Synth or Waterfall Keys

Hardware
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I’m wondering, which is the best compromise for an upper keyboard controller, waterfall keys for playing synth, or synth keys for playing organ? The use case is for fast chops. Assume a piano controller underneath.

The benefit of a synth keyboard is that you typically get aftertouch and mod and pitch wheels.

The obvious benefit of a waterfall keyboard is comfortable palm smears. A less obvious advantage is that many models support a high trigger point (without velocity) when playing organ sounds. My first synth was a Juno-60 without velocity and with a high trigger point, and I loved how lightly I could play it without missing any notes.

The downside of a synth controller is that most modern models have short pivot points. I have an Arturia KeyLab mkII, which has a short pivot point and low trigger point. Just try to play a fast F# scale! I’ve had to modify my technique to keep all fingers at the end of the keys.

The greatest synth keybeds with long pivot arms are from older synths, typically in big heavy workstation packages. Waterfall keys have maintained longer pivot arms, even on newer models. Some have mod and pitch wheels, but I don’t know of any with aftertouch.

So the choices seem to be:

  1. An old, big synth which gives velocity, aftertouch, and wheels, long pivot arms, but low trigger only, no drawbars, and imperfect for palm smears, or
  2. A newer waterfall keyboard with long pivot arms, optional high trigger, drawbars, and comfortable palm smears, but no aftertouch and possibly no wheels.

An alternative might be the Osmose, which has long keys and expression, but looks like it would fall apart after some aggressive smears. Also, no high trigger.

I’m leaning towards the waterfall approach. I can add expression devices, like wheels, pedals, and a multi-axis breath controller to an organ keybed, but I can’t add the waterfall shape or high trigger to synth keys.

Any keybed obsessed players out there to offer first hand experience? I’ve never owned a waterfall keybed, but I’ve owned synth beds with velocity and short pivot arms, and I’m done with them.

The marketing geniuses who convinced people that “weighted” was the measure of a keyboard did us all a great disservice. Give me a great hammer action (Kawai VPC1) and a light synth action - both with long pivot arms - every time.

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I play a lot of organ and there is no way I could play organ parts now, except maybe left hand/lower manual stuff, without waterfall keys… well… without hurting myself that is.

I also use the same waterfall keybed for my OB-Xa, Prophet, Moog, etc… sounds. Even occasionally a fixed velocity e.piano sound like an RME… all on my organ keybed. Works great.

But your options are limited in the marketplace for waterfall keys. My keybed is in my Hammond XK-5, which I also use as a sound source direct to a 145 and when I don’t have Leslie with me, back into GP. I use GP as a midi router so I can use the XK into a leslie and as a controller for GP VSTs interchangeably or even layered.

The XK-5 is a great keyboard with amazing feel, very powerful MIDI options, triple sensors, mulit-key contacts (9 contacts in three trigger point depths), split points and multi-channel midi options. As an organ controller with it’s integrated sounds and abilities to interface with an 11-pin Leslie connection, I think it’s unrivaled in this category.

However it’s not well suited to any piano playing where you need dynamics with piano like velocity sensitivity or weighted action which is to say most/all acoustic and most electric piano sounds. It is velocity sensitive, it just doesn’t have the right feel for pianos. For that reason, it’s price and for the fact that it weighs 35 lbs, it’s not something I would recommend unless you also want to use it as your primary organ sound source. I wouldn’t buy it just to drive the B3-X plugin for instance.

There is also no aftertouch and no dedicated pitch or mod wheels on the XK-5 although you can use the lower B drawbars for these types of controls but if you really want that… use an expression pedal for modulation for instance.

The newer XK-4 might be worth looking at… it does have pitch bend and mod wheels if you really want those. It does use a whole different keybed and only a simulated multi-key contact based on velocity sensitivity (not separate sensors) but it sounds great and it’s lighter than the XK-5. It has too much gack on the top for my tastes but that might be perfect for someone interested in taking a deep dive and converting all the surface controls from sysex to midi.

Other options: Older XK’s, SK’s, the NumaOrgan from StudioLogic (I used to have this but upgraded) and maybe a Nord Electro are probably your only options currently in the market place for waterfall keyboards that can also act as controllers. Any non-hammond will probably use the Fatar TP-8O waterfall keybed in them which is decent but not as springy and responsive as the Suzuki-Hammond keybeds.

I have seen some home made controllers using a Fatar TP-8O keybed, so that is an option if you are crafty.

‘Synth’ keybeds are far more common, even Hammond’s M-Solo uses synth action diving-board keys (which I do not understand on an organ only instrument).

I wouldn’t try aggressive palm smears on an Osmose.

My setup is an XK-5 on top and a Roland RD-64 on the bottom and it’s near-perfect for me, for now.

Hope this offers some insight.

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I like my Hammond SK2 feel, however it doesn’t have aftertouch. My Nord Stage2-Ex does and I like that too but both of these are not simply MIDI keyboards so may be a bit of overkill if all you need is a MIDI keyboard.

2 Likes
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This is really helpful!

I didn’t realize the XK-5 had so many trigger point options. That’s gotta be nice for getting a fast response without false triggers.

I find that I can do modest smears on the KeyLab mkII 61, but I focus on staying on top of the keys. The sides have a bit of radius, the black key tops are narrow, and they have some side to side give that doesn’t harm things, and is forgiving on smears. If the pivot arms were longer and it didn’t clack, I’d probably keep it. Its functionality is excellent.

And yeah, I wouldn’t play piano with the top keys. It would be for organ and synth only. The bottom is a Kawai VPC1, which would handle pianos and left hand organ, when I prefer two manuals over creating a split.

I’m definitely leaning towards waterfalls. I can add expression hardware to cover the lack of aftertouch, but I can’t get great smear keys and a high trigger from a synth board.

One mystery is the availability of buttons for use as MIDI triggers. There are lots of reviews on sounds, but almost none on MIDI functionality. I know that the drawbars will work, but I like to have buttons too. The VPC1 has zero controls, so unless I use keyswitches, I need a few buttons somewhere.

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Regarding “overkill”, it seems to be unavoidable. The irony is that controllers, which should make keys the priority, tend to have cheap keys. Fatar TP/8s, 9s, or 8O keys are all desirable, but the market doesn’t seem to want to pay for them without sounds and menus to brag about. The mass market seems to go as far as “weighted = good”, and that’s it.

So yeah, it’s like buying a luxury car because it’s the only way to get a couple of nice chairs with lumbar support.

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I’m with you on this.

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If you are just going to drive VSTs including organs… I’d maybe look into the NumaOrgan2 (most affordable) or a used XK3 or SkPRO.

There are no organ VSTs (not even the B3-X) that take advantage of multi-key contacts (yet) so a dual sensor keybed with a high trigger point is all you need, like the TP-8O.

The XK-5 has three trigger thresholds (multi-key contacts) that each trigger 1/3 of the 9 drawbars and this is re-assignable to taste. This simulates the actual bus bar contact points on a real Hammond organ.

The XK-5 transmits these note on/offs on three separate midi channels externally too. I route these three channels (plus a 4th channel velocity sensitive channel) in and out of GP to manage what the XK-5 is controlling, itself or VSTs or both.

I suppose you could stack three instances of an organ VST and zone them each by only three drawbars each but that would be a huge pain and CPU resource drain. I tried this once just to experiment but there was no upside since the XK-5 sounds are superb.

I think there is a Vicount or Mojo that actually has 9 trigger thresholds that came out after the XK-5… I can’t recall the model number, but three thresholds is pretty amazing and I doubt you could tell much difference between 3 and 9 trigger thresholds since you’d go by them so quickly but the difference between 3 and 1 is very noticeable once you hear it and get used to playing it.

But again, if you are going to use a VST as the main sound engine for your organ, you don’t need the XK-5.

The NumaOrgan2 has a couple of midi assignable buttons/knobs but not a lot. (the numa sounds decent on it’s own too btw). My XK-5’s controls are mostly unique to itself but as I mentioned above, an entire bank of the drawbars can send CC natively and everything can be converted, with work, from Sysex to midi in GP. This is true of most Hammond keyboards.

My RD64 has pitch bend and modulation which I never use. It also has two midi assignable rotary controls I map to volume and drive and two midi assignable buttons, one I use for tap tempo. For all my other GP control needs, I started using a streamdeck which sits on top of the keyboards and that is all I could ever need for buttons, etc… I think a streamdeck would be a nice compliment to your VPC-1.

I’d love someday to have a VPC-1 or a MP-11SE but I can’t see adding the weight of those for gigging or regular back and forth to rehearsals. I think the VPC-1 weighs nearly 65 lbs without a case or a stand, but for a dedicated setup in a home studio, that would be the dream.

My RD-64 is very solid, fully hammer action, but being wurli-scale it’s relatively light (28 lbs) and it has note-off velocity down to 1 so it’s very expressive. Perfect for Pianoteq. It compliments an organ controller well and was a huge upgrade from the TP/100 keybed in the SL73 I used to use as my lower keyboard. I am so glad I sold the SL73 and bought the RD-64, which is discontinued and I had to import from Japan, but it was well worth it. But I digress…

If weight isn’t a concern for you and you have the budget, I’d look into the XK-5, XK-4, SkPRO (has 73 keys), Yamaha YC61 (lots of buttons), Viscount Legend Solo, a MAG C1 (niche but nice), Crumar Mojo 61, Dexibell J7 organ or the more affordable NumaOrgan2.

Good luck!

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If something like the XK-5 is in the budget, you could also consider a Nord Stage 4 Compact. It has a waterfall keybed and aftertouch. I don’t know what’s the trigger point like, though.

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Such great first hand advice. Much appreciated.

I’ve read that the Numa Organ and Nord Electro 4 don’t send the high trigger via MIDI, even when using it for internal sounds. The Nord E 2 & 3 do.

A typical implementation is to use high trigger (and fixed velocity) for organ patches, but to use the normal trigger point and velocity for other sounds. This should work well, as Gig Performer would be able to send program change messages to the organ to go between two patches (organ-high or piano-low) as needed.

My motivation for the VPC1 came when I decided to take piano lessons as an adult. I had a Kurzweil PC-88 and was using it to play melodies into Cakewalk/Sonar to compose music to “film”. Sitting down to play a real piano was like trying a completely foreign instrument. I’d practice during the week, and each lesson was like a factory reset. The lessons didn’t last long. A couple of summers ago, I took lessons again, and picked up a used VPC1. The instructor was using a Kawai digital upright, which felt very comfortable, with my keybed a bit better than his. :slight_smile:

I haven’t been gigging, but I plan to. I’m not sure if I’ll lug the VPC1, dust off the PC-88, or get a newer, lightweight piano controller. I’ll probably bring the heavyweight, until I tire of it. If nothing else, I can now sit down at a real piano and not find it too surprising, aside from the lack of a volume control.

There’s a similar advantage to playing a digital Hammond, including drawbars/LeslieSwitch/percussion/chorus . It should translate to the real thing reasonably well. A generic synth lacks that tactile context.

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Very true. Playing organ is like cooking on 4 burners at the same time and having the real physicality of it would be helpful if you pine to play a real electro-mechanical tone wheel some day.

With the XK-5 you don’t need to send PC messages to make this switch.

In multi-contact mode it’s sending ch 1 (top trigger) ch2 (second trigger) ch 3 (bottom trigger) and ch8 (velocity sensitive, standard trigger point) all at the same time.

If you have the lower manual attached or a split engaged on the top manual it sends ch 4, 5, 6 and 9 respectively.

If you use pedals or send pedal drawbars to lower manual/split it sends on ch7.

These channel assignments are the defaults but they are all assignable in any way. I route these not only out of my XK-5 into GP but back into my XK-5 and I have never had midi transmission issues btw.

So I use ch 8 (velocity sensitive) to my synth VSTs but say I wanted an exceptionally fast trigger for a constant velocity sound controlled from the XK-5, I could send Ch 1 or Ch 2 to that VST for very fast mechanical like triggering.

Very powerful midi options.

I have tweaked the velocity curves both for ch 8 in the XK-5 and in Pianoteq to get a reasonably good Rhodes/Wurli/Clav response too but I default to my piano controller for that and acoutstics.

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In multi-contact mode it’s sending ch 1 (top trigger) ch2 (second trigger) ch 3 (bottom trigger) and ch8 (velocity sensitive, standard trigger point) all at the same time

That’s killer.

I believe that with some Hammonds, I can select organ and send it to channel 1, and layer it with piano on channel 2. The result is high trigger on one channel and velocity on the other. I wouldn’t get the layered tone wheels, but I wouldn’t need program changes to have both triggers available.

While the layered tone wheel effect is very nice (I assume), my main goal is to comfortably play fast synth and organ lines. Having the high trigger, when I don’t need velocity, should cover it.

I’m also curious about what knobs and switches result in MIDI messages, beyond keys and drawbars. For instance, the SK1 has a number of knobs and buttons. Since I won’t (or probably won’t) use the internal sounds, anything that sends a message can be handled and repurposed in Gig Performer. The manuals don’t really spell it out clearly. I look forward to getting one and seeing what happens in the MIDI Monitor.

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Nearly every button or knob on the organ sends NRPN midi including eq knobs, effect knobs and buttons, leslie fast/slow, break and bypass buttons, chorus/vibrato buttons and knobs, etc… These are NRPN and you will need a gig script to re-inject these as CC Midi for GP.

Drawbars, expression pedals and attached footswitches send CC Midi.

Transpose, octave, “play”, “record”, menu direction buttons and buttons that control system functions… these do not send anything.

Lots of internal functions can receive sysex messages too btw.

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Perfect. I’m comfortable with scripting, so it will be no problem (or just a temporary problem) to convert the messages as needed.

FWIW, my philosophy on GP scripting is to use it judiciously to minimize maintenance. Use Settings and Options when viable. Use Scriptlets without too much worry (since they are visible in the wiring view - I won’t forget that they exist.) But Rackspace scripts should only do big, important jobs that aren’t likely to be forgotten. Conversion of messages for an end-game keyboard is definitely a big, important job. :slight_smile:

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NRPN injection scripts should be Gig Scripts, not Rackspace scripts since they should be working across the whole gig file not just individual rackspaces. What you do with the resulting CC can be rackspace specific from there.

In the link I posted there is a road map to this plus a table with all the NRPN buttons and knobs on the XK5. Should take you 10 minutes to integrate.

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I read the thread. Great info there. Seems straightforward.

Now, all I need to do is to find the right, used keyboard…