WHAT PRICE, KEYBOARDS?

WHAT PRICE, KEYBOARDS?

EXTENSION CHORDS

by

Allen Hester

For some strange reason, keyboard players are getting a break. During the 70’s, the decade that the electronic keyboard emerged in rock music, the keyboard players who sought to compete with the guitar players for stage prominence had to pay a dear price for equipment.

Consider for just a minute what it costs a musician to own a Hammond organ, a Yamaha electric grand piano or a Rhodes piano, an Arp Omni and a Clavinet: even at discount prices, we’re talking $10,000 minimum! And that doesn’t even include amplification! In contrast, what a guitar player has to invest in an amp, a couple good guitars, and some effects: maybe $5,000 at the outside (excluding, of course, the outrageous prices of “vintage” instruments!).

However, as the new decade dawns, there are some signs of hope on the keyboard horizon. It looks as though electronic keyboard manufacturers are devoting their research and development to less expensive, yet versatile instruments. Far be it from me to say why this is happening, ^xcept to speculate that those polyphonic-computerassisted-digital-dream-machines just didn’t sell like hotcakes at five grand a pop!

So, thanks to corporate over-indulgence, tight money, and thrifty keyboard players, the cost of good electronic keyboards is coming down, but the quality level remains the same. First example: the Moog.

As the name suggests, the. Prodigy is a marvelous little synthesizer. It operates and sounds like the legendary Minimoog at about one-third the price. At $495 retail, the Prodigy is the best duophonic lead synthesizer available for under $1000.

Duophonic” means that the Prodigy will produce two notes per key. This is because the Prodigy has two Oscillators (sound generators) that can be tuned in unison or to an interval, thus producing two notes when any key is depressed. However, this is a “lead” synthesizer in that it will only play one key at a time; no chords can be voiced as on a standard piano or polyphonic synthesizer.

An important difference between the Prodigy and its grandpappy, the Minimoog, is that the Prodigy doesn’t have a Low Frequency Oscillator (LFO). Instead, it is set up so that the second oscillator serves as the LFO when the two oscillators are not in sync. What all this boils down to is this: the player can still get vibrato and trills from the Modulation section of the keyboard, which includes a rate control pot (,3Hz to 30Hz) and a waveshape selector (saw-tooth^ or square wave), as well as enjoy the full, rich sound of two oscillators.

Oscillator 1 has three octave settings (32’, 16’ and 8’) and three waveshape settings (sawtooth, triangle and pulse).

Oscillator II has three octave settings, too, but not the same three (16’, 8’ and 4’). Likewise, the waveshape settings differ somewhat. Instead of a pulse wave, Oscillator II generates a Square wave in addition to a sawtooth and triangle waveform. All this adds up to versatility in a compact format.

Aside from the difference in the way that the oscillators are set up, the Prodigy closely resembles the Minimoog. The “performance controls” include the patented Pitch Bend and Modulation wheels, which are easy to operate with the left hand while playing with the right, and which have a notched “zero point” that makes returning to pitch a lot easier.

The Mixer Section includes separate volume pots for the two oscillators as well as a Master Volume control.

In the Filter section, there is a Filter Modulation orf/off switch, a Biter Keyboard Tracking switch • (off-half-full), Contour Amount pot, Cutoff Frequency pot, and Emphasis control. The filter can be driven into self-oscillation (which is a sine wave, by the way) by rotating the Emphasis control fully clockwise.

Separate Filter Contour and Loudness Contour sections round out the Prodigy control panel. Each of those sections has three pots: Attack, Decay/Release, and Sustain.

Unlike the Minimoog, the Prodigy has no “gate” or “trigger” outputs or inputs on the rear panel; just a simple Output is all that is provided.

However, when all is said and done, the Prodigy measures up to professional standards in terms of sounds and features, and when, one considers the cost of' comparable units, the Prodigy has to be considered a landmark in synthesizer marketing, at least, if not development. Until this instrument hit the market, synthesizers in the $500 price range were considered semi-professional at best. Cheap or not, the Prodigy is a professional instrument, and a damned good one at that.

Another newcomer .to the fraternity of electronic keyboards is the Korg Lambda, a polyphonic multikeyboard that, like the Prodigy, offers professional quality sounds at a relatively reasonable price.

, I say “relatively” because the Lambda retails for $1795, which is not exactly pocket change in itself, but which is cheap compared to the price tag of a Polymoog, a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 or an Oberheim OB-X. Of course, the Lambda is not nearly as sophisticated as any of those high-dollar synthos, nor is it as versatile, but the Lambda is designed to deliver several basic, useful keyboard sounds in a quick and uncomplicated fashion.

Basically, the Lambda is divided into two sections: Percussive and Ensemble. In the Percussive section, one finds three basic sounds: Electric Piano, Clavi, and Piano, with embellishments such as Sustain, Harmonics, and Tremolo that can be applied to any or all of the three sounds. All of these functions are controlled by simple rocker switches, while the Tremolo speed and decay are controlled by rotary pots.

In the Ensemble section, there are five available sounds: Brass, Organ, Chorus, Strings I and Strings II. For the Chorus and two String voicings, there is a variable attack and Release control which allows the user to “swell” the Strings and/or Chorus voicings in underneath whatever other sou nds are in use.

Beyond the two basic groupings of sounds, the Lambda has several “extras” that make it unique and useful.

The Chorus Phaser is an internal phasing circuit that can be applied to either or both of the basic sections of the keyboard. This means that the user can apply phasing to, say, the Electric Piano voicing while leaving the Strings unaltered, or vice versa.

Perhaps the most outstanding extra feature of the Lambda is the Joystick, a 360-degree rotating lever that serves as a Pitch Bend lever or a Chorus Phase speed selector. By moving the Joystick to the right or left, the pitch of the keyboard is shifted up or down a whole tone. Moving the Joystick up or down brings a fast or slow Chorus Phaser into effect. The Pitch Bend function applies to whole chords, not just single notes, and the Chorus Phaser function acts tike a Leslie effect when used in conjunction with the Organ setting. The Joystick is spring-loaded, so it returns to zero when released, leaving the player free from worry about being out of tune or inappropriately phased.

A separate tone control for both the Percussive and Ensemble sections is provided, as well as volume controls for each of the two sections. There is a master tuning control, which allows the player to tune to standard pitch or other keyboards with a fixed pitch (organs, for example), as well as separate tuning controls for the two oscillators in the Lambda. This means that the keyboard can be detuned slightly for a more realistic piano sound.

Another little extra is the percussive control labeled “Elec-Piano Key-Click”. This rotary pot controls the amount of percussive “click” that is heard when a key is depressed. All this is aimed at achieving a sound like the Clavinet; i.e., funky, hip, and all that. Funny thing is, it works out real good.

Well, that takes care of the 48 keys and the front panel of the Lambda, but there are a couple of sneaky things on the rear panel of this unit that bear mentioning.

First of all, there are several outputs provided: Mix Out, Stereo Out (two jacks, A and B) and a Headphone Jack. The Stereo Outputs split the output into two sections, so that Percussive voicings can be fed into separate amplification , rather than Ensemble voicings. This is great for the multi-channeled amp owner who has the rig to support the isolation of signals, but of course, all the sounds will reach any one amp via the Mix Out if the user is confined to one amp.

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EXTENSION CHORDS

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There is also a keyboard Trigger Out which will trigger an external synthesizer from the Lambda keyboard, as well as a Sustain footswitch that affects the entire keyboard when depressed.

FinaDy there’s as Expression (volume pedal) Output that is switchable, and that is very useful, because the player can select either or both sections of the keyboard for use with the volume pedal. Thus, the piano plays on while the strings swell in and out underneath, and so on, in any combination the player desires.

As few as five years ago, keyboards like the Prodigy and the Lambda would have cost two to thre^times as much. Prh not really sure why the new keyboards are priced so modestly, I only know that they are, and that can only be encouraging to those who are struggling to build a professional keyboard rig in this here 19 and 80. Seeya’ll. ®