My first post-college job was at a credit union, and I immediately took advantage of the low loan interest rates to buy a Kurzweil K1000 SE II keyboard. The thing was built like a tank - 55 pounds of metal and sturdy plastic - and served me well for years and years. Even though music technology left many of its patches sounding weak and dated, it remained a spectacular MIDI input device, with nicely weighted, velocity-sensitive keys; channel aftertouch; pitch/modulation/expression controllers and more.

But after a storm knocked out our power this past week, it refused to boot up. Diagnostic tests failed on the memory, timer, UART and other essential things. Time for a new keyboard, alas.

I settled on an M-Audio Axiom 61 MIDI controller. Without an onboard sound module, it's much less expensive than a real synthesizer or sampler, so there's that. It's also got a better response curve on velocity and aftertouch, a number of assignable sliders, knobs and buttons, velocity-sensitive trigger pads, and weighs about a fifth of the K1000.

On the downside, the K1000 had 76 keys, so I'm still getting used to having fewer of them (I especially miss the eight at the bottom). The feel is also different; the keys are weighted differently, and the aftertouch response is vastly dissimilar.

The K1000's aftertouch didn't provide you with any real tactile feedback; you pressed the key all the way down, and the harder you pressed against the key after it stopped moving, the more aftertouch you got. But with the Axiom 61, the key continues to move, albeit with more resistance, to provide you with an idea of how much aftertouch you're generating. To me, this feels like the keys are mushy or bendy, which will take a little getting used to.

The other weird thing is that the Axiom's keys feel closer together, and more cramped than the K1000's. Yet according to my dial calipers, they're exactly the same width, and exactly the same spacing.

Perhaps one day I can resurrect the K1000. I hate to toss it on the trash heap, since it served me so well for so long.