gonna purchase wk6600 soon. need help

[Vaibhav]

i m planning to buy wk 6600 within a 10days or so,wanted to know about the touch sensitive keys and sustain effect without the pedal on the keyboard, are they good enough??i don't want to regret one this one . The touch sensitivity ,real good?? Is it better than Yamaha keyboards of same price range??

please reply asap

 

[- T -]

You seem to be asking two questions here - one about the expressive playing dynamics and the other about the "natural sustain" of a real piano.  Having owned, or currently owning, any number of keyboards, both Arranger and non-Arranger, from various manufacturers, I think I can say, with some degree of certainty, that all of the units in this price range are pretty much on par with one another in that respect.  There may be some subtle differences, but those are mostly with convenience features and "overall" sound quality, that would sway a prospective buyer one way or the other.

 

Now, to take your concerns separately, if expressive playing dynamics are critical to you, then you are not only looking in the wrong price range, you are looking at the wrong type of devices.  All non-weighted, non-hammer action, "springy" synth-type keyboard actions have minimal expressive playing dynamics.  Semi-weighted and weighted, but non-hammer action, key actions can help a bit, but the improvement is minimal.  What I am saying is, if you are looking at synth-type keyboard actions, then you are obviously not overly concerned about realistic expressive playing dynamics.  While there may be differences in the models in this price range, they would be hardly discernible.

 

Realistic "natural sustain" in electronic keyboards is mostly a function of the basic wave sample size - the bigger the wave sample size, the more realistic the sound - including the "natural sustain", but the bigger the wave sample size, the more memory required to store it.  Larger memory equates to larger production costs, and from a manufacturer's stand point, their target market in this price range is not overly concerned with these two items, so they go with small wave samples in less memory, and divert those production costs into what they perceive as more desirable features (for this target market), such as more knobs, and sliders, and tones, and rhythms, etc.  If I can insert a parable at this point:  prospective buyers looking at 500 horsepower "muscle cars" are not normally overly concerned about fuel economy, so the manufacturer is also not overly concerned about it - for this particular model.  By the same token, those looking for an economic auto are not normally overly concerned about horsepower and zero-to-sixty times, so neither is the manufacturer - for these particular models.  The two items of concern that you have mentioned are normally only noticeable in "quiet" venues - concerts, recitals, maybe even serious jazz bistros, etc, but those are not the venues that these keyboards were designed for.  Instead, they were designed for relatively "noisy" venues - the biggest source of that "noise" is the keyboard itself - its Auto-accompaniment section.  The typical Auto-accompaniment pattern would easily cover-up the two items of your concern.  It never ceases to amaze me the number of people that purchase an Arranger keyboard, and then try to use it as a concert or recital type instrument, and end up being thoroughly disappointed and usually overly critical of the manufacturer - much the same as those who purchase an Arranger keyboard and expect it to double as a full-featured MIDI Controller, and then belittle the keyboard and its manufacturer when it turns out to be the crippled compromise that it was doomed to be at the outset.  Why not just buy the instrument that matches the need/expectation to begin with?

 

I do not normally get involved in making recommendations, because over the years, I have learned that what I consider acceptable/unacceptable very seldom agrees with what someone else considers acceptable/unacceptable, particularly if they are looking for iron-clad advice, but since you have mentioned two particular items, I will make an exception.  If you are absolutely locked-in to this price range, then base your decision on other items - playing conveniences, overall sound quality, etc, as I do not think you will find much difference in the areas of your concern.  If you are not locked-in to this price range, then I strongly suggest that you post your question over in the Privia (PX) section of this forum to get the impressions of those owner/members, but bear in mind that those are different devices.  The flagship model (PX-5S) there is NOT an Arranger keyboard by any means.  It has no Auto-accompaniment features, what-so-ever, and those models that do have some Auto-accompaniment features still do not have the full Arranger functions of the CTK/WK models.  Everything is a trade-off.  One thing to keep in mind, as far as "natural" sustain, if the keyboard you buy has sufficient tone editing capabilities (the WK-6600 DOES), you can offset a "too short" natural sustain by editing the tone to extend its "release" time a bit, but this has it limitations.  You will normally reach the point of a "full sustain pedal" sound before reaching the point of "realistic" natural sustain, but with some tedious tweaking, it can improve things a bit.

 

Whatever your decision, I recommend avoiding, at all cost, making any purchase without first playing any prospective unit to see if it "fits" you.  If this is just not possible, then try to deal with a retailer/supplier with a liberal return policy, so that you can return your purchase, if you are not satisfied.

 

Good luck !