Welcome to the department of keyboards and synths. A wide variety of portable keyboards made by Yamaha, Korg, Casio, Roland, and Nord can be found here. Many of the very skilled keyboard and synth players in our organisation have played professionally in the past or still do so today. We collectively know a great deal about all the keyboards and synths that we sell.
An introduction to the keyboard
A portable keyboard will usually have a number of different sounds ( tones ), usually hundreds, as well as having hundreds of backings or accompaniments. The sounds these days are very realistic, they are digital which means that they are the real sound sampled and stored in the keyboard. Apart from the very cheapest keyboards, most are now touch sensitive with spring keys. Touch sensitivity is like on a piano where the harder you press the key the louder the sound is and the softer you press it the quieter the sound is. Most keyboards will have some sort of teaching facility built in that will help you learn to play. Some have lights under the keys and will play a song lighting up the notes.
Synthesizers are generally different from portable keyboards in that they will have the facility to alter the many sounds on board using filters and modulators, also effects and arpeggiators. They will have sophisticated sequences on board and be able to link easily to a computer. They have rhythms that can be sequenced, quantised and edited. You will even be able to create your own rhythms and full compositions. It is unusual for a synthesizer to have any normal backings and accompaniments.
So when considering which instrument may be the best for you here are some tips; do you want to learn to play the keyboard and play well known songs or compose your own. If so a portable keyboard is ideal for you. Do you want to create your own sounds and rhythms and experiment with the same. Then a synthesizer is for you. The above advice is really quite general as these days portable keyboards and synthesizers have many crossover functions.
