Keyboard for busking

[bluelite]

Hi all! Just wanna ask u guys for comments

Can anyone recommend a keyboard that is suitable for street busking?

It has to be light of course...

I'm a keyboardist myself but would just like to hear the views of others here..

Currently i'm planning to get PSR E413.. Simply cause its light 7kg and can be battery powered and its sound are relatively good...

But anyone has a keyboard that is EVEN better in terms of these critereas?

Thanks all!

 

[aireydon]

Juno-Di and Prelude

wow...yr tread reminds me exactly of what roland seems to be doing nowdays...aiming at the performing leyboardist.

seems that they are keen to fight korg's lightweight X50( about 4.8kg, adapter weight not included) with the Juno DI. yea....so creative..just add an "i" to the juno D.
It loks similar to the Juno G and Juno Stage, but i guess cos it has no sequencer it cant be called a workstation and hence it seems to be a follow up(in name) to the Juno D.

guess wat...the Usb music(wav, mp3 and aiff) player function and dual arppegiater is taken from Juno G and stage to Juno Di. tis prob gives it a lot of advantage over the D.

and its 5.5 kg ....lighter than yr intended yamaha.? Juno -Di can be powerd with batteries too, somemore can put mike leh.....sibeh intended for street busking loh.....u can play along with any mp3 backing tracks and sing and play at the same time , on batteries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moNdvoOwLDc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkhqOQPdRvU&feature=related

Roland also has its arranger series with the GW 7 and Gw8, i tried both at swee lee..but it seems quite thin-sounding...and the bread and butter sounds are not even averagely decent enough if u wanna cover a full range of top 40 hits...the eps, synths,and strings and brass sound ridicilously ....thin and even a bit midi-ish. sorry if i am biased. if u tried any juno or fantom then u turn on the gw...its reali quite a joke....


But roland again took it a step further wit a follow Up arranger called the Prelude series. tis time the presents seem more decent to me. depending on yr own personal preference and playing style...u mab prefer a arranger interface rather than a synth. bare in mind the editing capabilites of arrangers of cos differs from a synth. but arrangers are easier for live backing tracks control, like intros, outros and drum rolls..etc or splits and layers warsoever.

if u are a plug and play and hate sythesis manuals....perhaps prelude is the one..?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USGN-KwgTiY&feature=channel

gd luck and have fun exploring...!!

 

[bluelite]

hey airey.. really appreciate your quick reply..and an informative one too..thanks man~

Anw I did consider the X50 because of its lightness and slick-looks.. but sadly it wasnt battery powered... Thank god the roland Juno Di solved that problem (Thanks for the links).. Hmm thing now is 5.5kg is without speakers (which also explains y the PSR is heavier).. do u know how heavy the roland amps are? are they portable enough in ur opinion?

Hmm i'm indeed considering this model now but how much is it now? Any ideas?

 

[SilverBeast]

Hi bluelite,

Times r that bad huh? ...Hv u applied license?

Anyway, jokes aside, how long do u intend to perform in a session? Buskers who perform long hours usually use a portable battery pack.

As for arranger kybds, if u intend to earn money out of it and looking for greater returns-of-investment, a used PSR with min 2intro/4fills/2endings and a disk/usb drive should suffice...ability to create user styles is a helpful bonus. Models include PSR640/740/2000/1500...to current models depending on your budget. No offence if other brands are not mentioned coz I've used the mentioned models before and they are gd workhorses.

Hope this helps

 

[bluelite]

Lol silverbeast.. yea times are indeed bad But busking should be more like a hobby to me than a way to earn money I'm a enjoy-performing kinda guy

And yes..got my license

Alrite..i guess those that u mentioned are just a little too heavy to be brought around

But still thanks for the advice Now i do have a better idea of what to look out for

 

[aireydon]

ooooo...tats a good point..unfortunately i reali forgot about the speker/amp portability issue....abit troublesome there...hmm

roland got a arranger called the E08 i tink. has speakers la...but....weight and features wise not that comparable to juno DI , and interface quite different from yamaha PSRs...reali a preference thingy...

i m not sure about the roland cube cos i never reali used any portable amps b4 as most of my time is in normal jam studios leh.

if u do not intend to play infront of a big crowd there thers audience many meters away i suppose a normal 10-20 watt portable amp can suffice...? any advice from the old birds out there...?