So now that I am enjoying a situation where the household income is just my income, and I have some new financial freedom (read, I can buy the shit I want, when I want) I'm looking to get myself a synth. Basically, something I can use for composition that would give me some great flexibility in terms of the kinds of sounds I can create, but also just play when I want to tinkle the (faux) ivories.
Anything you have that you'd recommend?
Wish I could.
However- Naked Guy plays the synth. I might ask him.
As someone who is quite keen on having faux ivories that approximate real ones well, I am happy with the Roland FP-4. Not very portable, it has many respectable keyboardy and chromatic percussion sounds, plays nicely and I'm sure that the wizardry of MIDI would make it, coupled with a PC, sound a million shades of strange, though I haven't tried this.
What's your budget? Kurzweil makes pretty awesome, weighted-key synths. But they are fairly pricey.
I'd probably finance it. I was actually thinking about a Kurzweil. My music Prof had a really cool one with tons of voices and sounds, and even had this slider bar where you could hit a key, but then change the pitch by sliding a finger up and downthis ribbon.