and samplers, and hard-drive recording, then they were able to process crude effects, and limited mixing, then when CPU resources increased so did the quality of the effects and mixing, when hard-disks and RAM increased so did sample libraries, and then CPUs got even better and computers emulated analogue synthesizers and expensive outboard fx...

These days, people tend to keep 2 or 3 keyboards/modules at most, with a multi in/out soundcard instead of a mixer, and do everything else in the box. Many are even happy using a 3-octave midi keyboard hooked up to a laptop running VST-Is and having no other keyboards at all.

The older ROMpler keyboards as we know it are put up against near-infinite multiple streaming audio on hard-drives that we're used to now, with huge, detailed sample libraries way that are in excess of 1GB+ and are capable of stacks of polyphony, and with a broad selection of high quality VST effects.

ROMplers can't compete with that, unless they become computers, which is what the Oasys is.

However, when the Oasys arrived, people said "what can that do that a computer can't, at half the price"? And, very unfortunately, it's true. I also think one of the other main problems with the Oasys is that it's a closed system. The breadth of choice of a sound/processing palette that you get with the vast wealth of character laden VST effects and VST-Is on a laptop/computer is just not available on a closed system. And I think that's what keyboards are having to compete with as of now.

I'm really not sure where keyboards will go from here. It's looking glum. Eventually I can't see keyboards (in general) existing past mere controller midi keyboards.

But, I think that future keyboards that are fun to play by hand (and we have many already), or have "an irreplaceably unique sound" or that directly integrate with computers (exactly how people actually want them to, as unfortunately people want the moon on a stick thesedays) are going to survive. Others that don't have those qualities, wont.

[orbit]

I don't have anything to contribute except that I find it ironic that the OP has a Che avatar, last time I checked fascist/socialists weren't big fans of the arts.
I know you think it makes you look cultured and smart to sport an avatar representing a mass murderering rebel that did more to oppress the poor people ofCuba/S. America than Bush ever did to the US but I think it would be funny to transport all the little jr communists back in time to meet good ol Che or Uncle Fidel or Mao and see just what they think about your liberal idealist sensibilities. Methinks you'd be lined up againsst a wall and shot as a troublemaker or handed a shovel and a work uniform and told to get to work.

[tpantano]

My thoughts:

I'd like to start of by saying I'm a computer geek. I'm geekful. I'm geekalicious. Built 3, can program in XML/HTML/CSS/PHP/AppleScript/C++/JavaScript to name some languages off the top of my head, and I used a computer for probably 8+ hours a day.

Yet I can't think of using a PC for anything but recording and listening to music. I just don't like the idea of making music with a PC.

I'm not going to come up with an explanation why, as I don't know myself. Sure, a PC makes much more logical sense to use than an uneditable keyboard. Yet... there's something about owning a box with a sole intent to make music that I like, IDK.

[Gargamel314]

there's something about owning a box with a sole intent to make music that I like, IDK.

WORD on that. I took this class when i was in college on "Interactive Electronic Music." It was on a Mac program called "Max" if i remember correctly. You had to program it to do all sorts of crazy things based on what you did with some sort of electronic instrument. like when you played a certain note on a wind controller Max would trigger a sequence across 3 different synthesizers... or would activate notes based on some sort of mathmatical formula. it was very new new-agey, and to me was NOT very musical at all. It left me with a bitter taste in my mouth... very unsatisfying.

I like keyboard workstations because I don't have to worry about navigating 5 different panes of windows, and worrying if there's going to be some latency problem or if the computer's going to crash. I like loading up my sequences and knowing that no matter what, they're going to sound like I expect them to. I like being limited to a single sound set and the challenge of doing thousands of creative things with just that. and i like being able to turn the computer off and just play my heart out.

Hardware synths may have their limitations, but they seem more solid than computers, and you get a feeling of power sitting behind the keyboard with all of the controls right in front of you without having to search through lots of windows. I don't see them getting phased out anytime soon.

[Ozz]

Hi

I think that synth manufactures have not been able to assimilate the progress of computer hardware, the big O is a nice approach to an integration of both worlds

Besides you can have multiGB sampled libraries on a PC with virtual instruments, the synth engine its not as powerfull like the developed by synth manufacturers and they are oriented in the usage of big libraries instead of a better synthesis technique.
The virtual analog, physic modeled, and other kinds of not-sample-based virtual instruments are better way to take advantage of a PC

a Windows/Linux/OsX environment its designed to do a lot of things and u loss a lot of CPU power only on the OS and other things that u dont need. here is the advance of the OASYS creating a little OS that give almost all the CPU to the synth, and the NEKO and LIONSTRACS synths made bypass through the OS to have priority on the sound device and CPU/RAM.

also the need/convenience of extra hardware controllers its a bad point for PC based music.


maybe the path for the hardware synth is make use of modern hardware and integrate it on a synth.

-Internal Flash Drives: the price is low, and u can have easily a couple of 16-32GB drives for samples/software besides a ROM

-High Speed RAM: 2-4GB not to load the whole sample library, its an old concept for slow hard-drives and slow speed RAM. the RAM could be used for more dynamic process and load only the samples used on that moment.

-Sample to Flash Drive/USB/etc: avaliable on Korg since the Triton Extreme.

-Maybe its not necessary a x86 CPU but the possibility to expand the synthesis techniques via software its very interesting and the advance on the OASYS OS and the use of x86 CPU is very important just to despise it, and the prices now are a lot lower now, becoz the development its done in great part.

-And the most important... PC integration... not only Editor/Librarian Software, also a improvemet on the sequencer and a converter to import sampled libraries... and maybe a SDK for 3rd-party software developers.. imagine some Native Instruments for Korg. This does not mean open-source or free, the price of a SDK could be very high.

-I almost forget it!!!... maybe a way to not have the annoying sound glitch/cut when u change programs/combis/songs/tracks/or modes xD... maybe the use of RAM could help, or some kind of multitasking or instance on the CPU/OS could help to solve that problem.


The PC is not the enemy, only recently the "Synth World" is taking the advancements of the PC hardware/software, and there's a lot to continue.


Regards
Alvaro.

[ozy]

[quote="Ultimate DjWhy? Why will you stick to Boards when you know what PC's can do?puravida
dj[/quote]

because I know how a computer works.

A multi-purpose machine whose memory is clogged by an operating system which must be ready to tackle ANY kind of task, full of drivers, subject to updates, etc etc etc

will NEVER be as fast and as reliable as a dedicated hardware which runs software specifically designed for that hardware.

Each time all-purpose computer software will make and advance,

dedicated electronics will make the same advance, or better.

This is why a good keyboard will always kick ass.

This is why a VL1 (to quote a processor-intensive synth with complex software) never goes "blue screen".

This is why an E64 sampler still sounds better than any software sampler equipped withg an audio interface that costs TWICE the current price of an E64 (i.e.: it is worth buying for its converters, even if it hadn't filters or a screen).

This is why I close my prophet08's filter shut, drive the VCA volume to 127, play a low c,

wait for a few seconds,

and in a perfect silence the floor starts trembling...

... while a computer termbles only when my cellphone rings.

Computer users just lost "ear touch" because they spend too much time looking at fancy interfaces, so they believe they're hearing a minimoog or a prophet or a hammond when

they. Are. Not.

They just can't tell the difference any more.

People who play real instruments, do.

[morgan123]

It's really a very new info for me that a PC keyboard can create a music. I never used my keyboard for this purpose.

[dranandj]

I know it probably sounds like a dumb question...but I just got off the phone with Chris Brackenbury;
Who help create the Wersi OAS which Korg bought and created the Oasys.

The Oasys was based on a Wersi keyboard? I didn't know that.

here's what i found

http://www.wersimusic.com/new.html

remarkably similar in design to oasys and now to kronos. fairly newer than oasys though.

[Akos Janca]

Why? Why will you stick to Boards when you know what PC's can do?puravida
dj

because I know how a computer works.

A multi-purpose machine whose memory is clogged by an operating system which must be ready to tackle ANY kind of task, full of drivers, subject to updates, etc etc etc

will NEVER be as fast and as reliable as a dedicated hardware which runs software specifically designed for that hardware.

Each time all-purpose computer software will make and advance,

dedicated electronics will make the same advance, or better.

This is why a good keyboard will always kick ass.

This is why a VL1 (to quote a processor-intensive synth with complex software) never goes "blue screen".

This is why an E64 sampler still sounds better than any software sampler equipped withg an audio interface that costs TWICE the current price of an E64 (i.e.: it is worth buying for its converters, even if it hadn't filters or a screen).

This is why I close my prophet08's filter shut, drive the VCA volume to 127, play a low c,

wait for a few seconds,

and in a perfect silence the floor starts trembling...

... while a computer termbles only when my cellphone rings.

Computer users just lost "ear touch" because they spend too much time looking at fancy interfaces, so they believe they're hearing a minimoog or a prophet or a hammond when

they. Are. Not.

They just can't tell the difference any more.

People who play real instruments, do.

+1. (You have clear moments sometimes. )

And OASYS and Kronos are between the two worlds.

[billbaker]

Never is a long time...

... so lets propose the Sigma (m turned sideways - dont have the grk character) - 1.

Suppose that the face of an m3 was not knobs and buttons but a touch face twice as long as an I-pad -- call it 10"x24" with a USB port... joint venture by Korg & Apple.

Call it the I-synth. The big layout is so you could have several pages showing at once. The brain is completely independent, portable, and has an interface my 5 year old uses comfortably. Keyboards come in a variety of lengths, weights, touches and in colors customizable with graphic jackets that include a CCD (colored crystal display) that allows a chameleon program to give your board any of several hundred stage looks.

Comes with an open architecture such that you could load in a variety of modular plug-in synth apps able to run simultaneously by design (i.a.w. MICKI standard - Massively Integrated Computer/Keyboard Interface).

Terabyte flash RAM for storing samples, sequences, lyrics, set lists, voices, 2Tb Solid State ROM wave library containing raw uncompressed 128 bit samples of every synth and acoustic instrument made. etc...

-----------------------

I'm not going to pretend to see the future. But I've seen the past -- I remember 20 years ago working with computers so slow that there was a 2 second wait between key strokes entering data in a spreadsheet. I'm typing this on a Mac with close to a terabyte of memory, wirelessly, and unplugged from the wall. So yeah, I can see where computers might replace keyboards, but its easier to see a time when the lines between the two are so blurred by overlapping functions that the point becomes moot.

When I ask my kids to do almost anything without using, referencing, or otherwise resorting to a computer, I get a blank look and the question "Why on earth would I want to do that, Daddy?"

BB

[Jericho-79]

I always thought that keyboards and synthesizers are used all the time when an artist cuts a record.

So I think synths are vital for studio use.

[silcreval]

I find that there is something in the actual physical nature of the keyboard that is important to the way you create music. The feel and response of the controllers, the keyboard (weighted, regular, etc).

Music is an art, not a science, and there is a reason for that. Its what feels right, what works, that's important.

These days I find myself creating patches that are less 'massive' if you know what I mean, I'm looking for space in the mix, not just a wall of epic sound. I'm trying to avoid too much effect, cut things back a bit, avoid the factory sound.

Just my 2c.