Digital piano w good Continuo Organ sounds and Temperaments

[nimenion]

Hi!

As said, I’like to buy a digital piano,

and I need it to be played on a table, so no stand!

but I also need portative organ sounds 8’ + 4’ (2’), the ”Church Organs” of many digital pianos are horrible.
Also, simple organ of good quality for continuo.
Plus Harpsichord, also fortepiano would be nice!

I also need a good selection of Baroque Temperaments.

I’d sure buy the Roland C-30 Cembalo / Organ / Fortepiano even if it lacks ”normal” piano sound, but it’s not for sale anymore.

My budget is around 1500-2000 €.


Thanks for any advice!

[timothy42b]

This becomes much easier if you are open to doing the organs in software.  Use the MIDI out from your digital piano. 

[quantum]

This becomes much easier if you are open to doing the organs in software.  Use the MIDI out from your digital piano.

Agreed.  With VPOs and sampled organs there are many instruments to choose from, you are much more likely to find something to your taste. 

It then becomes a matter of choosing a MIDI keyboard that fits your needs.  Separating the keyboard from the sounds opens up more choices for you to customize your setup.

[j_tour]

I don't think you're going to get anything in hardware that fits the bill.

A Hammond SK-1 will probably meet your organ needs, since, after all, the Hammond organ was designed to be a more portable pipe organ, and its inventor and namesake indeed despised jazz/rock/all that, and you can certainly control what stops you need using the drawbars.

I've played it briefly in a music shop, and it has a fine acoustic piano, some very good electric pianos.

I don't know about the harpsichord:  that's not something IME that's given much attention by anyone in the mainstream models.

Put half your budget in a used Hammond-Suzuki XK-1 for the organ tones, pianos and controller, and the other half in software, a good audio interface, and, if needed, a dedicated computer/tablet (needn't be fancy).

I personally use a Hammond-Suzuki XK-1, and although its Leslie speaker effect and some of the chorus/vibrato abilities are only barely adequate, the raw tones from the organ itself are very good.  I doubt you would use the speaker effects, the percussion effects, or the vibrato/chorus anyway. 

The difference between this and the newer SK-1 is that you have usable piano and other sounds on the newer models, whereas I'd never consider playing those from the XK-1.

However, you could likely find a cheap used XK-1 and use it as a base for a controller, as well as use its onboard organ tones. 

Finding a controller keyboard is going to be about having access/programmability of each stop or register for the organ, which is why I think even an older keyboard with drawbars will make your life much easier, unless you want to rely on preset buttons, which you'll also have to program, and will have limited real-time control.

You may have to settle for a very limited harpisichord tone, but most organ/piano combos will have something.  And, like said above, you can find something fantastic if you want to use a softsynth.

Lot of options.  Just make sure your controller has an expression pedal option, and that you can adjust its parameters.  For a cheap, reliable expression pedal, I use the Yamaha FC-7. 

[nimenion]

Thank you for the suggestion.

The SK lacks loudspeakers, in-built temperaments, (I think) church-organ-like touch,
and portability with all the extra equipment.

I’d gladly prefer an all-in-one solution.

[timothy42b]

The SK lacks loudspeakers, in-built temperaments, (I think) church-organ-like touch,
and portability with all the extra equipment.

I’d gladly prefer an all-in-one solution.

Now we have a little more information about what you want.

When you said digital piano, I thought you needed the weighted key action that matched an acoustic piano as exactly as possible, so I was recommending MIDI, but skeptical of the usual MIDI controller/synthesizer keyboards because they are usually spring loaded. 

Now if you are okay with organ touch the field opens wide.  You don't even need velocity sensitive.  A $50 cheap digital piano is plenty, Casio and Yamaha make plenty of them.  They all have MIDI out, and none of them have decent organ sounds, nor do any of them have decent speakers.  But I have done public performance with them by using MIDI out to a software organ, a USB Audio interface, and an amplifier and speaker.  By the way, don't make a mistake I did, I'll explain below. 

You want portability which implies you need to perform and that requires amplification.  Sorry, that's the way it is.  You will need some amount of extra equipment.  But you could build up to this gradually.  Actually I've played a real portative for church services that was marginal for being loud enough.

Here are the baby steps I would suggest.  Decide if this is for your ears only or you need volume for an audience.  But take that step later, concentrate on key feel and sound quality, and don't skimp on sound quality.  Start with a cheap keyboard, spring loaded keys are very organ like though you may need to try a few brands, don't pay more than $100.  Turn the master volume all the way down and run MIDI into a laptop or tablet.  Then download some organ software.  Hauptwerk is the gold standard, jOrgan and Miditizer are very good, by now there are probably more.  Listen to it on good headphones, and play with the software until you get the sound you like.  There is drawbar software but if you like the portative that would be irrelevant and a distraction.  If your laptop can't drive good headphones use a headphone amp. 

Once you get the sound you want, work on the volume needed for whatever you are trying to do.  First thing is to forget your headphone jack and start using an external audio interface, unless you have something like a Mac or a gaming laptop with a good sound card.  Then decide if you need home sound or performance sound.  My audio interface goes into an Onkyo home stereo amplifier and then into good speakers.  I can rattle my windows with good clean sound.  But that won't work in a venue, you need something like maybe a Mackie SRM150?  Others will have much better recommendations.

Here's the mistake I made.  Outdoor church service, the organist was superb but very old and technology challenged.  I used an 88 key keyboard, and knowing most church music can be played on 64 keys I asked him if he would ever use the top 3 or 4 notes.  He said absolutely not.  I set up the equipment and had it working perfectly, but I reprogrammed those top keys as control keys so I didn't need to do anything on the laptop, I could just reach over when I needed to change a setting.  Of course he played them and screwed everything up. 

There are no facts in this post, these are my opinions.  Others may have better opinions.  But these were free. 

[nimenion]

Thanks.

Don’t mind any gigs, I need portability to bee Free of any Fuzz.
And I rather play ”organ” with good piano touch than plasticky spring-touch.
Of course, a good organ touch would be nice, but my first sentence said a lot

”I’like to buy a digital piano”

so a need the piano, with capability of a decent organ and harpsichord sound, temoeraments, own speakers and nothing extra to carry (of course it is possible to attach anything to modern pianoa) … and without stand.

If I need to carry the instrument somewhere, it will be a weekend or week long tour somewhere teaching. If the loudspeakers of the piano is not enough I’ll carry some Genelec.

[timothy42b]

”I’like to buy a digital piano”

so a need the piano, with capability of a decent organ and harpsichord sound,

… and without stand.

I typed a long careful reply and it's gone - probably operator error. 

Digital piano kind of implies a console piano with 88 weighted keys to match the feel of an acoustic, while a stage piano is similar but needs to be set on a table or one of the variety of portable stands.  That's probably what you want.  They all have speakers and headphone jacks, and none of them put out either volume or quality of sound.  There are also MIDI workstations, which have lots more features but no speakers, usually fewer keys, and usually not weighted keys. 

I have not found one with a convincing organ sound at any price.  You're trying to get one keyboard that will do two or three things well.  You want a portable piano that can also emulate a quality organ that also has good speakers. 

I think if you want a good organ sound you can do it one of three ways:
1.  software emulation like Hauptwerk that gives you the flexibility to recreate historical organs with actual stops, but you'll need a laptop to run it and an amplifier and speakers
2.  hardware emulation.  They make MIDI organ modules that do all this without your having to be adept at software, you just plug them in, but you'll need an amplifier and speakers
3.  an actual portable organ like a Hammond B3, but now it won't sit on a table. 

[j_tour]

I have not found one with a convincing organ sound at any price.  You're trying to get one keyboard that will do two or three things well.  You want a portable piano that can also emulate a quality organ that also has good speakers. 

For a hammer-action weighted keyboard, generally that's true except for some stage keyboards outside the OP's price range, like the Nord Stage models.

However a Nord Electro can be had in 61 or 73 keys, the keys are designed to resemble an organ's, and has decent acoustic/electric pianos (acceptable, I'd say, probably, at best, compared to the far superior SK-1), and I believe a harpsichord of some kind (the company has a bunch of options for downloading newer samples directly to the keyboard, so that's very likely been taken care of).  Should be had on the cheap, used.

But, it is bright red in color, and, of course, doesn't have any speakers.

There is ONE practical problem with using the MIDI software solution.  That's the kind of "controller" (i.e., keyboard) one uses.

It's true, even a child's instrument will do the job fine.  Press a key, you'll get the sound you want from your software synthesizer/sampler.

But without a more specialized controller, one's likely going to be limited to at most a few buttons you can assign to change pre-sets.  And not much flexibility if you want to split the keyboard to have, say, the top half "be" one manual and the bottom half "be" a different manual of an organ.  And options for expression pedals, sustain pedals, all that.  If there are any true controllers still made, without onboard sounds, they should be still fairly cheap compared to entry-level romplers, and if used is the way to go, they're generally very robust, practical gear designed for musicians on the road and in rugged, variable conditions.

And it still won't have speakers, just the audio interface from your computing device (or out of one of the  one of the increasingly rare hardware rack-mount units, like the Yamaha Motif racks, which could actually fill the bill pretty well....I don't know if they're making them anymore, but it's a good, versatile set of samples, with passable organs, some harpsichords, acoustic pianos).

Yeah, so, it depends on what level of control you want at your fingertips on the keyboard itself, vs "swiping" on a tablet computer, for example, to change sounds/parameters.

If you go the SoftSynth route.

I don't think there's anything remotely in the OP's budget with a weighted action and on-board, flexible, top-quality sounds.  Certainly not with speakers built in.  You could pay somebody to put some little speakers and add a power amp stage to the balanced outs, or do it yourself.  What's the problem with using your Genelecs?  Are they broken or something?

But, there are several unweighted, organistic keyboards with plenty of control options on the keyboard itself that can be had pushing up to the budgetary limit, as suggested above.  No, none of those have any built-in speakers.

Anyway, the short of it is that, unless moving up to a Nord Stage or something like a Yamaha Motif/MODX or a Korg Kronos workstation, one isn't going to have it all in one package.  But there are strengths and weaknesses in those, too.

The built-in speakers is a pipe dream, so to speak, IMHO, for a professional instrument ready-to-go out of the box.

I would say those are facts, with the same proviso as timothy42b:  just what I know about it.  I'm resigned to using two keyboards, always:  organ on top, hammer-action acoustic/electric piano below. 

Organ doesn't seem like an organ to me on weighted keys, and a piano on unweighted/semi-weighted keys is not right either.  Sure, either sound can be played on whatever action, but beyond rudimentary things, I can't make either instrument happen with the "wrong" action.

And, at home, like timothy42b, I've stopped using a 15" JBL powered monitor and just go through a consumer-grade home-theater amplifier with I think five tiny speakers and a subwoofer, in between which there's a Mackie mixer to add some flexibility (SM57 to an XLR channel to yell at the neighbors, extra inputs for different keyboards or guitar, etc.), and it's fine.

3.  an actual portable organ like a Hammond B3, but now it won't sit on a table. 

Which *also* needs a speaker and amplifier, lest you forget! 

No, the real sticking point is built-in speakers.  Just not going to happen, at least with high-quality sounds among organs, pianos, and harpsichords.

But, then again, Casio has been in the past, say, twenty years, fooled everybody and produced extremely high-quality acoustic pianos at a lower price with things like built-in speakers:  I have no idea the state of their core organ samples, nor harpsichords, but I wouldn't rule out some of the lower-end Casio or Yamahas.

It just depends on how "good" one wants the sounds, I guess, but price is not much any longer an absolute indicator of quality, even including items like built-in-speakers:  sometimes "good enough" is indeed good enough.  Just depends on which instruments one plays the most, I suppose.

Generally, stage equipment doesn't bother to include the extra weight of even small speakers and a power amplifier, since there's no need, but there are always compromises at the lower end.

/* Edited To Add:  what's with the built-in speakers fetish?  Not directly to the OP, but it seems more people, this is a deal-breaker.  Yeah, I'm actually shopping for a little Yamaha AP with speakers, just for the convenience, but since when does any gear come with its own amplification and speakers?  Aside from acoustic instruments.

It's nice, but c'mon, it's not an acoustic instrument!  To me, that's like shopping around for a toy like a "backpacker's guitar" or something.  I want one, but that's not a reasonable expectation of a good instrument, where the target audience uses the gear in concert with other instruments etc.

And, also, who the heck plays music standing their instrument on some table?  There are things called keyboard stands that work very well.

I'm always shopping around for a little hammer-action keyboard with built-in speakers, and, ideally, DC power adapter, but, let's be real:  I need a case for it that likely is the same as the cost of the instrument, and deal with inferior sounds. 

For my uses, that's fine, but that's not what people would use on stage.  A little Yamaha $300 digital piano, put with a $300 SKB case is worth it to me, but I know what I'm buying, and to me that's fine, but I'm using that for one specific purpose only.

That's a reason: 
I don't know, but I'd rather accept the compromises and deal with it.  No board does it all, a table is not a keyboard stand, and so forth.  */

[nimenion]

”And, also, who the heck plays music standing their instrument on some table?  There are things called keyboard stands that work very well.”

Why I want MY digital piano on a table:

Me and my wife share the interest to play, I’m just a lot taller than she.
I also like standing when I’m teaching or singing.
While singing or teaching singers, playing the piano is not the most important thing.
So I bought a Sit-stand workstation, that also very good solution for multiple users.
One can adjust the instrument just right in seconds.
But even just for me, adjustability.


Built-in speakers:
Built-in Loudspeakers are always a compromise, as are any loudspeakers.
And I want it to be easy. For a weekend teaching somewhere.
On my table.
Just easy.
That’s why not even any computers, if possible.
And yes, IF I would need loudspeakers there is an easy Genelec solution – very near, and should I play other music (Bluetooth via the piano) I’d use externals.

[kosulin]

If you want an acoustic-piano-like DP/keyboard, it should have weighted keys. But if you want the touch of organ/harpsichord - they have unweighted keys which feel different from weighted keys.
If you are ok with such a compromise, then you need first to decide what keys/action to get, weighted or unweighted.
IMHO, the range of good quality sounds you are asking for can be achieved only with MIDI export from your DP/keyboard to PC/Mac hosting a virtual instrument (for example, Pianoteq/Organteq, VSL, Garritan, Orchestral Tools Berlin Harpsichords, Hauptwerk, etc.)
And if you need a long list of temperaments, then a modeled VI, such as Pianoteq/Organteq, is probably way to go.

[baroquist]

Hello. Did you ever find a solution for your request?  I have exactly the same need, but I noticed that no solution accurately fitting your requirements appeared beneath your question.
Did you manage to find something?  I would be very interested because I have the same problem and a similar budget (and I too had wished that the Roland c-30 still existed).  Thank you.