synth and keyboards?

Posted on Sep 17, 2006 09:13 pm
meltdown5
Faze 2 Studios
Member Since: Aug 15, 2005

whats the different?

hehheh

-melty

Noize2u
Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Sep 17, 2006 09:56 pm

Kind of the same, kind of not!

A synth can either be a rack mount unit or software synth that needs to be told via midi what to do, or it can be a self contained unit with its own keyboard.

Now a keyboard on the other hand is kind of open ended. It can refer to a piano, an organ, a synth, a controller keyboard or as we all know here, a computer keyboard.

A lot of peeps simply refer to any synth, piano or whatever as keys.

TallChap
Answer:On a good day, lipstick.
Member
Since: Jun 24, 2004

Sep 18, 2006 09:18 am

Not really much to add to what Noize said. Think of the "synth" as the noises, and the keyboard the method by which they are played. The combinations are many - keyboards with built in sounds, outboard sounds in hardware, outboard sounds in software, keyboards which are little more than the keys themselves with a midi output jack (used to play the sounds from the outboard 'synth') etc. but there really is no difference when we speak of 'synths' or 'keyboards' or 'keys'.

whosyourdaddy00
Hold 'Em Czar
Member
Since: Dec 30, 2004

Sep 18, 2006 10:21 am

one major difference is a 'keyboard' (think of the kind you see at non-music stores, like a cheap Casio) is the lack of editing of the sounds, most 'keyboards' will not let you edit the sounds at all (except maybe adding reverb or chorus) but it's all PCM based sample playback sounds....now a synth will let you create/generate your own sounds, and hevily edit the presets usually with alotta knobs and buttons.....atleast that's the way i see it. some keyboards do have midi i/o but they usually lack simple controlers like pitchbend and volume faders.