OK, I will admit it. I have a “thing” for battery-powered keyboards. It all started when I began taking organ lessons back in 1967. (Yes, I know, I’m old.) I was able to persuade my Hammond B3 teacher (a nun wearing a full black-and-white habit) to let me study current pop songs instead of classical music or songs that were big in the ’50s. The most frustrating thing about that was listening to the radio with my friends and hearing a song I knew how to play. I’d say, “I can play that song!” but, if we weren’t at my house, there was no way to prove it. (Apparently, being able to move my fingers exactly along with the song was not convincing to them.) As a teen, I even tried learning guitar so I could have a portable instrument. But I just couldn’t play guitar by ear the way I instinctively could on keyboards.
It wasn’t until 1981, when I joined the United States Army, that I was able to buy one of the very first portable keyboards, a Casiotone MT-30. It ran on batteries, had its own speaker, played up to four notes, and featured 22 different presets that sounded surprisingly good. Because of that battery-powered keyboard, an officer heard me playing and transferred me into the Army band program for a tour around Europe, and I eventually became the keyboardist for a United States Army rock band for a tour across the US.
Since then, I have never been without a collection of the best battery-powered keyboards available. Most of them do not have built-in speakers but, these days, there are plenty of battery-powered amps to choose from. Here are six of my current favorite battery-powered keyboards, and why I like them:
Korg KROSS 2 Synthesizer Workstation (61- and 88-key)
The KROSS 2 is a powerful synthesizer with 120 notes of polyphony, 1,075 presets of almost every instrument you could want (plus drums), seven simultaneous effects, a sampling engine with 16 finger pads, an arpeggiator, a 16-track sequencer with up to 128 songs, and audio song playback from an SD memory card. And all of this can run for approximately four hours on six AA alkaline or rechargeable batteries. The realistic hammer-action 88-note version also has a compartment for an extra set of batteries.
Roland JUNO-DS Synthesizer (61- and 88-key)
Here is another astounding synthesizer with 128 notes of polyphony, 1,200 patches, 30 drum kits, multi-FX with 80 effect types, plus a separate Chorus and Reverb, a sampling engine with eight sample pads, an arpeggiator, a rhythm pattern player, and a vocoder. The JUNO-DS can run up to five hours on eight AA rechargeable batteries.
One of its most exciting features is the ability to load an additional bank of professional instruments featuring top-quality samples. These instruments will remain in the JUNO-DS even after powering off the unit.
Roland VR-09-B and V-Combo VR-730 Keyboard (61- and 73-key)
The Roland V-Combo is another great-sounding, battery-powered keyboard with a special feature for organists: nine organ drawbars! If you like to change your organ sounds in real time, this is the keyboard for you. It has 245 sounds (not counting the endless possibilities of the organ drawbars), 128 notes of polyphony, lots of effects, rhythm patterns, plus the ability to record and play back high-quality audio files. The V-Combo keyboard can run up to five hours on eight AA rechargeable batteries.
Roland GAIA SH-01 Virtual Analog Synthesizer (37-key)
If you want pure synthesis (as opposed to pianos, organs, etc.) that can go anywhere, you just can’t go wrong with the Roland GAIA synthesizer. It has 64 voices of polyphony, 10 effects, an arpeggiator, 64 phrase recorders, and an infrared D Beam controller. The GAIA synthesizer can run up to five hours on eight AA rechargeable batteries.
The coolest part of this synthesizer is that there are actually three synthesizers running at once. Each of them can have different front-panel parameter settings, allowing you opportunities for incredibly complex timbral creations. Plus, this synthesizer has a very exciting secret: one of the MIDI channels can be set to play the synthesizer, leaving the other 15 MIDI channels free to play the built-in 128 general MIDI sounds that aren’t mentioned (so you can actually play pianos, organs, etc., via an external MIDI controller)!
Casio WK-7600 Portable Arranger (76-key)
Here’s a battery-powered keyboard that has a built-in, high-fidelity speaker system. It has 820 sound presets and 260 onboard rhythms, multiple digital effects, switch-based organ drawbars, an arpeggiator, pattern and song sequencers, drum patterns and keyboard-playable drums, and a 32-channel mixer. The Casio WK-7600 Portable Arranger can run up to four hours on six D alkaline batteries.
Studiologic Numa Compact 2x (88-key)
All of the above keyboards would have blown me away in 1980, but the Studiologic Numa Compact 2x would have sent me into paroxysms of joy. It’s an 88-key keyboard with light-weighted action (and aftertouch!), nine organ drawbars, and two effects plus Reverb. All of it goes to two 10-watt amplifiers that power a pair of audience-facing stereo speakers.
This 128-note polyphony keyboard features a tonewheel organ engine with percussion, chorus/vibrato, and rotary speaker emulation, a synth engine with nine real-time sliders for parameter control, a grand piano engine with key-release samples and string resonance simulation, and 1GB of flash memory containing 88 additional sounds. And the whole thing is only slightly larger than its 88 keys, weighing in at less than 16 pounds.
Now, to be fair, I cheated a little on this keyboard, because it doesn’t have a compartment for internal batteries. But it can run off of USB, and there are plenty of USB batteries out there that can run this. If your USB power bank isn’t strong enough, the internal speaker system disconnects to save power, but you can then use the keyboard with any battery-powered speakers like you would with the other keyboards.
I hope this article helps you get started on musical freedom from the AC outlet. If you have any additional questions, please be sure to contact your Sweetwater Sales Engineer at (800) 222-4700.
