Meltdown

I’m back in old Europe and out of my mind due to sleep deprivation/jet lag.

Yet I’m on a translation deadline.

And I have to pay my taxes.

And yesterday, my trusty (20 year-) old keyboard starts emitting the toxic smell of burning/melting electronic components. Even though I stopped using the keyboard’s internal sounds a long time ago (after a previous incident in which the keyboard was flooded with gallons of rainwater), I still use it to control so-called software synthesizers housed on my Mac, and to input 99% of my music (via the MIDI protocol).

So it looks like some or all of my budget for getting a new guitar is going to have to go into getting a new keyboard. I foolishly thought my trusty old workhorse would last forever (sort of what I used to think of my mariage).

From what I can tell, I can get:

• A simple controller keyboard, that has no sounds but can control softsynths, for 100-200 bucks.
• A keyboard that has sounds, in the 200 to 100000 range!
• A combination controller keyboard, sound card, synthesiser for about 700 bucks.
• A cheesy Casio keyboard with built-in cheesy automatic accompaniments (god, how I love/miss that cheese!), for 300-500 bucks.

All of these are tempting for different technical and/or artistic and/or sentimental reasons.

Yet I’m near phobic when it comes to shopping in general, so having to choose (and there are many, MANY choices in each of the above categories) and the situation in general is NOT GOOD.

Maybe if I could sleep on it…