[ 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