What Is the Difference Between a Keyboard and Synthesizer? – Daniel Fisher

Synth guru Daniel Fisher lays out the "key" differences between keyboards and synthesizers 🎹

I am a musician since I was 7 (now I'm 87). But now I like to
"make music". An I have a dilema: I own a Keylab49 essenti9al (from which I can't listen any sound) and a Komplete Kontrol 32. I want to have the possibility of playing my instrument.
Should I keep the Keylab adding an interface, or use the Komplete?
Please, I trust your advise.

This is a terrible video for anyone who doesn't know what a synthesizer is. You should always open with a definition and a demonstration straight off the bat before going into details.

I had Yamaha ex5 , Alesis ion, Alesis Micron, Novation Mini nova,, Roland jp8000, Roland Juno G , Roland jdxi,,every electronic keybed interment that can be altered.,,by affects ,is synths sounds, I have had so many synths I forgot them , and I Love to use arrangers for base boards , and a digital piano for just hands free piano , each is different and gives you something different ,, I have Yamaha psrsx900, and Yamaha Tyros ,3 and Korg Pa5x ,,and studiologic sledge wish I Love it , I have not played the Korg so much ,I will next spring 2024, and the studio Logic I was Moog 37,,I have many more groove synths , Korg Electribe's I love guitars , when I was young I started playing drums and singing very young , then Piano and guitar at the same time ,around fourteen years old ,I begin lessons ,for both ,basic accostic guitar ,, and piano , and then I bought my first Casio and Kawai synths ,and from that point it changed me I can still play interments in bands , but I dont want to any more , I want to play keyboards and synths , I really dont like to hear a human voice unless it has be changed to some different sound ,,some kind of affect ,, I will still play electric guitars , on real guitars and keyboard guitars ,,I want to change my face use covering not to be seen anymore use a mask something creative and new...as a artist musician I feel that is the direction I want to go with art music story events statements...I prefer to be called alien ...just not human.

Iv got a Yamaha DJx and it has pitch bend mod attack release ect but it's no synth it's a rompler and when I try using it to layer stuff with it on the tascam it sounds so week and sounds muddy af but my Roland synth sounds amazing

Synthesizers make me wanna go to space 😂

God synth money please

Okay.....i watched the whole.........still haven't got a clue LOL

Very helpful! Thanks Daniel!!

I call all more or less portable electronic instruments with a single keyboard "keyboards". Then some of those keyboards are synths (in my vocabulary) if their main function is sound design, not playing ready made sounds and/or rhythms. And yes, still there are a lot of intermediate products with both features. 🤯

I would define a keyboard as an electric instrument with keys like piano. A synthesizer is an electronic instrument that creates the sounds via circuitry or software. As opposed to playing back internally stored sounds. Not all synthesizers are keyboards and not all keyboards are synthesizers.

Thanks Daniel

So, can any synth play piano sounds with the same quality of a keyboard?
I guess this is the most asked question...
Or is it just for "weird" sounds?

I love the synthesizer

Great vid 👌🏾

i need the second one lol

The main difference is that in synthesizers every preset sound on them or any sound that comes out from the machine can be recreated from scratch. In keyboards we have some control of the sound but is somehow pre-made and we have a limit of how much we can alter the sound. Of course there are hybrids of synths and keyboards which are something in between.

The difference is how much control the item gives:
Synthesizer is an advanced keyboard, that can Synthesize sounds.
There are controllers on the keyboard to adjust the sounding in many ways.
Many keyboards do introduce some features of Synthesizer.
The most basic one is the keyboard.
The keyboard that has some features of Sythesizer is a Half-Sythesizer Keyboard.

synthesizer seems so fun to mess around with

Awesome video man!

Wow!

I also started out with a Magnus organ exactly like the one shown, only we got ours at a flea market around 1976. We had a piano in the house since before I was born. About the same time we got the Magnus, we got a slightly large piece of furniture organ (still easy to pick up) and an accordion. I played around with all that stuff, but took a lot more interest in our Casio keyboard around 1980. But I still didn't get serious about wanting to learn to play too much until I got my Amiga 1000 computer in 1985 with incredible sampling, and my Casio CZ keyboard as a MIDI controller for it and it's great on board sounds. The piano and organs didn't hold near the same level of interest. Maybe if we had a B3 or something.

Defining a synthesizer as you said, seems to come down to it's ability to edit sounds. It could be through menus like my Korg M1, but it needs some ability to edit sounds on it or via computer at least. The Casio in your video seems to be a sample playback machine. Still a form of a synthesizer, but not the same.

Simplest defmiton is that if it has preset banks and maybe auto accompaniment then its a keyboard. If it allows sound creation, editing and programming then it'd be a synthesiser.

I’m lookin to get into piano so realistic feel and sound is important to me, but I also want features that I will appreciate growing into that synthesizers/workstations have too, but don’t want to compromise on the feel and sound of the piano. That said, I am having a difficult time deciding between something like the similarly priced Roland Fantom 8, Nord Grand, and Kawaii MP11SE. The Fantom seems to have the most features, but I’m concerned it isn’t as realistic of a piano as the other two and I may regret getting it.

Both are Keybords

I recently bought a Kauai K5 synthesizer and I honestly have no idea what it can do. I would like to figure out how to get a deeper sound out of it and run it through a loop, in a new age fashion and to be able to add my cello into it. Can you teach me how? Can you show me what it can do? I grew up playing an upright and I'm used to having all these base notes and these electronic keyboards all sound so high pitched to me. Can I lower the pitch an octave or two? If so how? I want some depth of sound through this thing. Help. Thanks. Enjoyed your display on here.

A keyboard is a keyboard and can be on a piano a midi controller or on a sythersizor. Sythersizors and midi controllers might include a keyboard but they dont have to.

There's a tutorial that I haven't seen yet anywhere: the use of a synthesizer as both a synth and as a midi controller for a DAW. I understand each has its own role, but I was about to upgrade my modest m-audio 61 keys midi controller to the Native Instruments S88 which is about $1,150 then I released a nice entry-level Yamaha MX88 is $1,050. What would I miss? The faders? Well, the NI S88 doesn't have faders....... the drum pad? The NI S88 doesn't have drum pads either (and I don't use them anyway).
So, instead of buying a midi controller that can't do anything without being hooked to a computer, why not get a synthesizer instead?

I really want to start playing a weighted action keyboard (The Rohland fp30x), it sounds like a real piano and is quite versatile. I've been wondering if it would be a good substitue for a synth using it's midi function, a DAW and a synth plugin/ analog synth. Does anyone know what the experince of using a midi keyboard as a synth is like ? Is it worth it ? The fp30x is quite pricey so it would be lovely if it can double as both so I can record synth and piano parts. Thanks in advance to anyone who shares some insight ;)
Have a nice day

I'd say, a synthesizer is an instrument that actually generates ("synthesizes") the sound coming from it instead of playing a recorded file. One can have filters and asdr features for a sample-playback keyboard as well but that doesn't make it a synth.

Also, technically an organ is a synthesizer in itself. Its a form of synthesis called additive synthesis wherein you add harmonics to a sine wave to create different sounds. An organ does it using wind/pipes/mutes instead of electronics.

i wanna be a professional knob-turner 😍

Synth is more specialized and more expensive. A Keyboard is usually cheaper and does many things at once, but does not have the extensive library of sounds a synth has (a keyboard might have 5 different piano sounds built in, a synth would have 1000 different piano sounds, but you would need to buy them and install them into the synth) a Keyboard can be a general purpose all in one band and music making solution...a synth is usually attached to another piece of hardware/software to work. Most synths have no speakers either, where all keyboards have speakers built in. Synths also have (or at least at one time) had a higher quality level of sound, it sounded fuller and deeper. Although keyboards today have come close to those fuller deeper sounds as well now. That's my observation anyways.

Price for one

Can we talk about that clean flattop tho lol

So what you’re saying is that keyboards purchase samplers that have sampled either genuine instruments or synthesizers

Going by this, my 22-year old Casio WK-1800 is a synth. Woohoo! Now I can say I have 2 synths, lol. My Wavestate and my Casio 😁

Daniel Fisher is undeniably one of the coolest people on the internet

:) I thought you would have a difficult time explaining the difference? :) Could we say in strict definition that a true synthesizer produces its own waveforms from an oscillator, and not a VA, or wavetable, or recording of an oscillator. Hmmmm? Maybe? :)

Excelente información! 🙌🏻

ACtually, some of the more modern keyboards, called "arranger keyboards", along with full accompaniment, have full bore synths in them, like the GEM Ensembe, which has two synths in it; a typical ADSR synth and a "world class" 8-stage envelope generator. The Casio WK3500 has both sheels

SWEETWATER ROCKS

Excellent!
The MAGNUS was the first instrument i ever played.
I was five years old, and my parents had one.
Been hooked on keys ever since.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

I’d like to see Daniel surrounded by synthesizers doing a complete performance.

I wish there was a good, accepted term for the kind of sound module in that Casiotone. If it has keys, its a keyboard—which is going to cover any of these things if they have keys as well as keyboards that are just controllers. If it synthesizes sound, its a synthesizer. If it records sounds for playback, its a sampler. But if it essentially just plays back recorded sounds (the modern equivalent of a Mellotron), we don’t have a good word for that, do we?

Synth = sound production
Keyboard = has sounds
Getting a sub 200$ USB midi keyboard is best cheap option because you can use free digital synths or vsts to learn.

Please do more videos like this. I'm a guitarist interested in getting into keyboard/synth, and videos like this are extremely helpful to people like me, who are completely new to it all.