Looking for a Digital Keyboard

[projectstormfury]

Last winter I asked for a Digital Keyboard for my winter holiday present. I was pretty impressed with it and the library of voices, until I realized that the piece of sh*t had no ability to differentiate between a soft strike and a hard strike, thus I returned it back to the store. A year later, I am now shopping for a better keyboard, with a budget of 500 dollars.

A little bit of info about me:

I am a vocally trained musician who is in the process of making his twenty second trip around the sun, who would like to start using the piano as a tool to compose music. I do not know how to use the piano or any kind of instruments besides my voice. I do know sight reading (for singing purposes) and music theory. I am also really good at visualizing music and singing it by ear. I have no interest in using the piano as an acoustic instrument, as I do in using the keyboard as a digital instrument.

I did some research on these things, I care not for features like styles, rhythms, or anything like that. I also do not care about what I believe is called graded touch where the bass is harder to press than the notes in the higher range of the instrument.. In fact, I see that as a negative feature, I do not want that in my keyboard...  

I do care about:

Velocity/Pressure sensitivity (First Priority)

I do know that they are both related to budget (with pressure sensitivity being offered at the higher range of the prices...), but if I had to pick one, velocity sensitivity matters the most. I do not want 3 or 5 velocity settings, as a singer, this feels VERY unnatural to me. I've read about some instruments having 128 settings, it's what I am aiming for, but if my budget doesn't allow this, the more the better. I've also read about some instruments not having velocity sensitivity settings for certain voices. It would be of greatly preferable of having more voices compatible with velocity sensitivity.

Voices

I wish for good quality voices, however let me get one thing straight, I do not really care about the voice of the grand piano. I like the electric piano better. I think it was important for me to say this, because, in many reviews the reviewer was disappointed by the voice of the grand piano, but for me, I am not so concerned about that.

I do wish for a good range of quality string, wind, percussion and other instrumental voices. I would prefer if there was a drum kit included, but it is not that important to me. I care not for sound effects or things like Lite voices, whatever they meant when I got that first 90 dollar piano.

Speakers:

I'd prefer good speakers to come with the piano, but if they don't I won't mind buying them separately. That will come out of the budget should I have to buy them, however.

Recording ability:

Eh, I care not for the ability to put this music onto a computer, however, it would be nice if I could record my songs (multiple tracks with multiple voices) and hear them back.



On a last note:

Nothing with a heavy stand, I already have one and the heavy stand will add to the cost, and is unnecessary. And I do not want a midi controller where I have to plug it in to a computer to get it to work. I want a portable keyboard that will work by it self.

All in all this will be the keyboard I will learn to play the keyboard on, I will be buying an arranger keyboard later on.

[hfmadopter]

I do believe that you are mixing up velocity voicing of individual keys ( sensitivity) with the Keyboards polyphony. To my knowledge the max single key velocity recording is 4 and in your price range many are three. Polyphony is the max amount of sounds the piano can generate, in your price range some are indeed 128 but often in stereo it's less. Most pianos around  the $500 mark will be touch sensitive ( leads us back to key velocity), it's a matter of the 3 vs 4 recorded velocity sensitivities. Added to that , in that price range on board sound isn't going to be an awful lot to rave about. Consider going external sound or use headphones.

There is one answer and one answer only to your question. Go to a well stocked store ( maybe even more than one) and play all the $500 pianos in the place and pick the one that suits you best. Consider too,  if you hit a place on the right day you might find one worth $900 that is on fire sale that day. With your rather specific wish list I don't think anyone can suggest just one or even two pianos to you ! Much less a few to choose from, you got to go try them out. There are several out there but you have to like it, we can't judge that call for you.