Oriental keyboards

Another question! I'm shopping for a keyboard with more tuning features, and
found a few brands of what are called "Oriental keyboards", designed mostly
for Arabic/Turkish/Iranian music. The brand I see the most is Generalmusic.
Roland and Yamaha have their own versions, but they're not available in the
United States (as far as I can tell).

Any recommendations?

>Another question! I'm shopping for a keyboard with more tuning features,
>and found a few brands of what are called "Oriental keyboards", designed
>mostly for Arabic/Turkish/Iranian music. The brand I see the most is
>Generalmusic. Roland and Yamaha have their own versions, but they're
>not available in the United States (as far as I can tell).
>
>Any recommendations?

I've never played one, and don't know anyone who has. If you do, please
report back. My assumption was that they're set up for leads. I'm
more interested in polyphonic microtonality.

-Carl

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Danny Wier" <dawier@h...> wrote:
> Another question! I'm shopping for a keyboard with more tuning features, and
> found a few brands of what are called "Oriental keyboards", designed mostly
> for Arabic/Turkish/Iranian music. The brand I see the most is Generalmusic.
> Roland and Yamaha have their own versions, but they're not available in the
> United States (as far as I can tell).
>
> Any recommendations?

No recommendations, but I'd sure like to see info that you come up with, esp in regard to a topic with Joel R. IIRC, there was a posting a few months back about a kbd that GeneralMusic had developed that essentially encasulated a computer, ascii kbd and lcd screen into a 'synth' kbd body, and you could load it up with all the softsynths you wanted, giving access to both a lot of sounds and tunings. If you don't find it in other GeneralMusic info I'll go back and look for the links...

Cheers,
Jon

Danny,

I looked at the GeneralMusic site and the beast I was mentioning must have been a prototype that didn't end up going anywhere. I'll keep looking in case it was somewhere else.

Beyond that, John Loffink had this mention a couple of months ago:

"I have added the General Music (GEM) Genesys to my web site. This
instrument is something like a portable keyboard on steroids, and
includes both synthesizer and sampler functions, internal hard disk, and audio track recording. According the manual Genesys can store 8 global full keyboard tunings. There are no limitations on the note retuning range as there are on the Korg instruments."

John Loffink
The Microtonal Synthesis Web Site
http://www.microtonal-synthesis.com/

Cheers,
Jon

>"I have added the General Music (GEM) Genesys to my web site.

The Genesys isn't an "oriental" keyboard, though.

Actually, I've been looking for a GM dealer... the PROMEGA 3
is one of the few keyboards out there I'm actually interested
in (the other is the Kawai MP9500).

-Carl

>> Another question! I'm shopping for a keyboard with more tuning features, and
>> found a few brands of what are called "Oriental keyboards", designed mostly
>> for Arabic/Turkish/Iranian music. The brand I see the most is Generalmusic.
>> Roland and Yamaha have their own versions, but they're not available in the
>> United States (as far as I can tell).
>>
>> Any recommendations?
>
>No recommendations, but I'd sure like to see info that you come up >with, esp in regard
>to a topic with Joel R. IIRC, there was a posting a few months back >about a kbd that
>GeneralMusic had developed that essentially encasulated a computer, >ascii kbd and lcd
>screen into a 'synth' kbd body, and you could load it up with all >the softsynths you
>wanted, giving access to both a lot of sounds and tunings. If you >don't find it in other
>GeneralMusic info I'll go back and look for the links...

I have got a keyboard mostly like the one you are describing.
It is GeneralMusic's WX2, and I found it used one and half years ago for around 500 Euro.
It is mostly like the description above, except that it has no hard disk, but it has a floppy disk drive, so you can store settings in the internal SRAM, or on a floppy disk.
It comes with lots and lots of MIDI and special functions, which I didn't explore, as I mostly use it for playing antique keyboard music with the simple pipe organ and harpsichord effects, with meantone or Werkmeister III temperaments.
When I purchased it, it had already been superseded by an hard-disk version, and surely the mentioned Genesis is a further advanced instrument; I don't know it.

About tuning, it comes with 6 preset temperaments (ET, inverse (not really a temperament; it just inverts the order of the keys), mesotonic, werkmeister III, arabian 1, arabian 2. In addition, it has 4 programmable temperaments, which can be stored, as I said, in SRAM or on a floppy.
As for microtuning, it allows to tune each note of the 12-notes octave by steps of 1/64 of an ET semitone, for a maximum of +/- 1 semitone; each key can be transposed at will.
This is a bit limiting, but using some tricks you can do funny things.
For an example, some time ago I made an experiment about the possible configuration of the keyboard and the stops of the ancient hydraulis, and I made a simulation with this keyboard, setting a chromatic scale over the white keys, with four different "stops".

Should someone want more information, please ask.

Regards
Leonardo