80's Keyboards! One of My Favorite Things!

Outside of guitar my second favorite instrument is keyboard!

I love vintage 1980s keyboards. There are so many good ones, from the Junos to the Oberheim's. Nothing is quite like them. Vintage keyboards have a fuller, thicker sound than many modern keyboards and have a unique quality and unmatched character that comes from their age, construction, and original makeup.

My 80's keyboards collection

I feel like microphones and keyboards can be the most overwhelming if you get too many of them. Too many and you end up sound chasing or even worse, going down the rabbit hole. Because of this, I only got a couple of keyboards so I could learn to master those and get really familiar with their sound.

Since vintage analog keyboards can be very expensive I started off with a simple one, the Roland Alpha Juno 1.

This keyboard maintains the original thickness, texture, and fullness you'll find on any analog 80's keyboard. The thing I love about this keyboard most is how customizable the sounds are. With a remote, such as the one I'm using, the DT 300, the sky is the limit as far as what type of sounds and presets it can produce.

I really wanted one more 80s keyboard, so next I got the Korg 707. While this is not an analog keyboard it maintains some of the cool surprise sounds and "happy accidents" that you'll find in a lot of analog gear.

Keyboards for music production

The best part about these keyboards is that a lot of them have been or can be equipped with MIDI ports, which means they can work well with any modern-day equipment, such as a DAW. Sometimes I will prerecord my keyboard, edit it in the DAW, and can use MIDI to play back the sound through the keyboard without having to physically play it.

This gives me a chance to tweak my sound.

Both of these keyboards have semi-weighted keys and are perfect for any level of musician. I play a little bit of keyboard, but it is definitely not my main instrument.

I also play bass, guitar, clarinet, percussion, piccolo, and just about any other instrument I can get my hands on.

This video you can check out how I use the DT 300 controller and connect the Juno-1 to the computer. We'll also check out a number of it's sounds and effects.

Here I will explore the Korg 707 preset sounds and show what they are like when adjusted.

I highly recommend, if you have the opportunity to go to a garage sale or a give away and try to get an old keyboard. Sometimes you may love them and will get a really unique sound you can't find anywhere else.

These two are a great start to my collection. You can hear the Roland Juno-1 featured in my song "Worth the Wait".

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