Electronic keyboard


An electronic keyboard, portable keyboard, or digital keyboard is an electronic musical instrument based on keyboard instruments. Electronic keyboards include synthesizers, digital pianos, stage pianos, electronic organs and digital audio workstations. In technical terms, an electronic keyboard is a rompler-based synthesizer with a low-wattage power amplifier and small loudspeakers.
Electronic keyboards offer a diverse selection of instrument sounds along with synthesizer tones. Designed primarily for beginners and home users, they generally feature unweighted keys. While budget models lack velocity sensitivity, mid-range options and above often include it. These keyboards have limited sound editing options, focusing on preset sounds. Casio and Yamaha are major manufacturers in this market, known for popularizing the concept since the 1980s.

Terminology

An electronic keyboard may also be called a digital keyboard, or home keyboard, the latter often refers to less advanced or inexpensive models intended for beginners. The obscure term "portable organ" was widely used in Asian countries to refer to electronic keyboards in the 1990s, due to the similar features between electronic keyboards and electronic home organs, the latter of which were popular in the late 20th century.
In Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, most types of electronic keyboards were simply often referred to as a "synthesizer", usually with no other term to distinguish them from actual digital synthesizers.
The term electronic keyboard may also be used to refer to a synthesizer or digital piano in colloquial usage

Components

The major components of a typical modern electronic keyboard are:
  • Musical keyboard: Electronic keyboards typically use unweighted keys for portability and affordability. In contrast, digital pianos have weighted or semi-weighted keys to replicate the feel of acoustic pianos.
  • Firmware: A program which handles user interaction with controllers such as the musical keyboard, menus, and buttons. These controllers enable the user to select different instrument sounds, digital effects, and other features. The user interface system usually includes an LCD screen that gives the user information about the synthesized sound they have selected like tempo, or effects that are activated and other features.
  • Computerized musical arranger: A software program which produces rhythms and chords by the means of computerized commands, typically MIDI. Electronic hardware can also do this. Most computerized arrangers can play a selection of rhythms.
  • Sound generator: A rompler, typically contained within an integrated Read-only memory, which is capable of accepting MIDI commands and producing sounds. Electronic keyboard romplers usually incorporate sample-based synthesis, but more advanced keyboards might sometimes feature physical modeling synthesis.
  • Amplifier and speakers: an internal audio power amplifier, typically ranging from less than 2.5 to over 30 watts, connected to the sound generator chip. The amplifier is then connected to small, low-powered speakers that reproduce the synthesized sounds so that the listener can hear them. Older and less expensive keyboards may have a single mono speaker. Most keyboards usually have two speakers producing stereo sound, often with bass ports and tweeters for more advanced models.
  • Power supply: Keyboards may or may not have an internal power supply system built to the main circuit board, but most modern keyboards are often equipped with an included AC adapter.
  • MIDI terminals: Most keyboards usually incorporate 5-pin MIDI connections for data communication, typically so the keyboard can be connected with either a computer or another electronic musical instrument, such as a synthesizer, a drum machine or a sound module, allowing it to be used as a MIDI controller. Not all keyboards have conventional MIDI terminals and connector. The least expensive models may have no MIDI connections. Post-2000s keyboards may have a USB-B instead, which serve as both input and output in a single connection. Since the 2010s, MIDI in/out terminals are only available in professional-grade keyboards, stage pianos and high-end synthesizers, while low-cost home keyboards, digital pianos, and lower-end synthesizers use USB as the only connection available.
  • Flash memory: Some electronic keyboards have a small amount of onboard memory for storing data such as recorded songs, MIDI files, and other proprietary files.
  • External storage device: Usually available on professional-grade keyboards and synthesizers, this allows the user to store data in externally connected storage media such as ROM cartridges, floppy disks, memory cards and USB flash drives. Floppy disks and cartridges were obsolete by the early 2000s, with memory cards starting to replace them shortly afterwards. USB storage was popularized by Yamaha's lineup of high-end electronic keyboards in the mid-2000s and has become a standard feature since. Most keyboards since the 2010s use USB storage, with the exception of certain Casio models, which use SD cards instead.
  • Music stand: A metal or plastic rack for holding sheet music or music books upright. The music stand is usually removable to facilitate storage and transportation.
  • Sustain pedal: If a home keyboard has a sustain feature, replicating the similar device used on acoustic pianos, 1/4" jack is provided for this purpose. By comparison, on a digital piano, a sustain pedal is often built into the frame, usually with a proprietary connector. The least expensive home keyboards do not have a sustain function or a sustain pedal jack, which limits their use to early beginners.

    History

Keyboard instruments trace back to the ancient hydraulis in the 3rd century BCE, later evolving into the pipe organ and smaller portative and positive organs. The clavichord and harpsichord emerged in the 14th century CE, Technological strides brought more advanced keyboards, including the modern 12-tone version. Initially, instruments like the pipe organ and harpsichord could only produce single-volume sounds. The 18th-century innovation of the pianoforte, with hammers striking metal strings via key pressure, enabled dynamic sound variation.
Electric keyboards began with applying electric sound technology. The first was the Denis d'or stringed instrument, made by Václav Prokop Diviš in 1748, with 700 electrified strings. In 1760, Jean Baptiste Thillaie de Laborde introduced the clavecin électrique, an electrically activated keyboard without sound creation. Elisha Gray invented the musical telegraph in 1874, producing sound through electromagnetic vibrations. Gray later added a single-note oscillator and a diaphragm-based loudspeaker for audibility.
In 1973, the Yamaha GX-1 introduced an early polyphonic synthesizer with eight voices. The EP-30 by Roland Corporation in 1974 became the first touch-sensitive keyboard. Roland also released early polyphonic string synthesizers, the RS-101 in 1975 and RS-202 in 1976.
In 1975, Moog's Polymoog merged a synthesizer with an organ, offering full polyphony through individual circuit boards. Crumar's "Multiman" organ with synthesizer arrived, and ARP Omni combined a synthesizer with a string machine and bass in 1976. Korg's PE-1000 that year featured a dedicated saw oscillator for each note.
In 1977, Yamaha CS-60 and CS-80 polyphonic synthesizers introduced 'memory'. In 1978, Oberheim's OB-1 brought electronic storage of sound settings. That year, Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 offered the feature in a five-voice polyphonic synthesizer. Fender's Rhodes Chroma, the first computer-controlled keyboard, resulted from ARP's engineers being acquired by Fender in 1979. Its successor, the Chroma Polaris, released in 1984, featured the 'Chroma' port.

Classifications

Conventional home keyboards differ from other electronic keyboards due to the design, features and target market:
  • Digital piano - Electronic keyboards designed to sound and feel like an ordinary acoustic piano. They typically contain an amplifier and loudspeakers built into the instrument. In most cases they can fully replace acoustic pianos and provide several features, such as recording and saving files to a computer. Many digital pianos can imitate the sounds of several instruments, including a grand piano, electric piano, pipe organ, Hammond organ and harpsichord. They are not sensitive to the climate or humidity changes in a room and there is also no need for tuning, as with acoustic pianos. Digital pianos are often mounted on stands with a fixed sustain pedal attached to the frame; as such, most are not designed for transportation. The target market is mid-level to advanced pianists.
  • Stage piano - A type of high-quality digital piano with weighted keys, designed for professional touring use on stage or in a recording studio. Compared to digital pianos, stage pianos usually emphasize on higher-quality electric piano and Hammond organ sounds.
  • Synthesizer - Electronic keyboards that use various sound synthesis technologies to produce a wide variety of electronic sounds.
  • Workstation - Professional electronic keyboards that combine the features of a synthesizer and a conventional home keyboard. Workstations have a range of high-quality sampled instrument sounds, as well as extensive editing/recording capability, computer connectivity, high-powered speakers, and often include external memory storage for storing customized data, MIDI sequences, and even additional instrument samples. A higher-end workstation keyboard may include several features similar to a digital audio workstation software, allowing an even more advanced features such as mixing, mastering, sound design, creating loops and patterns, composing electronic music, etc.
  • MIDI controller - An electronic keyboard that does not produce a sound of its own. It is used to trigger sounds from a sound module or software synthesizer by means of MIDI cable and connections. MIDI controllers often provide other sliders, knobs and buttons, which enable the player to control elements such as volume.
  • Keytar - A small synthesizer that resembles a guitar which can be played in similar position as an electric guitar: worn on a strap over the shoulders, enabling the performer to move around on a stage. The name is a portmanteau of keyboard and guitar.
Compared to digital pianos or stage pianos, digital home keyboards are usually much lower in cost, as they have unweighted keys. Like digital pianos, they usually feature on-board amplifiers and loudspeakers. Stage pianos, however, typically do not have integrated amplifiers and speakers, as these instruments are normally plugged into a keyboard amplifier in a professional concert setting. Unlike synthesizers, the primary focus of home electronic keyboards is not on detailed control or creation of sound synthesis parameters. Most home electronic keyboards offer little or no control or editing of the sounds.