88-key synth-action controller?

dragsquares · 2024-08-09T18:47:22+00:00

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I love having 88 keys, but I’m not trying to recreate a piano most of the time. It’s orchestra and other instruments. Any plans on making a quiet 88-key synth-action s88? Or at least a 76? The weighted keys drag the price up a bit also. Unfortunately almost all controllers with 88 keys have either weighted action or a cheaper hybrid that doesn’t feel good and makes more noise. Surely there is a market for this - I would hazard a guess that most users of NI products don’t play pianos specifically.

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Jeremy_NI

There is no plan at the moment to have another version of our 88 keys model.

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DunedinDragon

I'm primarily a guitar player live, but in the studio I'm all about the keyboard for the same reasons you mention. I have a S49MK2 that only gets used infrequently because I'm so much more productive on the Fatar keybed on my S88 in terms of control over the dynamics of what I create. But for me working on a synth action keybed slows me down considerably. I'm just not sure there's that large of a market for larger keybeds without weighted key action or there would be more of them.

dragsquares

I know it's a matter of taste and comfort-level - but I have never had issues with playing dynamically on synth-action keys - but I get what you are saying. It's less common to find a great-feeling and responsive synth-action keyboard. I have a Roland weighted-action controller now, and a Virus TI Polar, and as a finger drummer I often prefer the Polar as a controller. (I also have a Roland TD kit, but that's not always what need to be done.) But also, I use other controllers for a lot of dynamics - TEControl BC2 and expression pedals and LEAPMotion - and I figure there are lots of users who aren't so much players like you (meaning with certain expectations of an instrument, which I'm also on board with mostly) who will be triggering synths and samples and so on, maybe in the DJ or pure electronic realm, who don't need the metaphor of the simulation of a piano but might enjoy the flexibility of seeing 88 notes at once.

Jeremy_NI

There is no plan at the moment to have another version of our 88 keys model.

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