Hybrid Bass Keyboard

[Bassman Sam]

Just checked this out on No Treble. Versatile but must weigh a ton. Would be great if I had 4 arms and 20 fingers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfvQmDhN9pU

Edited July 4, 2014 by Bassman Sam

[BigRedX]

Interesting. I was expecting it to be [url=http://www.windworksdesign.com/custom_schizotron.html]this bass/keyboard combination[/url].

I imagine you are going to be right about the weight. I own a Yamaha KX5 which IMO is the smallest usable keytar that I've come across and it's still a weighty beast before you add on the bass guitar section.

[Prime_BASS]

I read the article and he says it weighs he same as a regular bass.

I think it looks rad, and I'd seriously contemplate a bass that looked like the bass side of this.

[paul_5]

Keytar? That's one of those modern words that any right-thinking civilisation would have no need of - like 'Bridezilla'

[Prime_BASS]

Isn't a synth different from a keyboard?

[BigRedX]

[quote name='Prime_BASS' timestamp='1404458335' post='2492733']
I read the article and he says it weighs he same as a regular bass.

I think it looks rad, and I'd seriously contemplate a bass that looked like the bass side of this.
[/quote]

I note that no where in the No Treble article or on his website does he actually give a weight. It probably does weigh the same as a regular bass provided that the regular bass you are talking about is a late 70s Fender.

The lack of information about this instrument is somewhat frustrating. There are plenty of photos of the various incarnations and the No Treble site has most of the specs for the bass guitar side but nothing on the keyboard/synth part. There's a photo of the mark 1 version where it's very obviously a MicroKorg Synth, but after that nothing that I can see.

[BassTractor]

[quote name='Prime_BASS' timestamp='1404467009' post='2492834']
Isn't a synth different from a keyboard?
[/quote]

Without knowing exactly what you mean, I'll try and give it a go:

In the world of keyboard instruments (organs, harpsichords, clavichords, pianos, synths etc), sadly someone one day decided it was a good idea to call one particular type of these for "keyboard".
These "keyboards" traditionally are mostly like small electronic organs with one keyboard only, and with built in amplifier and speaker(s), most oftenly also spawning auto-accompaniment and solo voices - solo voices often having been modelled on certain well-known synth sounds.
Simply put, one mostly [b]chooses[/b] one or more ready-made sounds.

The synthesizer otoh traditionally is an instrument that allows you to shape the sound by manually [b]controlling[/b] the flow in technical procedures and by controlling the values of the parameters in those procedures. This is not about choosing sounds, but about building them.
However, modern synthesizers have lots of presets (often including electronic organ like sounds), and some include rhythms and auto-accompaniment - thus blurring the field somewhat.

Edited July 4, 2014 by BassTractor