[ WM ] RoundUp: 10 Great Keyboards for Worship Michael Hodge
Deciding what keyboard to buy for your church can be a long all-consuming and somewhat frustrating experience.
We at [ WM ] have put together a list of 10 great keyboard options to help you navigate with recommendations and an easy to read chart of key features. Our goal is to help educate your teams to get better every week.
We have included models in several price ranges. Some are for a traditional Worship styles, and some for more modern styles including EDM.
Hopefully this will help you in your research as you budget for and buy a keyboard for yourself or for your team. We will start with five 88 key models. These are mostly what are called weighted or semi-weighted, which refers to them“ feeling” and responding like an acoustic piano. Most piano players will strongly prefer these. The non-weighted feel more like an organ keyboard and are well suited for a second synth keyboard player, that’ s playing lines and cool arpeggiated pads etc.
Note: The keyboards are only arranged by number of keys, they are not in order of recommendation.
Nord Stage 3
The award-winning Nord Stage 3, 88 key weighted board is a great choice. It’ s like the big daddy of this round-up: on top are two OLED displays, sliders that double as drawbars and tons of knobs and switches. It’ s a favorite choice among many pro players in terms of sounds, feel and
The Korg Kronos is another beast. It has premium waterfall light-touch keys, which are smoother and more solid than regular synth action, and on top, nine sliders, eight knobs, 2 Joy Sticks, ribbon slider and a large bright 8” color LCD touch display. On the Piano side, there are German and Japanese pianos from the SGX-1 engine and the SGXintuitive features, and you can download free patches from the Nord Piano library. It’ s well built and can hold up to the abuse of a rotating group of keyboard players. The Nord Stage 3 includes the Nord C2D Organ patches with B3 and two Pipe Organ patches. On the Synth side is the Nord Lead A1 Synth Engine combined with Sample
Playback with Synchronizable Arpeggiator & LFO. Nord Stage 3 covers all three bases with Piano, Organ and Synth in one. At 41 lbs, this is a great choice for a permanent set-up.
$ 4,499 nordkeyboards. com Buy at Sweetwater
Korg Kronos LS 88
2 Premium Piano Berlin Grand. There are 9 Synth engines with a ton of patches. Inside is everything from Drums, Strings, Orchestral sounds, Guitars, Analog and Digital Synths, and classic electric keyboards. There’ s a ton of memory with 21GB of preset waves and an additional 62GB of SSD capacity. It’ s a complete composing workstation. It can Sample, Record and sequence 16 tracks internally. It’ s also lighter than the previous model. Kronos is a great all-around choice, and has the workstation capabilities for sequencing and recording.
$ 3,499.99 korg. com / us Buy at Sweetwater
12 April 2018 WorshipMusician. com