[LAU] OT: Portable Keyboard

[david]

Simon Williams wrote:

> david wrote:
>> My Yamaha PSR-255GM is 36" wide, 14" deep, 5.5" high. Has 61 keys, 
>> decent speakers built in, and one line out.
> 
> Hmm. I looked at the manual for the PSR-255GM and I can assure you that 
> it does *not* have line out. It has a headphones socket. Everything has 
> a headphones socket.

OK. I have it running into a splitter cable that feeds into my stereo 
mixer and that feeds in to a separate amplifier, and don't have any 
noise problems whatsoever.

> But I want line out, which will usually come as 
> Left and Right channels as two separate mono 1/4" jack or phono/RCA 
> sockets. Any stereo jack socket is certainly a headphones socket. It has 
> to be labeled "line out"- "headphones/output" isn't line out.
> A headphones socket has a different impedance to a line out socket, 
> which makes it less useful for connecting to a PA system. You will get 
> more noise when using a headphones socket to connect to a PA system 
> because the levels will be all wrong.
> The other issue is that a headphone socket will mute the onboard 
> speakers whereas line out will not.

The PSR-740 has two Line Outs (has a separate headphone jack on the 
front) - one for Left, one for Right.

> Al Thompson wrote:
>> My suggestion would be to stop looking at low-end consumer grade 
>> gear.
> 
> That's great in theory. Except for one thing- I can't find what I'm 
> looking for in higher end gear either. Most of it is 8 octaves long 
> which is too big (though the Korg X50 looks promising). Has no-one 
> considered churches and small bands?

That's exactly what I use the PSR-740 in - a church's worship band. And 
we need the portability, because we don't have our own property yet, so 
we're renting space in school cafeterias.

>> If I were to put together something like this, I would get a 
>> MIDI controller keyboard, which will be about the size of what you 
>> had before (or maybe even smaller), and get a used Roland JV-1010. 
>> You'd end up with something as portable as you want, with vastly 
>> superior capabilities from what you had before.  Controllers or 
>> cheap, and a used JV-1010 is cheap too.
> 
> david wrote:
>> Of course, neither of them is made anymore, but perhaps later PSR 
>> models would be suitable. Don't know how it compares to your 
>> Evolution.
> 
> Perhaps I didn't mention that my Evolution is a cheap USB Midi 
> controller keyboard. It's supposed to be good, but I'm convinced that 
> the pads have worn out or something because I often get notes suddenly 
> played way louder than the rest.

It's possible. They may just need to be cleaned?

> I had a look at the JV-1010, and it's a possibility, but the problem is 
> that I still need to replace my MIDI controller with something better 
> and then buy some sort of amp. I'm not sure it's worth it.
> 
> James Stone wrote:
>  > I thought the korg X50 looks quite nice.. I am considering getting
>  > one, although I don't think the keyboard will be much of an upgrade
>  > over the Evolution.. I think the built in sounds are pretty amazing
>  > though.
> 
> I really like the look of that. But at 450 pounds it's still somewhat 
> over my budget.
> 
> Cue everyone rolling their eyes and thinking to themselves "you can't 
> have everything and get it cheap". But in all seriousness I shouldn't 
> have to be looking at expensive high end gear to get what I want. The 
> perfect solution would be a consumer grade keyboard, but with line-out 
> added (there's no way that's hard or expensive), and different 
> proportions. I'm not really asking them to cram stuff into less space 
> (though I *know* there's no need for them to be that size). Just change 
> the proportions.

-- 
David
gnome at hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community