Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 12:24 PM

What's a Shruti Box SO'P?

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: GUEST,S O'P (Astray)
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 01:23 PM

Basically a drone device used in Indian classical, folk & popular music. They come in two basic varieties - Acoustic and Electronic, both of which have their advantages. I use the electronic because it's hands free, fully tunable and has a volume contol. The acoustic ones are more versatile with shifting drones around whilst singing - we saw Maz O'Connor at the Fylde last year who did this to great effect. So - they're coming into Folk, slowly but surely, although they've been part of the world=ethnoc-free-jazz scene for decades. My first Shruti box was made out of formica and had four fully tunable tambura-pattern drones, but I left it on a train back in 1994. These days I'm never without my trusty little Swar Sudha, and it's loud enough to kick out some serious noise with the clarinet...

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 04:48 PM

...and if you can, thus, find cheap enough keys, BCL, you may not need any kind of loan.

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 04:34 PM

While looking for something completely different, I found this new 61 Key Roll Up Soft Keyboard Digital Piano MIDI for 68.80 USD from China (about £50?) which may be the same as the Maplins one you mentioned above.

Ross

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 05:30 PM

I'm very happy with my Bontempi toy reed organ, which cost a lot less than £50. (I say 'toy' because that was clearly how it was sold, but it's got 25 full-size keys and some quite nice-sounding reeds.)

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 05:41 PM

Excellent news, Pip! Hope to get to hear it soon. Rachel's awaiting the imminent arrival of her new super-portable lap-top size hand-pumped harmonium from India - like This One, which means we can do our thang on the hoof, even unto intimate singarounds.

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 08:22 PM

S O'P - is this Shruti Box Pine Wood the same as the one you lost? And can it play more than one note at a time? Looking forward to hearing Rachel's new machine.

Pip - glad to hear you found what you were looking for. I think the Bontempi is probably the closest thing to the little reed-organ that my aunt and uncle had. I was really disappointed when they replaced it with an electronic version.

We just had John Kelly (Harmonium Hero on Mudcat) at Fleetwood Folk Club. Among other instruments he had a portable Victorian harmonium, lovely mellow sound, even full two-handed chords not overpowering his fairly light voice, and an Indian harmonium (not the first time there's been two in the room!), a bit more limited because you have to use one hand for the bellows - something like this, maybe not so elaborate - Harmonium Professional 4 reed .

If, like me, you find getting away from the white keys (key of C) a challenge, the ability to transpose at will might be attractive - HARMONIUM Scale Changer Special . (Can any of the electronic keyboards do this?)

Ross

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 15 Jan 10 - 11:36 PM

Don't give up hope for a concertina, either. It took me a year of looking but I got my wheatstone for $250. I did it by stopping into every music shop and hock shop I passed until I found what I wanted. You have to carry a 50 with you as deposit, then beg, borrow or steal the rest to pay it off in a reasonable time and hope they do not reneg on the deal or sell it to someone else for the "right" price before you get back. It takes a lot of work but it's worth it.

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 16 Jan 10 - 04:42 AM

S O'P - is this Shruti Box Pine Wood the same as the one you lost? And can it play more than one note at a time?

The one I lost was an electronic tambura shruti with four tunable tambura drones (i.e. plucked drone sounds) in a number of possible rhythmic ostinatos. The whole thing was built from fetching formica, giving it the look of a cheap 40s radio or something. Such things might still still be had (albeit without the finish) and even in a cheapo version like my wee Shruti: Here.

The one you link to is a bellows-blown reed shruti box, similar to the one played at Fylde last year by Maz O'Connor, who changed the drones even as she sang. In theory you could play all twelve notes at the same time, or any combination, which gives them the advantage over mine because I can only do 4ths & 5ths, unlike my lost one, on which I used to use 2nds, minor thirds & all sorts of irregular dissonances by way of drones.

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 17 Jan 10 - 04:31 AM

For around £15 you could have one of these...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opDTYv2v9wU

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 17 Jan 10 - 05:24 PM

One thing that sets aside cheaper keyboard from more expensive is the pressure sensitivity. On an electric piano, it responds to how hard you play the keys as opposed to the cheapest keyboards where this is done by a volume knob - it depends if you want your accompaniments to vary in the same song/tune.

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Jan 10 - 06:17 PM

"and, thus, I could silently practise my fingering"

.... !!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Jan 10 - 07:59 PM

I have been trying to find a tanpura/shruti-box simulator for the Mac (preferably one that runs on Panther) and I'm not having much luck. Anybody know what's available?

This is to go with my latest attack of instrument acquisition syndrome, an Afghan rubab.

A problem with Bontempis: they don't give you a full range of major and minor chords, and you will run out of sharp keys if you try it on Scottish music.

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 06:29 AM

Jack - There are on-line shruti sites such as karnATik which might suffice. Otherwise the best thing to do is track down a lite (cheap) version of Ableton Live for an effective soft-shruti. This is versatile looping technology into which you might export whatever samples you wish to use - even those of your rubab - and loop them in real time.

If Pip's got the Bontempi B1, then it doesn't have chord buttons at all which makes them all the more suited for Scottish music! These are similar in essence to the electric reed organs used on Christopher Hobbs's Aran (for reed organs and percussion) and MacCrimmon Will Never Return (for four electric reed organs) which feature on Ensemble Pieces - #2 in Eno's Obscure Series which, although very rare these day, with no CD release, can happily be downloaded gratis with full cover artwork & notes from HERE. Highly recommended for owners of electric reed organs and lovers of great & beautiful music. Aran I remember being used to great effect as crowd rousing intro music by Siouxie and the Banshees during their 1981 tour (with Linton Kwesi Johnson).

*

Meanwhile, on the subject of cheap keyboards, reed organs and Instrument Acquisition Syndrome, Rachel's new lap-top size Indian harmonium (see below somewhere) arrived about an hour ago. She is at work today, I am working from home, now looking at this very inviting box sitting in the middle of our studio awaiting to divulge its hidden mysteries...

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 10:07 AM

Thanks! KarnATik is neat. 8 minute chunks, but that's enough to be going on with. I think I might glue a whole string of them together to make a gapless CD.

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Tootler
Date: 18 Jan 10 - 04:02 PM

It should be possible to create your own shruti box sounds if you have a decent midi synth on your computer.

I experimented briefly today with my keyboard one of the accordion patches was pretty close to the shruti sounds on the KarnATik site.

Record your sounds then transfer them to an iPod/mp3 player and take that along with one of those little iPod speakers to make a portable electronic shruti box.

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 21 Jan 10 - 01:57 PM

I've been thinking of getting shruti for years, just not got round to it. Tried the electric ones but didn't think they sounded like a musical instrument. Sorry I missed the B1 - I'd have had that - but was in hospital. (Had a 'proper' Bontempi over the water for a while, cost me a quid from the jetty boot fair, but it was too big to lug to the session).

Sean, do you think your 'proper' shruti has enough puff to blow a melodica? I've tried various pumps and balloons to drive mine and they never work, but the reed size must be about the same, and you mostly need only one note at a time.

A discrete (pluggable) hole in the side of the shruti to attach the tube...

Got my wasp working again - but that's worth a few bob now (collectors item). The lad plays it and the drums at the same time - and he's bagged my stylophone too!

I did make a rig so I could pump a toy accordion with my foot, then wedge down notes for a drone, and play the guitar and sing over. May try to do something similar with the shruti.

Is Rachel's harmonium the kind with the horizontal bellows? Which only sounds on the squeeze? That's the problem with most - whereas the reciprocal bellows on the schruti (dashed clever, that) give you a continuous breath.

Tom

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 02:19 PM

do you think your 'proper' shruti has enough puff to blow a melodica?

Some I've seen just might, the 'four dial' type maybe, but they tend to use pretty soft reeds some of which blow under the weight of gravity on the reciprocal bellows - so maybe some sort of wind-chest would give a better pressure. Mind you, I'm thinking of the Hohner button melodica-alto which takes a lot of puff!

Rachel's new lap-top style harmonium has a reciprocal (sprung) bellows arrangement which (once we've sealed the gaps) works a treat on an stupidly loud set of reeds for the size of the instrument, so it could work. Our other Indian harmonium (baja) uses a horizontal bellows + wind-chest, which makes more sense to me & gives a more consistent pressure.

You got a WASP!? Bleedin' hell. Robert Wyatt used one of these on The Animals Film soundtrack & it even gets name-checked by Mark E. Smith on the 1983 live version The Fall's Mere Psued Mag Ed.:

Has a sneer which was weird
Some time ago
Heard Kraftwerk in '81
Has a WASP synthesizer

A real male, make-up as well
Sophisticate
WASP synthesizer
Didn't get far
In computer teaching job
His dream girl sings adverts for Renoir perfume
A fancied wit that's mere imitation of D. Bowie
in "Man Who Fell to Earth"

I tell you, these things are serious cult artefacts; the idea of your lad playing one & drumming at the same time makes me very happy indeed. The stylophone is seriously cult too of course - at least you buy these new. I use one in conjunction with various loops & filters - see the track Stylophony Number One playing HERE.

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 04:19 AM

How much???!!!! Even so, I reckon the WASP would be the ideal beast for ballad accompaniment in singarounds, with a shruti box of course... Ah, we can but dream!

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: GUEST,TB
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 09:52 AM

Wowza wowza - I knew it was more than a ton, but....!

Got mine for £99 in about 79. Was so desperate to have a proper synth that I traded in a nice Farfisa worth about £300, (which was enough to buy a small house in some parts then). It was the hook-cooker (wizzes, fizzes, pops and snaps) on our infamous Christmas not-hit of err 81? Pete Waterman had sneaked it onto the Radio 1 playlist, and both Bates and Reid had promised to plug it (or so I heard) but the band imploded and we missed the deadline. What price a Wasp that went to No 1?

Stylophone is a replacement. The original went missing due to progeny. Used to play it in a wonderful punk version of Fireball XL5 sequing into Telstar, which I seem to remember involved me climbing the PA stack while plying with one hand...

Can you give me a link to the sprung harmonium. Does it play continuously (for continuo? ;-) like a shruti?

Tom

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: GUEST,Suibhne (Astray)
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 02:16 PM

The lap-top harmonium was HERE - not sure if he'll be relisting. It's a great idea for a portable harmonium, but the joinery wouldn't have got you a CSE Grade 5 in woodwook (circa 1976) - for the price one expects more somehow. Plus points - it sounds great, & with further adjustments (like narrowing the interface between the bellows & reed bed) we've got it perfect. Like a lot of Indian instruments, it's in miliary pitch - several cents sharp of concert, but at least it's in tune with itself. Like all harmoniums the sound is continuous, the difference here is the use of sprung reciprocal shruti box type bellows rather that the more efficient wind-chest.

Rating 5/10 - workable but not at that price!

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 03:13 PM

That's pretty much what I was hoping to achieve with the 'Shrutlodica.' The size is the real bonus for me. If I ever do go back to gigging it would have to fight for its place in the van along with all the other instruments - and more importantly, up all those stairs and through the damn fire doors. Even normal sized Indian harmonia are too big.

But concert would be an essential.

I might have a word with my squeezebox tech - he may fancy building something. Or I may get a shruti anyway and then see how hard it'll blow. I can sound the Hohner with minimal breath.

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 03:46 AM

Ah, this is the badger...

Dulcetina, with drones and in concert

Check out the Tomy on the same page, and some really nice home-made instruments on More From: addict2overtone, specially the amazing pocket cajons and the homemade Monochord + Tanpura generator - right up your street I'd have thought Sean.

Tom

(Couldn't resist this Woopee cushion harmonium - including how to break a glass with a clarinet - by playing it, I mean)!

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jan 10 - 04:10 PM

I have a casio Concertmate 1100 for $75.

Here is the craigslist ad:

http://oregoncoast.craigslist.org/msg/1559327827.html

or you can call me at [phone].

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 04:52 PM

Today we bought a lovely new pink KAOSSILATOR which Korg describe as a Dynamic Phase Synthesiser. Hold it in your palm and intuit music, loops, grooves, drones, ambience & other such joyful noise.

Check out the official demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeQOuNBuJwg

Hardly cheap, but very portable, although it does require an amp (we use a Roland Micro Cube which is also very portable). Post-Folk friendly - you can programme it to play in a number of modes (Dorian. Lydian etc.) & raga scales - I can see us using this in singarounds as the ideal thing to accompany E. Trads & Ballads.

Watch this space!

Subject: Suggestions for cheap keyboard for gigs
From: Nick
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 03:06 PM

I'm toying with the idea of taking a keyboard to gigs in the future and am looking for some suggestions. It would be just to play on a few tunes and mostly just to fillin chords rather than to play lots of solos.

I am not a keyboard player so it would be just for some basic stuff (think Linda McCartney and Wings perhaps!).

There is a person selling a 1970s Hammond organ at the moment locally for £75 but I would guess that it is going to be totally impractical as it is probably huge and heavy for me to cart about with all the other stuff.

So what I am after are some suggestions of what would sound ok through a PA or amp and is going to be portable and relatively small with the ability to make a decent organ sound and probably a piano sound as well.

For example is something like this - Casio - completely inappropriate? It's cheap and simple but would it sound like a pile of poo?

Subject: RE: Suggestions for cheap keyboard for gigs
From: Little Robyn
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 03:37 PM

For 30 pounds, that one should be great BUT how much room do you have in your car?
That's not a small keyboard.
And if you're mainly playing fill/chords, that one is overkill.
(But if I lived in your part of the world I would grab it.)
Robyn in NZ

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 06:45 PM

Nick
that Casio pictured will do far more than you say you need - but then when playing a Pipe Organ or Piano Accordion, you don't need to push all the buttons at once all the time either :-)

I found similar ones at the local council tip shop, and provided it all works and nothing needs repair, it will do all you say you need. You can even get smaller ones too.

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 03:00 AM

Nick,

We picked up a Casio like that for my younger daughter last year at about the same price. It's been excellent value, and it certainly doesn't sound like a pile of poo.

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Nick
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 09:11 AM

Thanks for the responses - just to be clear this is going to be playing in a blues band with drums, guitar, bass rather than in a quiet folky setting.

Still ok?

Do they sound ok through a PA or amp at a sound level to battle with a full drum kit going for it?

Subject: RE: Very cheap keyboard - suggestions?
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 12:54 PM

It'll sound fine through an amp. In fact, you probably need to put it through an amp to get the best out of some of the effects.

The keys aren't as "positive" as, say, my son's Korg 800 synth, but pretty good for plastic. No bend or mod wheels on it, but I suspect you're not too worried about those!

Reverb and flanger effects are good, but the chorus effect is a bit disappointing. Trumpet, guitar and violin effects are nice but the flute effect's a bit crappy.

all in all, though, a bargain for the price.