Setscet

After trying it for a few minutes, however, I realized the keys felt less tactile to me than the cheaper Roland option available. In my opinion, the Roland option feels much better to play, and much more realistic.

The tradeoff between the two keyboards is the sound quality. The nord has extremely realistic piano options, a real set of organ drawbars, and a fully complete synth engine capable of FM and subtractive synthesis. The Roland only has some preset sounds. The thing is, though, that I would probably end up using mostly presets anyway. Sure, there’s only two or three synth sounds in my Roland, but I can easily use it as a midi controller to play with the free software synthesizer, Surge XT. The same goes for organ as well, admittedly though the organ presets in the Roland are already top notch for what I would use it for.

Honestly, the biggest issue with the Roland is that you control the presets using the keys themselves, which means you can’t see the preset names, or you have to use their app with bluetooth (which is cool, by the way; it lets you tune each key individually, and put the keyboard into alternative temperments such as meantone).

You’ll see some people online complain that its keys are really hard to press, and they certainly have more resistance than other keyboards. However, you can easily lower the amount of velocity required to affect dynamics, making it still easy on the fingers in practice. I always use the “super light” setting.

But I don’t see these things as big hurdles. I think for right now where I am with music, prioritizing the more comfortable key feel is more beneficial than getting all of the bells and whistles for nearly 10 times the price.