Need advice on live setup

[HollowMan1975]

I've been writing music off and on for most of the last 10 years. I moved to a new city and started writing music with a guy here and things look like they're at the point where we're going to start looking for a bassist and drummer and take the show on the road. Currently I use my large keyboard here in my home studio, MIDI'd into Sonar3 to play DXi's, mainly Triangle II and Edirol. I also usually add a heap of effects like reverb, chorus, compressor, equalizer and delay (the Sonitus one is brilliant). I have a Yamaha P-200, which is an absolutely beautiful digital piano. But as we've begun to rehearse, and I have to leave the softsynths behind and use only the Yamaha, the limited capabilities of the digital piano just don't cut it. The music is mostly rock, with a little darker, proggy feel to it sometimes (no wanker key solos though). I use mostly piano, epiano, a distorted organ sound (organ from my P200, distortion courtesy of Sonar plug-ins), and the occasional analog sound (and one song -relies- on a delay effect). Three of the songs have samples in them (from movies, etc.)

So I've been thinking of getting a much more portable 88-key piano (something maybe like a Yamaha P60) and a synth, buying one of those double stack stands, and making a "real" keyboard setup. But on the other hand, I look at all the flexibility I have with the software, and I think I should buy an 88-key controller for the bottom and a 61 key controller for the top, plugging them into a laptop with a firewire MAudio card and doing it that way. Controllers are cheaper, but farting around with software can be a pain.

So I need some advice from some people who've done this before, or at least tried a few of these options out. Understandably, software is extremely upgradeable, so I expect I'll be able to grow very easily with it and expand. On the other hand, I already suffer clicks and pops and hangups on my desktop studio, and an on-stage reboot is completely out of the question. And then there's the standalone sound modules.

What's the best way to go? My budget is really kind of limited. A really nice keyboard, new, is like $1500... (I'm thinking Triton61LE) and I'm kinda hoping to do the whole thing for that much.

[bsr2002]

If your going the $1500 route you could go with either the YAMAHA Motif6 classic or the KORG KARMA. The Karma is way better than the Triton LE and has more functions. Also it uses the same sound engine as the Triton.

Cheers,
Ben

[HollowMan1975]

I took a look at the Karma at one of the bigger music stores in town, and it certainly does look nice, but it also looks like it's got WAY more features than I need. And as its only 61-keys, it would have to be the 'upper shelf' board, and I'd still need a 76 or 88 key weighted board for the bottom. But I love the Korg samples. I used to have an N-series board, and the possibilities seemed endless at the time.

Which one is the Motif Classic? I can find reviews for the 6,7, 8 and then the ES versions of those, but nothing called 'classic'. Thanks.

[keyz]

Originally Posted by HollowMan1975

Which one is the Motif Classic? I can find reviews for the 6,7, 8 and then the ES versions of those, but nothing called 'classic'. Thanks.

Classic = Not ES


The classic was the original Motif. It came before the ES series of Motif. So the Motif 6, 7, and 8 is different from the Motif ES6, ES7, ES8.

This is what he was talking about I believe.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Motif6/


EDIT: Another thing is that Winter NAMM is coming up in about a week. New 'stuff' might be released then and prices might drop on current gear. You might want to wait and see.

[HollowMan1975]

It looks really neat, but its kinda wide like my P200 (I mean the distance between the front and back of the unit). I did some looking around today and thought about a Kurzweil SP76 as the stage piano, lower unit and a Korg X5D as the upper unit. The total price was something like $1100.

But if I want to do sampling, I'd probably be better off up top with the Korg Triton 61LE with the sampling module, but that's about double the cost of the X5D.

If I went the route of MIDI controllers and software (which I'm still not so sure is all that stable?) the cost of the boards together would probably be around $600. But I have no idea what sort of horsepower you need in a laptop to get started with that sort of thing.