Small Keyboard for Theory?

[Timko]

I thought most of this winter would be filled with pedal building.  I am finally going to push through finishing my Flanger with no name (the board has been finished for months; I just have to finish the enclosure and hack all those jacks onto it), but for the most part, my pedal building has been quiet.  The main reason for that is I've spent more time playing guitar than anything this winter.  I have a friend who semi-professionally plays violin who's played instruments for nearly 20 years.  As we began talking about playing, I told her that I feel my music theory is the thing holding me back the most right now.  I've managed to teach myself quite a bit of guitar freboard theory, but I feel my music theory is pretty weak.  She said that a keyboard helps one visualize theory easily due to it's linear setup.

I know there's lots of cheap keyboards on Craigslist (I've already done a bit of looking), but one of the requisites I'm looking for is that it's a 37 or 49 key instrument so I can set it on my lap on the couch and noodle around with it.  Right now I think the new Yamaha Reface CP or CS fit my requirements the best, but I'd love to hear what this community uses for cheap keys.

[oip]

reface CS and CP are both fantastic instruments with surprisingly good build quality for mini keyboards.  for bread and butter keys and synth sounds with great immediate hands on controls they are unbeatable. 

also for portability/noodling there are stacks of super cheap home keyboards constantly on listings sites that work really well.  portasounds, casiontones etc from like early 80s to today.  can be really fun to play and sound surprisingly good with some effects (been meaning to put a PT2399 delay in one for a long while).

[Timko]

OH BALLS.  I had no idea what the deep hole of looking into cheap 80's synths was like, but it's deep and dark.  If you had told me that there are litterally hundreds of cheap synths that can be had, and they are ripe for circuit modification (the synth world calls it circuit bending), I would have never started looking into it.  And I probably wouldn't have spent until 5am on my phone last night .



All that said, I found a Casiotone MT-200 for like $40 on FB Marketplace I'm probably going to check out.  But after a crash course in FM Synths, that sure does sound interesting....

[reddesert]

Define "cheap," right? The Korg Microkorg is another common "real" synth that would be in about the same space as the Yamaha Refaces (I have not owned either).

My brother and I had a Casio MT-something (70?) in the 1980s, whose cheesy sounds and rhythms we found limiting, but in a world where 8-bit music has a fanbase and we can run the sound through effects, they have a place. The amount of circuit bending possible depends a lot on the model.

Another option, if you have an iPad, is to get a USB controller keyboard (can be pretty inexpensive) and play software synths, which can be extremely capable. You can even do this with a smartphone but the options for controllers that can be powered by a phone (or that will run on batteries and work with a phone) are more limiting.

A key (haha) choice to make is whether you care about full size keys vs mini keys. Mini keys are more compact for noodling on the sofa and full size keys translate better to other keyboards. Obviously, you will eventually need one of each.

[Timko]

I would like something that's all in one. Something with speakers where I could plop down on my couch and fiddle around, which is why I'm not going the MIDI controller route.

While having the ability to synthesize sounds is a nice to have, I have to remind myself the purpose of this thing is to better understand the theory of chord construction.  After I had a friend point out some theory on a piano, I can definitely see how linear the theory is on a piano vs a guitar.

I had another friend that recommended the MicroKorg, and I'm going to check one out.  I don't remember it having enough polyphony to play 6 notes at once (which is important for guitar chords), but that may have been upgraded since I owned one in the early 00's.

[stringsthings]

I would like something that's all in one. Something with speakers where I could plop down on my couch and fiddle around, which is why I'm not going the MIDI controller route.

While having the ability to synthesize sounds is a nice to have, I have to remind myself the purpose of this thing is to better understand the theory of chord construction.  After I had a friend point out some theory on a piano, I can definitely see how linear the theory is on a piano vs a guitar.

I had another friend that recommended the MicroKorg, and I'm going to check one out.  I don't remember it having enough polyphony to play 6 notes at once (which is important for guitar chords), but that may have been upgraded since I owned one in the early 00's.

Actually, you will rarely find many chords with 6 distinct separate notes.  Most common guitar chords include octaves of the same note - technically, the same note when discussing chord construction/theory.  For example, the common root 6 major bar chord ( E shape ) has 3 octaves of the root note, one 3rd, and 2 octaves of the 5th.   So there's really only 3 different notes. ( a major chord is built from the root, third, and fifth of the major scale ).

A bit of theory is really useful, especially for understanding chords.  Personally, I find it more useful than studying scales.  But then, I'm more of a rhythm guitarist than a lead guitarist.  When I was younger, I studied Andy Summers work with the Police.  He used all sorts of chords in different places to add texture to the songs.  This really helped me see the advantages of a bit of theory.  You can learn as much as you want to, a little or a lot.