As a multi keyboardist, I couldn't imagine playing with anything less than 2 keyboards. In fact, I have an audition next weekend and will be bringing five keyboards.
First to address is the different feel of each board. Between the weighted, semi weighted and non weighted keys, I have at least three different approaches that yeild three different results.
Next, I'll address the HUGE advantage of getting different sounds out of different keyboards. Just by playing another keyboard I can change to a completely different sound LIVE. That's is enormously important. Especially since I program my own sounds. There are limits to sound modules and synths to create some sounds over others. Therefore, different sound sources are a nessesity. I use a MiniKorg MK-1 and
a Yamaha AN200 for lead sounds. The MiniKorg is vintage analog (monophonic). There are some sounds in this little board that cannot be reproduced by any other instrument. Also, the MiniKorg was made before MIDI. So, if I want the sounds from the MiniKorg I have to play the MiniKorg. It is of course, monophonic so it is ill suited for any other job than leads and bass lines. The AN200 (polyphonic) and like the MiniKorg is capable of sounds that simply cannot be made by any other module. It has no keyboard of its own, so I play it through any of three other keyboards in my rig. Mostly my Evolution MK-125 gets connected to the AN2000.
Onto my meatier keyboards. I have
a Roland RD-100 which has 88 weighted keys. If I'm going to play piano sounds, this is the keyboard I will always use. Regardless of whether I use the keyboard's internal sounds or not. For my puposes as a serious piano player, the RD-100 IS a piano. Would I be able to play leads with the RD-100? Sure I could, but not as well. Also, if I were to play leads with with the RD-100 my left hand would be sleeping on the job. You can't comp leads with the same lead sound. I could split the RD-100, but that would either religate my highest two octaves to leads (which is not often the register that I like to play my leads from) or severly limit my comping real estate to the lowest registers.
If I can't bring the RD-100 along, I'll play piano parts on my Roland EP-7II, but the semi weighted action costs me in expressivness. However, that semi weighted action works great for organs, pads and other timbers. Between my EP7 and my MiniKorg is another MIDI controller with 61 keys This is unweighted and I use this as my "catch all" controller. Typically, I'll use it for anything that I've run out of keyboards for. Pads when
the EP7 is being used for Hammond sounds. Bass lines when the MiniKorg is being used for leads and the AN200 is being used for funky fat AN200 sounds.
I also have a Rhodes (which is seeing less and less use and may be sold soon), a Hammond Organ and
a Korg CX-3. None of these instruments are MIDI (the CX is the vintage one) but each has a sound that cannot be recreated using the technology available today (although the Rhodes may be phased out soon).
My Roland JX-8P and
my DX-100 are only being kept until I get my hands on rack mountable versions of both. For now, these keyboards are set up near my rig but not as part of it. I control them via MIDI and they get A LOT of use.
I should mention that I am primarily a Progressive Rock and Jazz Fusion performer. If I were in a top 40 band I could probably get away with a lot less gear. However, my material is usually long playing and the soundscape is almost always complex and well developed. When you change keys and tempos several times in a composition, you can't keep relying on a pad sound or a Wurlitzer sound without getting boring.
Carl
