Once a Decade: A new keyboard

I seem to buy a keyboard at the rate of one every 10 years. My last purchase--a Roland XP-80--took place in 1996. My motivation at that time was a gig at the Atlanta Olympics. I needed to have a single keyboard small and light enough to check as baggage.

At the time I was playing on a Roland RD-300 and a Roland D-50. The RD-300 in a case is huge and about 100 lbs, a bit over the airlines weight limits. The XP-80 fit the bill nicely; under 50 lbs in a flight case. (Although, when I got to the gig they had backline up the wazoo, so I really didn't need to bring a keyboard in the first place. :-/)

In my 04/29 entry I mentioned that I'm not really comfortable on the XP-80 in a solo situations. I really like the keyboard in general, but as a pianist I miss the weighted action. I checked the reviews over at harmonycentral.com, and the Roland RD-150 seemed to be a good choice for my purposes. I went down to Professional Sound And Music (prosound.com) to try one out, but they are discontinued. I played the RD-300sx (which bears little resemblance to the RD-300 mentioned above, as it's less than 35 lbs) and was quite impressed. It is a basic stage piano, which is perfect for my needs since I have the XP-80 for most band situations. I've been getting used to it here at home and the more I use it the more I like it. Now I just have to get a bunch of solo-trio gigs to take advantage of it.