Hello most helpful Forum Members,
Hopefully this will be the last installation. I have learned a lot more during this search and my musical "recovery" journey. Maybe this will help someone else, as well. At the very least, I have enjoyed getting to know and learn from you.
I purchased a PSR-EW400, just to start playing and see if this was going to truly be fun. IT IS! The technique is coming back along with my musical brain. I still have a ways to go, so I even bought a Hanon book just to do some exercises again. I also learned some things:
- I really like having 76 keys, even if they are not weighted
- I can work with an arranger, but on my own terms, mostly just bass and drums
- A lightweight, mobile, self-contained solution has a lot of appeal
- A synth workstation is familiar to my old musician self, but not an effective use of my limited time
The EW400 is not sufficient for what I want to do, even right now. I want to edit styles, record midi songs on the keyboard, integrate external audio into the music, and so on. With a better arranger keyboard I can do a lot of things, many of them in new ways. Now, which keyboard?
S770 - Pretty good value, lots of voices, styles, and features that I want
S970 - The 770 plus a lot more - I like the extra memory, the video output, the biamped speakers, and more styles and SA voices. Vocoder, harmony, etc don't matter to me. Audio styles not sure about. Is it worth the extra $700?
S975/775 - More memory, 1/2 bar fill, mono legato, higher cost, a whole new section of styles and sounds that are not of interest to me
Genos - really would be the perfect instrument - not going to spend that much money right now.
Other keyboards - I have exhausted the other possibilities, such as Korg, Roland, Casio, and don't want to bore everyone any further with it
The question seems to be between the 970 and the 770, are the extra features worth the higher cost? I am very interested in your opinions...
Jay B.