I purchased a Crumar Seventeen a couple of weeks ago and I thought I’d share my thoughts on this newest board from Crumar in case anyone else was intrigued.
Background
Why I bought this board: I needed a piano. Straight up. I have other boards that can do many things but I wanted one that would serve mainly as a piano and have some excellent vintage key sounds. This board is for those straight up piano gigs like jazz combo/big band, country, blues/rock shows. In the past I’ve always enjoyed using something cheap, think Casio, that had a decent piano sound but I wouldn’t be fussed if some drunk knocked it off the stage right before baptizing it with beer. Light, easy to use, not to picky with the action, but responsive, decent piano sounds. Say what you will about the piano sound but those boards delivered something a damn sight better than what we had in the 90’s or the 80’s; and all in a cheap, $500, plastic shell, that weighed no more than 25 or 26 pounds. These final details are the reason I have always had at least one board of this nature in my rotation.
Enter the Crumar Seventeen. I look at this as my new grab-n-go gig board. The selling points for me were its improvement over all those old Casios: it was reasonably priced and definitely nicer and in a different league than my old gigging pianos; it had a stepped up exterior with better build quality (its no tank but she’s sturdy); and low and behold she weighs about 26 pounds and as a bonus all you need is a few pounds of legs and she has her own stand. But most of all the sounds are a damn sight better than many of the rom-pler boards of recent years. With a fair amount of flexibility built in to help you dial in each sound.
The action is heavy. I knew this going in and was totally fine with that. I’ve been using a Korg Vox Continental quite frequently for about a year and a half and this was going to be an adjustment. After playing the Seventeen for a few hours each day I warmed up to the action in about 3 days. The more important factor was using some of those editing features to increase the sample volume or change the velocity of a given sample so I didn’t have to mess with changing the touch setting on the keyboard. I’ve always found that the original “Normal” touch setting is the one keyboard manufacturers seem to dial in during the design stages and other settings leave me wanting. I will say this, the keys are sturdy. They give the impression they will last for many years to come.
Those newly recorded piano sounds are excellent. They sound great out of my studio monitors with their flat stereo response and they sound excellent summing to mono out of my QSC K10.2 (which is precisely how I will gig with this board). The D-274 Grand is colorful and really a pleasure to play and the C5 is vibrant and cuts through the mix. The Rhodes Electric Tine sound is lovely. There are multiple adjustments that can be made to help you create the Electric Tine sound you want to hear. Also, a couple of those expansion pianos are pretty cool too. If you like old electric grands those are excellent as well. Clavs are solid and sound great. Honestly there isn’t a sound I am disappointed in because it either sounds great out of the gate or I can punch it up a little to my liking via the editor.
Speaking of adjustments here is the various options, in order as they appear on the screen, that you can change to dial in sounds.
Select Sound (contains all the sounds but starts with the currently selected one); FX1 on/off; FX1 Mode (Mono Trem, Auto Panner, LFO Wha, Auto Wha); FX1 Depth, Speed; FX2 (same) with different Mode (Chorus, Flanger, Phaser1, Phaser2)
Amp Switch on/off; Amp Drive; Amp Model (Twin, AC, JCM, RJC, Bass)
DLY level, time, f. back, type (Mono or Ping-pong); Reverb Level, Decay, Type (Default, Hall 1, Hall 2, Studio, Room, Stadium, Tunnel, Church, Cathedral)
EQ Bass, Treble, Middle, Mid. Freq
EP Type (Default epiano, Mellow Tone, Hard Tine, Wanna-be-dyno, So Dark, Prepared, Sweet, Piano Bass, Wurlish); EP Wood Level, Felt Level, Hammer Tips, Bite-n-Bark, Metallic, Resonances, Pickup Offset, Hi-pass, Pedal Noise
SMP Level, Attack, Release, Filter, Velocity, Piano Resonances, Rel. Level, Pedal Level
Save Preset (Bank/Slot); Import/Export Preset (via USB drive)
Midi Ch Rx/Tx, Ch. Local Off, CC Send/Receive, PC Send/Receive, Soft Thru
Velocity Curve: Lighter, Light, Normal, Hard, Harder
Global Tuning (440Hz); Screen Light Intensity (Dark, Soft, Med, Normal, Bright)
Exp. Install/Uninstall; Free Memory (5.2 GB); Firmware Update; Factory Reset
Most of these have adjustments 0-127 but a few are obviously adjusted in Hz or milliseconds.
Sounds are laid out across 8 banks. Only 6 of which have sounds in them when you buy the board. Banks 7 and 8 can be used for saving your own sounds. Though, you can save a sound to any bank/slot.
I like the look of her and I understand if there is a contingent of folks here who will never much care to be reminded of the crap they hauled around in the 70’s and 80’s. Though compared to a real Rhodes this thing is a streamlined butterfly. The tolex is tastefully done and there were no blemishes or defects of any kind on the board that I bought.
The legs are a bit tricky to get started but I don’t foresee any problems with accidentally stripping the screws. It’s really just a matter of getting them started which, again, takes a minute. Once the legs are on the board feels very sturdy and well supported as I play.
If you are looking for a piano/vintage keyboard (sans organ) this is the one for you. I still do a fair amount of straight up piano/electric piano gigs. So this fits the bill for a nice grab-n-go board for me.
Post script: In a strange way I feel manuals sell keyboards now more than anything else because most local music stores are gone. A good manual will lay out everything the board has to offer and often lay out the basics of dialing in cool sounds or effects you may not have realized it was capable of doing/creating/combining. I’m sure Crumar will make one at some point for this board but I just wanted to put something up for reference in case the above info is of any interest to anyone here.
