knudsen@ihwpt.UUCP (mike knudsen) (11/30/85)
No, I don't want the correct time. Yet another watchmaker
has followd Casio into the keyboard business.
From what I saw this morning, Casio better watch out.
I was (am) looking for a low-cost keyboard synth with MIDI. The salesman steered me to
a Seiko DS-250, which had most everything I wanted
and was missing most of what I don't need.
This box has 5 octaves,
dual 8-voice poly, separate MIDI THRU and OUT, split keyboard in two
different places (each with own MIDI out), and the nicest set
of 16 presets I've heard. There wasn't ONE that I wouldn't
like to play on for a while!
Unlike the Casio CT-6000 I tried a few days earlier, the
Seiko can pile on the chorus and Celeste effects without
sacrificing the full 8 voices.
The price is under $600 -- achieved by leaving out all
that "Casio" automatic bass, chords, & stuff that as a real (?)
keyboard player I don't need.
So far, I can think of only 3 bad points about this box:
(1) Not a synthesizer (tho Seiko is coming out with an expander
box to make it one) -- just presets, tho you can do lots of
things with them, like vary the sustain and mix them together
at intervals;
(2) Not poly-timbral under MIDI-- I guess that MIDI play
just acts like a player piano on the split keyboard,
giving at most two timbres thaat depend on where the notes are;
(3) No touch sensitivity of any kind (neither had the CZ-5000
neext to it for double the money).
As a piano man, I may find that limiting.
As a strictly computer-played MIDI machine,
the DS-250 may not be the best thing -- even the CT-6000 would be better
with its 3 timbres (bass, chord, lead).
But the SOUNDS out of that DS-250 -- that's what you hear,
right?
I'd appreciate any mail'ed or post'ed comments on the Seiko.
Also on the Casio CZ-5000,
which I didn't have time to explore (like a whole day?)
mike k