The Casio AZ-1 is a polyphonic MIDI keyboard in the form factor of a keytar. It has a distinctive white body with a long neck, with detailing in a pale blue. This instrument is designed to be played, with the aid of a shoulder strap, in an approximation of an electric guitar. As were many keytars, it was geared towards keyboardists who wanted greater freedom of movement during performances.
The AZ-1 features 2 switches, 2 wheels, and 1 slider that transmit assignable MIDI continuous controller data as the user deems fit. It has a pitch wheel for shifting the sound up or down fractions of a note. Other non-definable controllers include Solo, Sustain, Portamento and a three position octave slider. The AZ-1 has one MIDI output, and can simultaneously transmit on two selectable midi channels. It can send midi program change commands from dedicated program select buttons. Furthermore, its feature set includes both velocity sensitivity as well as true aftertouch. This is something of a rarity amongst keytars, and all but the highest end keyboards, as many only have velocity sensitivity. The AZ-1 is powered by either 6 AA batteries (1.5v each) or by external power supply (negative center pin, positive ring.)
The keyboard featured in the music video "House Arrest" by Krush.
In 1996, it was used by Dean Bright (from Dead or Alive) in all tours, like in London Europride '96.
Today, the AZ-1 is used by groups such as Redgreenblue, Dangerous!, The Brockville Country Club, Fun!Yeah!, Comtron, Papanegro, and Starman: The David Bowie Tribute. Furthermore, this model was prominently featured in the music video for Snoop Dogg's "Sensual Seduction".
MIDI is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and related audio devices for playing, editing and recording music. The specification originates in a paper published by Dave Smith and Chet Wood then of Sequential Circuits at the October 1981 Audio Engineering Society conference in New York City then titled Universal Synthesizer Interface.
An electronic keyboard, portable keyboard, or digital keyboard is an electronic musical instrument, an electronic or digital derivative of keyboard instruments. Broadly speaking, the term electronic keyboard or just a keyboard can refer to any type of digital or electronic keyboard instrument. These include synthesizers, digital pianos, stage pianos, electronic organs and digital audio workstations. However, an electronic keyboard is more specifically a synthesizer with a built-in low-wattage power amplifier and small loudspeakers.
Novation Digital Music Systems Ltd. is a British musical equipment manufacturer, founded in 1992 by Ian Jannaway and Mark Thompson as Novation Electronic Music Systems. Today the company specializes in MIDI controllers with and without keyboards, both analog and virtual analog performance synthesizers, grid-based performance controllers, and audio interfaces. At present, Novation products are primarily manufactured in China.
The keytar is a relatively lightweight synthesizer that is supported by a strap around the neck and shoulders, similar to the way a guitar is supported by a strap. Keytars allow players a greater range of movement onstage, compared to conventional keyboards, which are placed on stationary stands or which are part of heavy, floor-mounted structures. The instrument has a musical keyboard for triggering musical notes and sounds. Various controls are placed on the instrument's "neck", including those for pitch bends, vibrato, portamento, and sustain.
Ensoniq ESQ-1 is a 61-key, velocity sensitive, eight-note polyphonic and multitimbral synthesizer released by Ensoniq in 1985, marketed as a "digital wave synthesizer". Although its voice generation is typically subtractive in much the same fashion as most analog synthesizers that preceded it, its oscillators are neither voltage nor "digitally controlled", but provided by a custom Ensoniq wavetable chip. The signal path includes analog resonant low-pass filters and an analog amplifier.
A MIDI controller is any hardware or software that generates and transmits Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) data to MIDI-enabled devices, typically to trigger sounds and control parameters of an electronic music performance.
Keyboard expression is the ability of a keyboard musical instrument to change tone or other qualities of the sound in response to velocity, pressure or other variations in how the performer depresses the keys of the musical keyboard. Expression types include:
A MIDI keyboard or controller keyboard is typically a piano-style electronic musical keyboard, often with other buttons, wheels and sliders, used for sending MIDI signals or commands over a USB or MIDI 5-pin cable to other musical devices or computers. The basic MIDI keyboard does not produce sounds by itself, as it lacks an onboard sound module. Instead, MIDI information on keys or buttons the performer has pressed is sent to a receiving device capable of creating sound through modeling synthesis, sample playback, or an analog hardware instrument. The receiving device could be:
The microKORG is a MIDI-capable virtual analog synthesizer/vocoder from Korg featuring DSP analog modelling. The synthesizer is built in such a way that it is essentially a Korg MS-2000 with programmable step arpeggiator, a less advanced vocoder, lack of motion sequencing, lack of an XLR microphone input, and in a smaller case with fewer real-time control knobs.
The Roland Corporation has manufactured several keytars.
The Roland AX-7 is a keytar that was manufactured by Roland Corporation from 2001 to 2007. This modern instrument contains many more advanced features than early keytars such as its predecessor, the Roland AX-1, and the Yamaha SHS-10. It runs on 6 AA batteries or an external power source. It has a 45 velocity sensitive keys, and a 3-character LED display. Several features aimed towards stage performance are present, such as a pitch bend ribbon, touchpad-like expression bar, sustain switch, and volume control knob, all on the upper neck of the instrument. There is also a proprietary "D-Beam" interface, made up of infrared sensors that detect nearby motion.
The Synesthesia Mandala Drum is a patented electronic drum pad developed by Vince DeFranco and drummer Danny Carey from Tool. It has 128 strike position detection rings from its center to its edge, along with 127 levels of velocity sensitivity. In its current iteration, mk2.9, both values are transmitted via USB MIDI to a computer, where they can be interpreted by any MIDI software. The Mandala also includes its own "Virtual Brain" software. The current USB/software system replaces a hardware brain that the version 1.0 Mandala system had employed. The pad can be struck with drum sticks or fingers and hands.
A guitar synthesizer is any one of a number of musical instrument systems that allow a guitarist to access synthesizer capabilities.
The Roland Alpha Juno series of discontinued keyboards are analog polyphonic synthesizers with a digitally controlled oscillator manufactured by Roland Corporation from 1985 to 1987.
Disklavier is the brand name for a family of high-tech reproducing pianos made by Yamaha Corporation. The first Disklavier was introduced in the United States in 1987.
The Roland AX-Synth is a keytar that is manufactured by Roland Corporation, and was released in late August 2009. This modernized instrument builds on the features of its predecessor, the Roland AX-7. The most notable change is the addition of an internal synthesizer. A UV Black-colored "premium" model called "Black Sparkle" was released in September 2010. The AX-Synth has now been discontinued as well.
Rock Band 3 is a 2010 music video game developed by Harmonix. The game was initially published and distributed by MTV Games and Electronic Arts, respectively, in late October 2010. Mad Catz took over both roles and re-released the title on November 23, 2011. It is the third main game in the Rock Band series. As with the previous titles, Rock Band 3 allows players to simulate the playing of rock music and many other subgenres using special instrument controllers mimicking lead and bass guitar, keyboard, drums, and vocals. Rock Band 3 expands upon previous games by including three-part vocal harmonies — previously used in The Beatles: Rock Band and Green Day: Rock Band — plus support for MIDI-compatible keyboards, electronic drumkits, and even use of a real guitar in "Pro" mode.
Rhythm game accessories are often required to play rhythm games available for various consoles, such as the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360. These include dance pads, guitar controllers, drum controllers, microphones and turntable controllers. With the exception of microphones, these controllers can generally be used to control any game, but have limited inputs, making them impractical for most games.
The Seaboard is a musical keyboard-style MIDI controller manufactured by the British music technology company ROLI. It has a continuous sensor-embedded flexible rubber surface for playing the keys instead of traditional lever-style "moving keys". Some models, like the RISE Seaboard, have an onboard sound engine. It has what the manufacturer calls "5D technology" which consists of five types of responsiveness to player actions: "strike", "glide" and "press", front to rear movement "slide" sensitivity, and release–velocity "lift". These responsiveness tools can be used to play the Seaboard with microtonal pitch bend sounds, by moving the finger from note to note, or trigger a vibrato effect into a string patch just by wiggling the finger, which would not be possible on a traditional MIDI controller using only the keys. The Seaboard also features polyphonic aftertouch, and a built-in USB- charged battery. There are three Seaboard models: the small minikey BLOCK, the RISE, and the GRAND, an 88-key keyboard with an onboard sound engine.
The 12 Step foot controller is a bass pedal-style programmable MIDI controller pedal keyboard made by Keith McMillen Instruments which was released in 2011. It has small, soft, rubbery keys that are played with the feet. As a MIDI controller, it does not make or output any musical sounds by itself; rather, it sends MIDI messages about which notes are played to an external synth module or computer music program running on a laptop or other computer. Each key on the 12 Step senses the velocity, aftertouch pressure, and the amount of tilt the player is applying with her feet. The messages from the player's foot presses can be sent via USB to a computer-based virtual instrument or to a USB-equipped synthesizer or other electronic or digital musical instrument.
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