Stage Pianos / Performance Synthesizers

For the record, I started my first keyboarding article with the notion of solving the musical equivalent of world hunger in one shot – from to choosing a keyboard to choosing sounds to technique to phasing issues… so what you're getting here is roughly less than a tenth of what I had outlined. I just couldn't short change the depth of information here when this blog is supposed to be about getting into the details of music ministry. I just can't put out another Cliff's Notes® version of these things – those are already out there. Oh the joys of being a new, amateur, make-believe journalist (more commonly just called a "blogger").

I am a pianist by trade, and guitarist and whatever else by necessity, so I feel very at home when it comes to keyboards, piano and the like. There are lots of great things you can do with piano and keyboards, but I'll just take the time to scratch the surface of keyboards, playing and sound issues you've probably encountered. I've met some experienced keyboardists that weren't quite sure how to deal with some of these issues, and I hope these are a help to you.

Types of keyboards

There are a few genres of keyboards out there. Your local bookseller's periodical racks have entire magazines dedicated to help you figure out how best to part with your hard-earned money on their advertiser's products. I realize there are tons more models and hybrids of all sorts of keyboards available, including rack mount synths and software synths. No matter what you do, you need some way to interact and generate sound using some type of keyboard playing device. Here's how I'd break down the basic types of physical, hardware based keyboards on the market today:

• Performance synths / Digital Pianos (Yamaha S-series, Roland RD series)
  Music workstations (Roland Fantom series, Korg Triton series, Yamaha Motif series)
• Analog synthesizers / emulators (ex. Nord Lead series, Korg RADIAS, Roland SH-201, microKorg)
• Vintage Synths (Yamaha DX7, Roland D-50, Korg M-1, Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, MiniMoog, ARP 2600)
• Vintage Keyboards (Hammond B3, Wurlitzer 200A, Mellotron Mark IV, Fender Rhodes 73)
• Vingate keyboard emulators (Nord Electro series, Korg CX-3, Roland VK-8)
• Controllers (Yamaha KX series, Roland A-series, M-Audio Axiom / Oxygen)

Portable keyboards (Yamaha PSR series – virtually anything with speakers)
Every one of these above types of keyboards has a purpose in mind from its inception, and certain keyboards are going to be more apt toward worship than others, but virtually all can be used in some way, if done correctly. Each one of these types of synths warrants an entire article unto themselves. This time around, we'll delve into digital stage pianos and performance synths.
Piano-based keyboard overview

For the worship team looking for the best, most flexible, useful keyboards for the worship team, these keyboards are the total opposite end of the spectrum from the specific use sounds of the analog modeling synthesizer. These keyboards typically lack workstation features like sequencers, sampling, and sound programmability, and concentrate of great instrument playability.

Piano emulation

These keyboards tend to excel primarily at their piano sounds. What makes these keyboards better sounding than others with their piano sounds is primarily how much of the machine's memory and digital signal processing (DSP) power is dedicated to recreating an accurate, expressive representation of a piano.

First of all, the piano must be multi-sampled. Multi-sampled instrument have recordings of their sounds taken from more than one pitch from the original instrument. In addition, they can have samples taken from more than one volume of the instrument being recorded. Today's best piano multi-samples have a minimum of three velocity (volume) levels recorded for every key on the piano. That's a minimum of 264 samples just for the piano sound! Traditionally, all the best piano samples had come from the industry standard Yamaha C7 grand piano. In the past two years or so, this has changed dramatically with manufacturers looking into less standard, but no less important and powerful grand pianos – specifically, the Steinway concert grand pianos. When I first heard the Roland RD-700SX, I was so moved by the dramatic sound of the Steinway samples over the Yamaha C7 I'd been hearing for years and years, I very soon afterward bought the RD-700SX.

The second, recent innovation around piano recreation is the DSP modeling of the piano's soundboard. The soundboard is the big, cast iron piece that suspends the strings inside the piano, and allows the string to resonate. The modeling for the soundboard includes control of the damper noise, sympathetic string resonance (when you hit an "E", the "E" strings above it also make a sound if the dampers are lifted, in addition to other strings, like the "B" and "A" strings to a lesser extent). It will also add an air of… well… AIR to the sound of the piano, using reverberation models not unlike those that model a small room – which is what the inside of a piano essentially is.

Third, is the keyboard action. With these keyboards, you will (in a way) get what you pay for. When playing keyboards of this type in the store, you will notice a distinct difference in the mechanical action of each of these keyboards as you go from the moderately priced models to the higher end models. The question is always, "what's going to work for you?" not necessarily, "what can you afford?" There is no doubt, the hammer action of the higher end boards is superb. It was another major factor in the purchase of my Roland RD-700SX over her less-expensive sister, the RD-300SX. The 300 is much lighter, but doesn't have the great hammer action, and so I sacrifice my back on occasion for a great feel! (Thank goodness I bought a case with wheels!)

Lastly, you'll want to pay attention to these finer points, which are often included on non-stage piano keyboards (but not all). For example: are the top strings affected by the damper pedal? (On all real pianos, they are not affected.) Also, in the last 7 years or so, manufacturers have paid attention to so-called "half-damping". This is when the damper pedal is neither all the way up nor down. This can include things like muting the strings, but un-damping them again before they have stopped resonating, allowing them to be sustained again. Or it can include partial damping of the strings with the pedal partially depressed as the string sustains.

More than just a piano
Beyond the piano sounds, many models include many goodies that make purchasing them unique, and would require careful consideration before purchase. First of all, there is the inclusion of over, useful sounds. Many stage pianos of old (and some current) only include a few sounds, mostly simple organ sounds, electric piano sounds and string-like sounds. In general, this may be all you need. Others may include more exotic organ generation engines (like the Roland RD-700SX or the Clavia Stage88). The Stage88 doesn't contain hundreds of sounds like the RD-700SX or S-90ES, but it does have fantastic Hammond, Wurlitzer, and Rhodes emulations, including full digital drawbars and great amp simulation! The RD-700SX has great capabilities as a multi-device MIDI controller, while the Yamaha S90ES, unlike the other two, is a fully programmable PCM-based synthesizer, able to save your patch settings, and program altogether new sounds.

What's right for you?

The first three models I have listed at the end of this article all have three things in common: great piano multi-samples (coming from Steinway and Yamaha grand pianos), soundboard DSP, and half damping. The other critical things I would listen to when choosing a keyboard that works for you: consider what other sounds you really need, what kind of control you really need, how does the keyboard feel to you, and how does the midrange of the piano sound to you? This last point, like the others, is totally a judgment call. The piano's range right around middle "C", the most used, useful and critical part of the piano's sound, is also one of the most difficult to reproduce in a keyboard instrument. Only your personal taste can determine what's right for you and your ears' perception of expressiveness.

One more thing in this area, and this is very important for worship musicians: How does the piano and the other sounds sound when mixed MONO?! Every time you plug into a system for playing live, if you aren't doing it already, you should in virtually ALL cases, be playing in mono, not stereo. This is because of the nature of stereo – it uses out of phase sounds in the listeners ears to recreate the sound of the real instrument by having the sounds be different in each ear. In a live situation, the position of the listener is for all but one or two people, never in the optimal position for a stereo sound. In fact, it is virtually always never optimal (or even good) for stereo. The music stores I frequent always have stereo speakers set-up near the keyboard for sale, or have headphones. A keyboard may sound great in the store in stereo, but get it plugged into the front-of-house, and you might as well be playing a Casio SK-1. (Please, just nod and say you know what that is.) This is because the listener is not positioned between the speakers, is hearing reflections off walls… any number of things happens live that will make your great-sounding, expensive stereo keyboard sound stale and cheap. You must have your keyboard set-up to output a mono sound, like that from a single speaker amp, or the mix of the entire band, and the sound of your keyboard will suffer from problems such as comb filtering and phase cancellation, otherwise known to the more novice reader – lousy sound.

I know I've touted the Roland RD-700SX. Mine has personally been used live by the likes of recording artists Kenny White and Matt Maher when they've visited the Seattle area. However, if I were to make this purchase again now, I'd give the Stage88 and the S90ES a serious listen to, since they weren't available when I bought my RD-700SX.

If you're looking for a lower-cost, bare-bones solution that can still sound good in a sound system, you may also want to look at the M-Audio line of stage pianos. Their piano sounds are reportedly good. I can't say that I've actually tried them out myself.
Models to check out: Roland RD-700SX, Yamaha S90ES, Clavia Stage88, M-Audio ProKeys 88, Roland VX-88 (discontinued)

May God bless you in His endeavors to minister to his people through you.