You can revoke my guitar card - New Keytar Day
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 12:18 pm
I bet this is a thread topic that we never thought should come, but at a buck sixty nine, the Roland Lucina keytar was too good to pass up as a potential for noisemaking hell.
Anything Roland in that price range I have a hard time saying no to if the timing is right but I am a slut.
I also thought that it was sort of like buying a pan flute - you might not beat Zamfir, but you could be the penultimate master of the pan flute with only minutes of ownership!
I am pleased to report it is well worth the price of a mid-range pedal for the mono synth d-beam controller alone - laser theremin keytar wankery is glorious, as is gesture-controlled arpegiator silliness run through octave down fuzz. Sounds are actually fairly decent and there's *some* editing so it's not all preset or die but as a performance tool (even studio), it makes me play keys a little differently than sitting down at my existing Roland board.
It's well-thought out for what it is, and doesn't feel like a toy - that was my main concern in ordering it. It's a solid 8ish pound piece of kit , doesn't feel like I'm going to look at it and it breaks.
It does all the tacky keytar crap you'd expect (hello, 1986!) but actually does relatively credible piano and other instruments as well providing you play 'em right.
I would certainly not want this to be my only instrument, but for "something different" without spending a fortune, I could not say no (and Sweetwater etc still has truckloads of them apparently).
I also have defaced it inappopriately so it doesn't feel so sterile.
And the obligatory sound sample of abuse, one track of Jazzmaster into Jazz Chorus, other keytar into Blue Box into Test Pattern /Jazz Chorus / Lexicon Vortex.
Then again, I suspect with this level of processing, I could tap on the desk and it'd sound like me.
Anything Roland in that price range I have a hard time saying no to if the timing is right but I am a slut.
I also thought that it was sort of like buying a pan flute - you might not beat Zamfir, but you could be the penultimate master of the pan flute with only minutes of ownership!
I am pleased to report it is well worth the price of a mid-range pedal for the mono synth d-beam controller alone - laser theremin keytar wankery is glorious, as is gesture-controlled arpegiator silliness run through octave down fuzz. Sounds are actually fairly decent and there's *some* editing so it's not all preset or die but as a performance tool (even studio), it makes me play keys a little differently than sitting down at my existing Roland board.
It's well-thought out for what it is, and doesn't feel like a toy - that was my main concern in ordering it. It's a solid 8ish pound piece of kit , doesn't feel like I'm going to look at it and it breaks.
It does all the tacky keytar crap you'd expect (hello, 1986!) but actually does relatively credible piano and other instruments as well providing you play 'em right.
I would certainly not want this to be my only instrument, but for "something different" without spending a fortune, I could not say no (and Sweetwater etc still has truckloads of them apparently).
I also have defaced it inappopriately so it doesn't feel so sterile.
And the obligatory sound sample of abuse, one track of Jazzmaster into Jazz Chorus, other keytar into Blue Box into Test Pattern /Jazz Chorus / Lexicon Vortex.
Then again, I suspect with this level of processing, I could tap on the desk and it'd sound like me.
