I’m an amateur musician playing keys in a local rock band. Until recently, we were playing about 2-3 shows a month. We stick to mostly 70’s-90’s-style rock-n-roll, punk/rockabilly, and art-rock (think the Cramps, the Ramones, Blue Oyster Cult, Badfinger, the B-52s, Modern Lovers, Talking Heads, Television) along with forays into metal and 60’s psychedelica.
Currently I’m using a Casio that I got for free, with a Roland speaker that makes it sound absolutely lovely. I’m one of those fiddly amateurs who likes to play around with voices for different tracks, because I like the flexibility it gives the band.
Lately, though, I’ve been very interested in picking up a keytar. I’d like to be able to move around a bit more during gigs, and I’ve never been able to learn guitar. I’m checking out the Roland models as they seem to be the only serious maker of keytars.
Anyone have any experience playing a keytar, specifically a Roland model? Which model did you pick? Did you just use a particular voice or did you switch? Were you primarily recording, performing, or both? And most importantly–how did you like it? Would you recommend a budding rock star get one?
That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, given that Herbie Hancock absolutely OWNS his keytar in live performances.
I did know a guy in college who was moderately talented at it, but I never asked him anything about it and don’t want to be bothered getting in touch with him.
Granted people do look pretty silly playing them most of the time. But I’d like something that frees up stage room in some of the smaller venues where we play, and is a little easier to set up and move around with.
I play keys in a lot of contexts, including a cover band.
I have toyed with the idea of getting one for a while now, but haven’t for two reasons:
Because the 80s are the retro thing now, keytars are really expensive. I have a lot of other things (for the moment) that I could better spend the money on that a keytar, especially considering:
They are generally pretty un-impressive in the sound/synthesis area.
That said, having one would be nice. I would probably end up using it to control some other synth I have via midi (so I would still bring the rest of my gear to the gig, not just the keytar).
I might look at the Alesis Vortex. It’s very reasonably priced. Roland has a product in the same price range (Lucina), but it’s ugly as hell, and has some controls placed in very dubious positions.
Unless you’re earning real dough from gigs, I’d avoid the Roland Ax, unless you have the money burning a hole in your pocket.
Sure. I mean, you’d be hard pressed these days to find an electronic keyboard instrument that doesn’t have midi-out (though there are some that are now being made with midi-over-usb only; don’t get me started).
Run your midi cable from your keytar into your synthesizer, and run the audio out from the synth, not the keytar, and there you go!
Prince can rock a keytar; Herbie Hancock can rock one. Harsh truth: most folks aren’t them.
It’s no different than Jimmy Page and double-neck guitars. If you are playing in front of thousands of people and need to switch quickly between 12 and 6 strings, then one might make sense. Unfortunately, 99% of folks who get d-necks *aren’t *in that situation and, frankly, look like buffoons.
They are a lot of trouble and hard to pull off credibly. Choose wisely.
I don’t know how they became the essence of cheese. Edgar Winter is another master of the insturment, and I saw him playing “Frankenstein” on one last year. When Roger Powell was with Utopia, he played one that he custom designed one called the Powell Probe that controlled a whole bank of synths off stage, using a system that predated MIDI by several years. Jan Hammer also played one of Roger’s instruments.