Kurzweil SP5-8 - Stage Piano

The SP5-8 from Kurzweil is an 88-note digital piano with a graded hammer-weighted action keyboard, and over 800 preset sounds that offer the sound palette of a professional workstation, but with the workflow and simplicity of a stage piano. The keyboard offers full MIDI functionality over USB, as well as the ability to quickly save/load user sounds and update the operating system when paired with a computer.

Presets include the obligatory concert grand pianos, studio pianos, classic barrel-house and tack uprights, as well as layered combinations with strings and pads. Also included are vintage instrument emulations; electric pianos (some of which use over thirty velocity-switched layers), Clavinets, Mellotrons and electric grand pianos, in addition to organs and virtual analog synthesizers. Rounding out the sounds are string sections, plus orchestral, brass, winds, mallets, percussion, drums, guitar and bass presets.

The keyboard action allows players to experience the feeling of playing a real piano, while still providing the necessary speed response for correctly playing the electric pianos, organs, Clavinets and synthesizers. To accommodate all playing styles, several choices are available for adjusting velocity response, from "very hard" to "very light." And sixteen-part multi-timbral capability allows the SP5-8 to serve as a great compositional tool.

Sound setup and editing is easy using five sliders plus a three-tiered shift button that together provide access to fifteen real-time synthesizer and/or effects parameters. This allows for quickly customizing sounds, whether assigning an effect or setting the key ranges for a split/layer zone. For gig-ready sound selection, the keyboard features one-touch access to twenty "User Favorite" slots. Balanced TRS outputs and 24-bit digital to analog converters output a pristine signal that's perfect for professional recordings or live amplification without the need for additional processing.