Sean what a soothing play to wake to thank you...it must be wonderful playing your own music and hearing it back
Thanks for that.
They don't call the latest generation of leccy pianos "work stations" for nothin' as they can be a lot of work.
Here's a pretty basic description of my piano, I've left out loads of stuff.
This is the left end.
It controls the microphone system, for those brave enough to sing along with what they are playing, (or double track as many do).
It will also harmonise your voice if you choose, so as I see it, "you can sound twice as bad."
The only buttons I use on there are fade in and out and the ones to change the octave for the right hand.
These are all the "styles." Each style has many pages with variations within that genre. They get displayed on the screen.
It also has above them all the recording and editing suite features, for adding multiple tracks to one recording, about which I know nothing and don't go there, as I don't use them.
I use just three buttons. Record, Stop, Play.
Below it is the button to transpose the key. So you can play something in the fingering of one key and it will come out in another key of your choice.
You can also choose the tempo.
There are four "multi-pad" keys, press any of these whilst you are playing and it'll add any "Ooo! or Ahh!" or effects sound of your choice of a couple of hundred. You preset these for the registration you are using. The "severity" goes up according to which button you press.
You can add three different types of "intros" and "endings" which are matched with which style you are playing. I occasionally will use an intro, but never an ending. The four "main variation" buttons control how "busy" is the accompaniment.
On the right hand side are the voices. There's pages and pages of different types of one, or groups of instruments. You can choose up to three voices for the right hand and one for the left hand. There's also the effects bank, harmony, sustain etc.
Then there's the 8 registration buttons, you can have that many variations of instruments for just the one song, if you want.
There's also a "music finder" which lists nearly 2000 popular tunes and suitable styles and tempo registrations which suit them. Though the voices suggested, I rarely like. But they are easy to change, so half the work is done for you.
This screen tells you what you're doing. Or more likely what you "think" you're doing, displaying all your current settinfgs for one registration. It folds down when you're not playing so the cover will fit over the whole piano. You can set it to remember different styles, say Latin and you can have your own 8 variations within that genre.
Here it's set for one tune I'm working on. The number of settings which you can save on the hard drive is endless.
These are the balance controls, the sliders alter the volumes quickly and the up and down buttons one digit at a time.
There's two USB sockets, one on the front one on the back, so you can copy recordings and save more registrations if you've a lot on the hard drive.
You can only hear it with headphones, unless you turn on the sub-woofer which also houses the amplifier. It has a "floorboard rattling bass" if you turn it up. It's sitting a fabric covered polystyrene box I made to cut out the vibration through the floor. Its position behind a leg of the stand, is simply to save room.
I use three foot pedals. You can set them to do a multitude of things. From the left, mine are set for "stop/start" "fade in/out" and volume.
I've had the same pedals for over 20 years used on three different pianos in their time.
They are fixed by sticky back velcro to a bit of laminate flooring to stop them moving about when I'm playing.
I've hidden all the connecting wires..... My wife hates wires!
This is a 76 key version,. they do a 61 key one too. As the keys are narrower than a conventional piano, with the stool tucked away when not in use, it doesn't take up too much space in our small front room. The headphones are on a hook on the stand. So my wife can get round it with the vacuum cleaner.
