Korg SV-2 73-Key Vintage Stage Piano (Black)

I have been playing the piano, basically over sixty years and I have not experienced a better keyboard, then this one. The fill is acoustic,but yet grand. Electronics is sentilating with realisic vibrant synths of strings, horns that can be layered. Accompanying with drum beats. That you can customize to your taste. Just! Sensational!A must buy. My last keyboard.

Best keyboard buying decision I have made!

Perfect sized stage piano for the studio and gigging player. Wide range of sounds, excellent keybed, and easy to connect to PC/MAC and manipulate/sculpt sounds with the Korg editor. I can't say enough good things about the SV2. It's such a joy to play. Sam Ash was a pleasure to deal with, and the keyboard arrived earlier than expected. Happy musician!

It's Amazing

I've had this keyboard for about a year now. The keybed is great, sounds are perfect, and the amp sims are handy for the Wurlitzer and Rhodes tones. The build is rock solid. It's an elegant design & feels like a future classic. I've never owned an SV1 so I can not compare to the older models, but from what I've heard, this one has a better piano library.One odd quirk is the encoders are very precise, so if you're adjusting a parameter, you really have to roll the knobs around&around to make deep adjustments. This is not a problem, and I appreciate fine adjustability, but it can be annoying making changes on the fly.I'd also recommend the Korg matching stand plus the old SV1 soft case. The matching stand screws into the bottom of the keyboard and is highly stable ... MoreI've had this keyboard for about a year now. The keybed is great, sounds are perfect, and the amp sims are handy for the Wurlitzer and Rhodes tones. The build is rock solid. It's an elegant design & feels like a future classic. I've never owned an SV1 so I can not compare to the older models, but from what I've heard, this one has a better piano library.One odd quirk is the encoders are very precise, so if you're adjusting a parameter, you really have to roll the knobs around&around to make deep adjustments. This is not a problem, and I appreciate fine adjustability, but it can be annoying making changes on the fly.I'd also recommend the Korg matching stand plus the old SV1 soft case. The matching stand screws into the bottom of the keyboard and is highly stable and looks great...AND the collapsed stand fits in the Korg case. Nice design! It's heavy but the wheels work fairly well.

LOVE the keyboard

I picked it for the electric piano sounds that are supposedly the best around. They were not lying, the EP sounds in here are just phenomenal, from simple Rhodes and Wurly sounds, to fully decked out effects (omg the phaser and chorus and tremolo are just SO good), not to mention the ability to simulate a bunch of amps, there is nothing that you can't do on the electric piano front. Of course we can critique how 'authentic' they sound, but if you want the real sound, you should really get the real thing. I just love the way it looks, the way it sounds, and the way it plays. This keyboard is AWESOME, I absolutely love it!! The only 'downside' I can comment on are the speakers. When I got this keyboard, I was a total beginner and I knew nothing about keyboards in ... MoreI picked it for the electric piano sounds that are supposedly the best around. They were not lying, the EP sounds in here are just phenomenal, from simple Rhodes and Wurly sounds, to fully decked out effects (omg the phaser and chorus and tremolo are just SO good), not to mention the ability to simulate a bunch of amps, there is nothing that you can't do on the electric piano front. Of course we can critique how 'authentic' they sound, but if you want the real sound, you should really get the real thing. I just love the way it looks, the way it sounds, and the way it plays. This keyboard is AWESOME, I absolutely love it!! The only 'downside' I can comment on are the speakers. When I got this keyboard, I was a total beginner and I knew nothing about keyboards in general. I had seen a youtube video (the Anderton one with the Korg guy) where the guys were commenting on how good the onboard speakers are. Based on that I went for the one with the speakers, because I didn't want to invest another bunch of money. The SV2 is not super expensive to begin with but we're still taking about $2K. Don't get me wrong. The speakers are awesome and they sound great, I just wish they had a little more volume. I was always around maximum on them and it was not quite enough for my room. Just as a fun experiment I plugged it into my bass amp and I was blown away by how much better it plays when you're properly amplified. I ended up getting a set of 5" powered studio monitors, and I am so much happier with the keyboard now. The difference is night and day, it's just a lot more immersive, and even the regular piano sounds are so much better. I will never gig so this is enough for me. This keyboard is just so great, I am super happy that I got it. If you're on the fence about the speakers like I was, I would say go to a store and try it out in person to see what they can do, and try some other options while you're there. Just to re-iterate, there is nothing wrong with the speakers besides the volume. BUT, if I had to do it over, I would have gotten the one without speakers. It's like 3-400 less expensive, which goes a long way to pay for the studio monitors.

Review of Refurbished SV-2S 73 Stage Vintage Keyboard (with speakers)

Sounds good, looks good, feels great to play. Only reason I didn’t give it the full 5 stars is down to personal preference (I would prefer if the controls felt more analogue) and because the built in FX feel a little limited. I’ve not tried the available editing software yet, maybe some of the FX can be tweaked with that.The refurbished unit, to all intents and purposes, looks brand new. I wouldn’t have known it had had any previous use if not told. Price wise I have seen used examples priced at more than this and they don’t come with the peace of mind of a factory warranty and often have some signs of use/wear.

Review of Refurbished SV-2S 88 Stage Keyboard with speakers

The SV-2S simply has the most beautiful Rhodes / Wurly samples of any synth around, other than paying many thousands more for a real Rhodes etc (I’ve compared with Nord etc worth twice the price or more).I don’t intend to gig with this SV-2S (my trusty old Yamaha S90 is still fine for such things!) I’ve bought this for recording with at home. The inbuilt speakers are surprisingly good, more than adequate for home use.The simplicity of old fashioned knobs instead of LCD menu screens makes this intuitive to use.Very happy with my purchase, I hope to enjoy many years playing / recording with it.

Stage keyboard? Maybe. Stage Piano? Never.

For vintage EP and organ it’s ok.Strings are very nice and lush. For piano, SEEK ELSEWHERE!!! It’s the worst live sounding piano I’ve ever heard. Even people that listen to our live rehearsal sessions mentioned how bad the piano sounded compared to other keyboards I’ve had.User friendly, yes.Stage friendly, NO!!If you have to have a computer to access all the features of a keyboard, What is the point??? Buy a MIDI controller...I really tried hard to fall in love with the SV2. Just couldn’t do it. Returned it. Bought a Roland RD 2000. Absolutely no regrets!

Strong first impression

Got the SV2-73 yesterday, and there's a lot of positive to be said. Very little negative. The only negative thing that stands out to me right now is that the knobs feel much cheaper and more loose than I would have expected. It feels like I could easily break one of these knobs by just bumping it the wrong way. It's also a little strange that there are 10 positions in between each light on the knobs. So for example, when you want to increase the intensity of your tremolo, you have this intensity knob with a series of lights around it. To go from one light just to the next one (or previous) you have to roll the knob through 10 "clicks." So if you want to quickly go from very little intensity to maximum, you have to roll and roll and roll and roll the knob. Definitely ... MoreGot the SV2-73 yesterday, and there's a lot of positive to be said. Very little negative. The only negative thing that stands out to me right now is that the knobs feel much cheaper and more loose than I would have expected. It feels like I could easily break one of these knobs by just bumping it the wrong way. It's also a little strange that there are 10 positions in between each light on the knobs. So for example, when you want to increase the intensity of your tremolo, you have this intensity knob with a series of lights around it. To go from one light just to the next one (or previous) you have to roll the knob through 10 "clicks." So if you want to quickly go from very little intensity to maximum, you have to roll and roll and roll and roll the knob. Definitely a little weird, and made worse by the fact that the knobs feels very cheap. All of that rolling feels like it's inevitably putting a lot of wear on the knob. Other than that, this keyboard is really fantastic. Key weight is excellent, not too stiff and not too light. The EP sounds are absolutely fantastic. I have owned vintage Rhodes and Wurlitzers, and this is an incredibly accurate representation of those classic pianos. Not quite as spot-on as a Crumar Seven, but the SV2 has to be the next best EP replication on the market after that. I'm also really impressed with the organ sounds, which sound very natural and have an analog feel. I do wish the rotary toggle was on the far left side of the keyboard, where you want it to be; reaching your left hand way over your right in order to toggle the Leslie speed between fast and slow is strange. If you're like me, you're trying to hit that switch constantly when you're playing organ, so the position on the SV2 is not ideal. The acoustic pianos have not impressed me very much, despite supposedly being highly regarded by many. But I personally can't really stand the sound of fake acoustic piano, so I wasn't surprised to find that these sounded digital and dated to me, similar to what I find on my much cheaper Yamaha. However, if you apply the "Red Compression" effect to some of these acoustic pianos, you instantly get a very nice 60s pop sound, incredibly similar to Zombies "Oddysey and Oracle," Emmit Rhodes, et al. Very unexpected! I did not anticipate finding an acoustic piano sound that I would actually use live or in the studio, so this was a nice surprise. In all, this is a really nice keyboard and one that says "I'm a legit instrument" when seen on stage. Very excited to have this as my main keyboard. Just wish that Korg's supply chain wasn't horrible; it took 5+ months for this unit to arrive after I paid for it. Yikes.

The keys break easily and Korg is not helpful

I was so excited about the Korg SV-2, but it's been a bit of a disappointment. There are a few things I'm not that happy about, but the big thing is that two of the keys broke early on. I bought some replacement keys and asked Korg for a repair manual, but they actually wouldn't give it to me. They said I had to take it to a Korg certified repair shop. I actually went into debt a little just to buy the keyboard, now it needs a repair that I can do and I'd rather just do it myself instead of paying hundreds more for their repair shop. I think they should #1 make a robust keyboard that professional musicians can put through hard use gigging for YEARS before worrying about, but short of that they could at least make it easy for me to clean up their mess. I'm thinking I ... MoreI was so excited about the Korg SV-2, but it's been a bit of a disappointment. There are a few things I'm not that happy about, but the big thing is that two of the keys broke early on. I bought some replacement keys and asked Korg for a repair manual, but they actually wouldn't give it to me. They said I had to take it to a Korg certified repair shop. I actually went into debt a little just to buy the keyboard, now it needs a repair that I can do and I'd rather just do it myself instead of paying hundreds more for their repair shop. I think they should #1 make a robust keyboard that professional musicians can put through hard use gigging for YEARS before worrying about, but short of that they could at least make it easy for me to clean up their mess. I'm thinking I should have gone with the Nord Electro 6D..

Three and a half to four stars

Gorgeous electric pianos, great feeling keyboard, easy, pleasing interface, lovely effects and nice looks make this keyboard special. Speakers handy, but here come the flaws....over the speakers the tube vibrates on a couple of notes, making an annoying rattling sound. Sent my first sv-2 back, pmt very helpful about it. Waited over 2 months for replacement to arrive and it has the same problem! Only fix is to wedge something under the tube. There is some kind of occasional erratic note stealing effect with damper pedal on, which spoils the playing experience. It unlikely to be due to polyphony max out. There is not a single acoustic piano I really like on the unit (or in the editor) - all have too much box noise and not enough character. They sound like the mics ... MoreGorgeous electric pianos, great feeling keyboard, easy, pleasing interface, lovely effects and nice looks make this keyboard special. Speakers handy, but here come the flaws....over the speakers the tube vibrates on a couple of notes, making an annoying rattling sound. Sent my first sv-2 back, pmt very helpful about it. Waited over 2 months for replacement to arrive and it has the same problem! Only fix is to wedge something under the tube. There is some kind of occasional erratic note stealing effect with damper pedal on, which spoils the playing experience. It unlikely to be due to polyphony max out. There is not a single acoustic piano I really like on the unit (or in the editor) - all have too much box noise and not enough character. They sound like the mics were placed close, which is not what I want to hear as a player. Elsewhere, it takes ages to turn on and the knobs are not very tactile (they need a lot of rpm to move the values, clickety click). Effects really ought to have one extra dedicated knob or shortcut control. Using the pc editor is a bit 1990s. Not convinced - have to summon a lot of motivation to make patches, and have not been so pleased with the results. A lot of functionality not that interesting (mixing amps and cabinets). At £1600 how about a wireless tablet app and more sounds to choose from?