Top/best music workstation keyboards for professionals. The ultimate keyboards for studio work as well for performing on stage. A complete portable studio, these keyboards give you all the features and tools you need to give final shape to your creative ideas. These come with huge soundset, tons of arps, real-time controls, onboard sampling and serious DAW integration, and many more features.
Introduction
Looking for a workstation keyboard that can truly “do it all”? These keyboard workstations are capable of doing that. It is not really easy for keyboards to perform the role of both a stage and studio instrument, but these pro keyboards are capable of doing well in both areas.
A music workstation keyboard is a powerful instrument that is equally impressive on tour, or as part of any production studio.
You will find thousands of authentic and sophisticated sounds, which can be easily accessed and adjusted quickly on the fly. These are also equipped with a powerful sequencer that supports both MIDI and audio recording. Besides, the various knobs and sliders make it easier to navigate and control than most computer-based software.
Most of these instruments are available in a choice of three keyboards 61-keys, 73 or 76-keys and 88 keys, to cater to various musicians.
Best Music Workstation Keyboards
Best Music Workstation Keyboards that are ready for any show or session. 88-Key Synthesizers and Workstations are full-featured music creation machines, with 88 hammer weighted keys. These also offer everything you need to perform in any style of keyboard playing, and are built for any occasion.
Korg Kronos Music Workstation Keyboard
Kronos is Korg’s flagship workstation keyboard. You get an incredible library of sounds via its 9 synth engines. You can shape sounds, sequence MIDI and also record audio on this workstation. It comes with an 8″ color touchscreen.
The 73 and 88-key version features 88 hammer-action keys. Berlin Grand piano and many more sounds.
- Korg Kronos 6: Buy on zZounds
- Korg Kronos 7: Buy on zZounds:
- Korg Kronos 8: Buy on zZounds:
Roland FA-06/FA-07/FA-08 Music Workstation Keyboard
The Roland FA workstation comes with a huge selection of sounds (including INTEGRA-7 sounds), 16-track sequencer, easy-to-use sampler, powerful effects and more. Many call the Roland FA series keyboards a faster and more flexible Roland Fantom.
Great for on-stage and studio use. The 88-key version comes with fully weighted Ivory Feel-G Keyboard with escapement.
- Roland FA-06: Buy on zZounds
- Roland FA-07: Buy on zZounds
- Roland FA-08: Buy on zZounds
Korg Krome-88 Keyboard Workstation
A full featured music creation keyboard, it also features hundreds more gig-worthy sounds. Delivers complete all-around functionality for any style of keyboard playing. Krome-88 comes with fully-weighted 88-keys. The 61-key version features semi-weighted keybed.
- Korg Krome-61: Buy on zZounds
- Korg Krome-88: Buy on zZounds
More Recommendations
Here are a couple of more options but these are more of synths and have limited production features.
Yamaha MOXF6 / MOXF6 Keyboard Synthesizer
Loaded with Motif XF sounds and effects, useful performance tools, hundreds of preset performances, 4-in/2-out USB audio interface, and more.
Yamaha MOXF8 features Graded Hammer Standard (GHS) keyboard, whereas MOXF6 features semi-weighted keybed.
- Yamaha MOXF6: Buy on zZounds
- Yamaha MOXF8: Buy on zZounds
- Roland JUNO DS-61 Synthesizer
- Roland JUNO DS-88 Synthesizer Keyboard (more of a synth)
- Yamaha MX61 Music Production Synthesizer Keyboard
More Pro Arranger Keyboard Workstations
- Korg Pa4X Arranger Workstation: Huge soundset, realistic styles, instrument articulations and effects.
- Yamaha Tyros5 Arranger Workstation: Huge soundset, superb ensemble voices, sweet on-screen effects, and more.
Music Workstation Keyboard: Buying Guide
These music workstation keyboards are powerful machines that offer you thousands of sounds, come with outstanding sampling capability, uncompromised effects and you have for your use hundreds of world-class sounds and sequences to choose from. Top quality acoustic sounds such as strings, drums, guitars, pianos, and many more cutting edge sounds. Lots of polyphony that gives you a lot of freedom to create complex and dense musical sequences.
Read: Complete guide on Music Workstation Keyboards
Putting all your tracks together, be it audio or MIDI, a seamless process. You can lay down a drum track using the internal drum sounds, record some keyboard parts as MIDI and then add audio tracks like the guitar or vocals. Built-in sampler, digital recorder, and much more. These come with a big, color LCD screen.
The mark of a versatile digital music instrument is that it should not only provide lots of useful features, it should also gel easily with other applications. This is where these boards shine. In addition to the music creation capabilities, these keyboards also offer a system for integrating those capabilities with a variety of software applications. And now, it also provides Flash memory expansion capabilities that will set a new standard for keyboard workstations for years to come.
Best Keyboards & Pianos
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Yamaha Motif vs. Roland Fantom vs. Korg M3 Music Workstation – How do these Products / Brands Compare?
I am more into computer music and do a lot of production work using Propllerhead Reason. Am exploring some possibilities of using a hardware DAW for my work, though I have never used a music workstation before! Was at this store last weekend and decided to do some research on these top 3 music workstation keyboards. And boy I was excited like a kid to watch these awesome keyboards…lol.
Here’s what I saw and experienced! I am listing them in the reverse order of ranking.
Korg M3 – The Sounds are top-notch and the X-Y controller is a nice function. But somehow I didn’t like the looks of this keyboard and the way things have been laid out. It looks a bit unorganized and looks the least appealing of all the three.
Roland Fantom G– This is what a top of the line workstation is supposed to do…blow you away. And this one does blow you away. Of all the three, this was the flashiest. Pads, guitar, live sounds are cool. Sampler is just amazing. Synth selection is okay and not too many Hip-Hop Sounds are available.
Yamaha Motif XS -I liked this board the best of the lot. Sounds are good but the best thing is its simplified sequencer. Very easy to use yet powerful!
So here’s my verdict.
Yamaha Motif XS at number one, followed by Roland Fantom G and the Korg M3 workstation in third position.
What do you guys think?