Hi and hello, gruetzi, moin!
I am using a Fatar 900 for playing piano mode.
However I’d like to buy a non- or halfweighed board for playing synths and organs.
Soooo… Would you recommend one?
I’d prefer a 88-keys board.
Thank you a lot.
Love, peace and happyness.
Thorsten
Ah! You should have joined Zynth Club last night when we discussed both piano action and synth action keyboards. I have always found the Roland keyboards to have some of the best action in both of these fields. You almost can’t go wrong with a Roland keyboard. There was mention of a few others last night but I didn’t take note - I am sure that the brethren will step up with a multitude of suggestions.
Everything @riban said. To try drop some chaotic hints for further searching, my 2ct and personal experiences:
I play a Roland A-49 and D-10 as non-weighted keys. It is not easy to find a non-hammer/non-full-weighted 88 key tho (or am I not good at searching?).
I remember the Roland D-70 to have 76 keys, but you get a fullsize synth with that… don’t know if one can find that keyboard in another device.
For organs and synths I personally find it barely useful to have something larger than 61 keys anyway.
I can also recommend Novation Impulse as a (iirc) half-weighted key, but again nothing bigger than 61 keys tho.
And generally more or less anything Fatar/Studiologic.
Oh and we mentioned the new Casiotones as nice playable keyboards yesterday - dunno if they have midi out tho.
My old Casio VZ-1 has a nice synth action but it is a bit light and loose now. It certainly out performs most spongy modern cheap keyboards.
Hi and thankyou for sharing your thoughts. I really do appriciate it.
Took a while however I decided for a 88key board. A B-stock Nektar Impact came across my way. I will report about it, as soon as Mr. Postman rings.
Thorsten
I suggest unwrapping it first to experience the full feel and response 
.
The Nektar are fairly priced and not half bad, it’s not a stellar action but It’s really good for the price
As a related question, has anyone found a full weighted keyboard that is smaller than 88 keys? We have an 88 key Roland stage piano which is a PITA to carry to gigs. It weighs a tonne & it’s too long to lay flat on the backseat of my car. A controller with 61 or even 48 keys would be more practical, but I’ve never found one with less than 88.
The Roland RD-64 is a fairly good option then I suppose. I use it myself for exactly this purpose. It fits nicely into a Nord 73-key-backpack. You can find them second hand regularly.
There might be later Roland devices with a similar keyboard, but I don’t know them in detail.
The Rd 64 looks like an Roland A88 but cut down. If it’s the same keybed it feels nice to my touch.
Isn’t there also a one octave semi weighted out there somewhere?
It is, in fact they share most of the user manual, afaik.
@Stupps, I recommend to look into nektartech impact series.
The link to their dedicated website
I own 61 key version and touch and feel is great. Also it is rather lightweight (physical weight) in comparison with other models.
M-Audio have released a third generation of their Keystation 88 which this review rates quite highly. It certainly seems to match the OP criteria and good value too. Also significantly cheaper and lighter than the Nektartech.
Let’s discuss this again… It has been a few years and things change.
First I want to highlight some learning since this post around organ keyboards. Some tonewheel organs had several key switch contacts, spread across the throw of the key which each engaged different or more tonewheel outputs. This gave a rudimentary velocity and/or aftertouch to those high-end 1970’s organs but also gave a really important and often misunderstood respose. You get sound a soon as you tap the key. Modern keyboards trigger sound after the key has passed two contacts, often at the end of the key throw. This means that modern keyboards cannot replicate the light-touch response of these older organs which means the very fast playing of some of our favourite players cannot be reproduced. It has been very hard to find any modern keyboards with contacts near the top of the key throw, maybe only the new Hammond organs which carry a hefty price tag as well as being hefty in weight!
But now onto the subject that triggered me to revisit this topic. I am looking at full sized, 88-note hammer action keyboards to act as a piano substitue but don’t have the cash to splash on high-end models so am looking at the $400 price point. I already have an old (original) Fatar SL990 which is pretty good but about 25 years old so I hope to get something better for less!
My research has led me to three options:
These are similar price with the Roland being the most expensive and with similar features (a few sounds, built in amp and speakers, headphone outlet, USB MIDI, sustain pedal socket, metronome). The Roland has Bluetooth but I don’t see that as a significant boon. The main difference seems to be in the keyboard action with the Casio having the lightest and the Roland having the heaviest. I suspect, despite good reviews that the Casio may be too light and not exercise the fingers like a real piano. Most reviews I have read have pointed to the Roland being the best action which aligns with what I wrote earlier in this thread. I want to know if anyone has experience of these keyboards and hear their opinions and also whether anyone has other recommendations.
I’ve played several Casios, I don’t know the model numbers in particular, but they were all weighted, all a little different, and I personally didn’t like any of them. They have a weird bouncy thing to them, and the action is indeed on the light side.
I got a studiologic 73 recently, and I absolutely love it.
For perspective, I’ve been playing piano for 40 years, I went to music school a million years ago, and have worked as a jazz pianist throughout my life playing solo and in groups. I am the proud owner of a rebuilt 1925 Mason and Hamlin A - I’m just providing this detail so y’all know where I’m coming from. I play a lot!
The studiologic definitely has a pretty heavy action, a little heavier than a Kawai VPC 1 or MP7, but I personally love it. Lots of people on the internet hate it and say the action is too heavy. I consider it a “keyboard for grownups”.
It also weighs only about 25 lbs, and has a nice aluminum body.
I haven’t played any Rolands or Yamahas lately, so can’t comment on those.
This is a discussion to reopen 
As you’re talking about keyboard feel I’ve found a linkhttps://www.musiker-board.de/threads/verbaute-tastaturen-und-hersteller-sammelthread.435157/ with up to date information about which keyboard bed is inside keyboard/synth. Last updated 2023
You have the Fatar TP/40GH which is one of the best, so don’t downgrade. I have the even older Fatar TP/10MDR and I still have no problems and I gig with it, my only issue is the 22kg it’s rather heavy 
. On my list of todos (hopefully before I retire) for my keyboard is to develop a better controller most likely a HiRes velocity range and USB but don’t expect anything soon.
As a piano player I always say you have to try them out yourself, what I like may not suit you. Certainly from my experience the Fatar’s are totally reliable. Personally I’d love to try out the TP/400 Wood but I’ve seen one in a music shop as yet, does anyone here have one?
Personally, I found the high-end Roland keys (PHA-50 Keyboard: Wood and Plastic Hybrid Structure, with Escapement and Ebony/Ivory Feel (88 keys)) as good as it gets, with two caveats:
1, You may find it heavy - it’s definitely not for fast synth glissandos 
Ironically, the Fantom 8 has these keys, so it’s more like a hybrid stage piano/synth.
2, Anything with PHA-50 is not cheap, afaik:
FP-90X (I use that every day), RD-2000/EX (never tried) and Fantom 8.
For synth action Fantom 7 to me is unbeatable, except for channel aftertouch which seems to be broken on all Fantoms. You can play as fast as you want/can on these 
Novation SL MkIII is pretty decent synth action, as well as MPC Key 61.
The worst keys I have ever used is on the MODX+ 61, not even using full width keys. If you can play piano without looking at the keys this will annoy you to no end and will make mistakes - so it is being used as a sound module and would change it in a heartbeat to a real sound module, if Yamaha would ever release one…
btw: Pianoteq (on your Zynthian of course ) + FP-90X + RPU-3 pedal is really as good as it gets for piano playing, without having a room dedicated to a grand piano
Nicely put.
Hi everybody!
I am not even sure if the focus of this thread has shifted by now, to various keybed recommendations tout-court, but this is my grain of knowledge and experience:
For synth action, anything that carries a Fatar TP/9. It is quick in response and relatively light, but also present in weight and provided with a premium surface finish, all of wich makes it possible to pleasantly perform in a variety of styles and speeds.
For piano action, a keyboard equipped with the PHA-50 Roland keybed, featuring a half-wood hammer-action mechanism with escapement. In my opinion, it feels as close to a real grand piano as it gets, with just the right weight, key dimensions, action resistance and surface texture. Overall, it is not as hard in touch as the Studiologic 73/88, which in my opinion doesn’t come out as particularly natural in response.
Both keybeds are mounted on the centerpieces of my playing rig, the masters of all masters so to speak: the DSI Rev2 and Roland RD-2000.
I don’t know if Studiologic provides a Fatar TP/9 on some of the 88-key half-weighted synth-action controllers. They are/were sister companies, but I believe that they have now different ownerships. Fatar is quite secretive on the details of their keybeds and third-party industrial products for which they are manufactured, if approached by email (I guess for contractual agreement restraints).
Regarding organ action specifically - that is to say, a non-velocity-sensed note that triggers near the top of the key travel - I can recommend my Roland VR-09, which you can either think of as a cheap 61 key synth device with a keybed that provides correct organ action as well as a set of standard B3 drawbars oh and also it does a pretty damn good B3 sound too,
Let’s try that again. It’s actually a really really great value, if there are any organ-capable midi controllers out there they are upmarket and expensive, so probably this is gonna be the best value, period. And you absolutely do get stage-grade emulation of the classic organs (Hammond, Vox, Farfisa) that those famous keylords were playing. There is a VR-730 with one more octave, same engine.
BUT THERE’S MORE
These models are also very hackable using CTRLR, a program used to build computer interfaces for midi devices:
https://v-combo.webspace.rocks/vr-software
Basically, the VR devices do not play well with other midi devices out of the box, they want to be kings of their own universe so you can’t send Program Change to them - which you would definitely want to do, if you were using them as a controller for one or more external devices, because when it’s in organ mode you get flat, high velocity on every note, and if you want velocity sensitivity you’ll need to switch it to Piano or Synth mode, and by default you can’t do that.
I have not done the packet sniffing yet, but CTRLR sends the required sysex to make that happen in the regular course of its business, so I’m pretty sure it’ll be reasonably trivial to sort out how to make the zynthian send those messages as needed for a given chain, but I’ve been working 15 hour days all summer so I ain’t had time fer nothin
But anyways, I’m a bit of a B3 fan so this has been a strong part of my focus as I’ve taught myself keys, and these devices seem like the only budget solution, you go straight from this to buying a Hammond XK5 essentially, so pretty much the price goes up by an order of magnitude.
Edit: oh yeah, along with the “does organs right” thing, by default out of the box you can stack maybe two patches on top of each other, and a lot of functionality is difficult, a bit of it impossible, without using Roland’s available software controllers.
With CTRLR, you can do stuff like, stack 7 patches up on the keybed, while also playing stuff on a General Midi device from an external keyboard/sequencer, you can get up four (!) keyboard zones vs only two in the default UI… these are very powerful devices, with the CTRLR software telling them what to do. More sound patches that are in the processor but not in the UI at all.
Edit 2: The Piano sounds on the VR devices,they SUCK. Suck-diddley-uck Flanders.
Edit 3: I keep forgetting cool CTRLR features: there is also a “Synth” version of the interface which basically takes the internal synth engine and makes all the parameters realtime tweakable via the gui or, I assume, midi piped through ctrlr. The built-in firmware does a decent enough job with the synth patches, you can access LPF cutoff with one of the drawbars for instance, but with the addition of the ctrlr software it’s a full-on synthesizer.
Did I mention CTRLR and the VR panels are all free? Some folks make CTRLR panels for other devices and charge for em, but not the guy who did the VR stuff. Genius.