Rigidity
The hardness of the keys on a keyboard is the amount of resistance they provide when pressed.
—
Unweighted. Very low rigidity: the keys literally "fail" under the fingers. Found mostly in entry-level keyboards; this is due to the fact that unweighted mechanics are inexpensive, but the low pressure resistance makes it difficult to select the optimal pressure and control the dynamics of the sound.
— Semi-
weighted. Keyboards with medium resistance — not as high as on weighted keys, but noticeably higher than on unweighted ones. This option is considered optimal for active keyboards (see "Mechanics"): at a low cost, it gives quite good responsiveness and, with a minimum skill, allows you to accurately control the pressing force.
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Weighted. Keyboards with high resistance, which is comparable to the resistance of classical piano keys. Note that high effort in this case is an advantage: it allows you to bring the response of the keyboard as close as possible to the response of a classical piano and makes it easier to control the pressure and dynamics of the sound. Actually, by definition, all hammer-action models are made weighted (see "Mechanics"), but among active keyboards this option is rare — due to complexity and high cost.
Aftertouch
The presence of the aftertouch function in the keyboard (aftertouch). The essence of this function is to track the pressure force on the key after it is pressed. In fact, this means that in models with aftertouch, you can control the sound not only due to the force and speed of pressing the key, but also due to the change in pressure on it after pressing; this gives additional features and allows you to use various specific tricks of the game. The specific ways of changing the sound “tied” to aftertouch can be different, depending on the synthesis settings set: for example, when recording a guitar part, you can tie a small change in tone to this function and imitate string bending, when recording a saxophone, change the volume of notes, and etc.
Relatively inexpensive models use a common sensor to monitor aftertouch, which monitors the average force of pressure on all keys pressed; in more advanced ones, separate sensors are installed for each key.
Pads
The number of
pads provided in the design of the keyboard.
Pads are auxiliary controls in the form of characteristic pads, usually square. The pads respond to touch, each of them can be tied to a specific sound or even a sequence of sounds. One of the most popular ways to use pads is to play drums or other rhythmic instruments.
Regulators (encoders)
The number
of encoder controlsprovided in the design of the keyboard.
Such a knob looks like a rotary knob, with which you can control various functions of the device to which the keyboard is connected — for example, turn the virtual knobs in the programme for recording and sound processing. At the same time, we note that a full-fledged encoder is capable of rotating 360 ° and turning to any angle in any direction, however, keyboards can also contain knobs with a limited rotation sector — they can also be called encoders. None of these options has a clear advantage: in some cases, an unlimited turning sector is more convenient, in others, a limited one.
Connectable pedals
The maximum number of pedals that can be connected to the keyboard at the same time.
Pedals are used as additional controls to change various keyboard settings. The “classic of the genre” in this sense is the sustain pedal (see “Sustain”) — if the device has
one connector for pedals, then this will almost certainly be the input for just such a pedal. Keyboards are produced, where there
are 2 or more such inputs — in addition to sustain, you can connect pedals to them for other adjustments and effects (in particular, changing the volume).
