Controller Keyboard for Rapture/DimPro

I still use my ol Yamaha SY 99. But it all comes down to how you work, Do you need an outboard rompler? Are you attached to the Ion? Where do you see a weakness in you comp sounds. This type of consideration only you could answer. A solid master contoller must have zones out the kazoo? transmit on several channels? Have multiple setups you can call up at the touch of a button? These days the number of options could choke a horse. And you have to dig deep to find that perfect deal.

You'll know what you want so I'm not going to name any models

Translation: He means get a Novation. OK, so the PB/Mod joystick sucks ... X/Y pad.

Aftertouch, both Channel and Polyphonic.

I'd be curious to know where to find this myself. Other than Dave Smith and up into a used-car loan territory.

As an aside to Chad: I tried to get you those doughnuts. It seems that the Dunkin' Donuts at 268 Summer Street thought I was ... crazy. No help at all. And they won't accept a gift card. AFAIK, they have no dulce de leche factura for Rene, either. Options?

the EMU Xboards as a lower-cost alternative to the Novation SL

Hey, Rick, I was in a bit of a hurry when posting above, while being serious (yet a little flippant) with Chad's good info. I've played X-Boards a few times: seemed like a fair-to-good build quality, wheels were good, everything was accessible, and the aftertouch was OK. Over time, I can't tell you. On paper, it certainly fulfills many of the functions that Chad mentioned, at a lower price point than any Novation. If a 2-oct. will do, GC is selling now for about $120 after a $20 rebate. You could talk them down to $110 or even $100 take-home cost with a good rap.

Maybe 2-oct.s won't do it for you, though. Myself, I'd rather have 4 or 5 of them than an 88 anyday, assuming a studio situation. If you're formally trained, or gigging with it, that's another story. Listen, if you ask me, you're always going to get the same answer: "Novation. It's worth it." Search my name and "Novation Remote25" in the Project5 forum, and youi'll find out everything you wanted to know (and then some) on how I see/use specific aspects of that controller.

In a nutshell, though, here's the gist: the "feel" is great for me, the software has matured to include most anything, and the sliders/encoders, knobs, buttons and X/Y pad. The last one? I don't know how I'd ever live without it. I'm actually looking around right now at 11 controllers of some sort, and I can't see anything that I'd trade this 3-4 year-old Remote25 for. Good template editor, splits, control configuration as complete as you'll ever see (at present), ch. aftertouch, velocity curves, release velocity, true Note Offs, and it feels like it's molded to my playing style (most important of all).

The CME's? Yeah, flaky in the beginning. Sure look good in theory, and built like a tank. Too bad. I don't know; if I were starting from scratch, I might consider a MOR keyboard, 2 or 4 octave, and add on one of the Behringer BCR/BCF controllers. Lots of knobs (or sliders), and you can channelize that together with your main KB controller, like one big synth. That's what I do with all my stuff, then split it apart into separate controllers in a heartbeat. That way, you can concentrate on the "feel" and a few must-have features now, save some bucks, but know that you could "add on" to that feature set later on. You have to research that kind of plan heavily, though. No surprises.

I read at P5 about your Alesis Ion experience. Sorry to hear that. I'm not trying to convince you otherwise, but I have had an incredibly polar-opposite experience with that 'piece of kit'. Love it. The O/S was shaky, and I worked that out. No aftertouch transmission, but I can send it in from another controller. And all those NRPN-spewing knobs! Anyway, here's the reason that I bring it up: With the multis ('setups'), you can transmit over four separate MIDI channels simultaneously. I'm tearing it up with the four Elements of Dimension Pro in multitibral mode.

And Rapture? Well., I never was happy with the tracking in this Roland guitar synth, but I'm looking into some newer ones. You see, there's six Elements now in multitimbral mode. I didn't think of it until late last night, but then it hit me. This Rapture thing screams guitar synthesis.

Now if I could only get Rapture to receive on MIDI Channels 11-16 ...

if GC would let me walk out of the store with an EMU Xboard 25 for $125, tax included, no rebate to send in, etc... Then I'd probably do it in order to have at least some sort of controller keyboard

OK, Rick. This just in.
I got a "Green Tag" flyer from GC today. They're pushing the Emu XBoard 49 out for 114.99 before sales tax. Make sure you play it first.

Downsides: There's a $55 rebate that'll you'll have to cough up upfront. It's going to be hard to talk them out of a manufacturer/GC promo like that. Not much wiggle room there. You should be able to get them to "bury" the sales tax, or work with you if you're "bundling" with another purchase. Given what you've said, this might be more on the front end than you want to devote to this purchase.

Upsides: You're probably not going to find another controller with this feature/price ratio anytime soon. The final cost is a good deal. So far, I've had very good luck with the Guitar Center rebates. Usually not even a month turnaround; more like 3 weeks. And i've never had to chase one down. They just arrive, and early, too. What a concept.

Anyway, I felt compelled to follow up here, just to make sure that you knew this 'new' option was available. I think it goes until the end of the month, but availability shrinks on items like this long before that last weekend.

Sorry, I don't exactly understand what you are trying to say. But I too have old MIDI keyboards that could be pressed into service. But part of this whole software paradigm seems to be using a dedicated controller keyboard similar to the Novation, Emu, Edirol, M-Audio, etc... type.

I still have my Yamaha psr 500 but use it mostly as a controller, but for any knobs I use the Midman Pro 88 which is a great controller. I also have a keystation 64 controller I use to compose with on my laptop. Its light wieght enough to use on a chair with the laptop on the side.
Its an interesting time, you have new fancy hardware synths coming out from Korg, Roland and Yamaha and others Nord. And you have software synths coming out to that are powerful. I wonder why they dont have complet software versions of the expensive hardware synths out there. It would be possible to do this. I know it must be proprietary systems.
Wouldnt it be cool if you could get the best of Nord Korg etc in a software version, You pull it up on your screen and you could play all the same banks you do on the Nord on your computer?