It’s now been almost 3 months since I packed up all my gear and left San Francisco. Since then my entire studio has been placed in custom wooden boxes, stuffed in a container, placed on a ship, crossed the atlantic and is now sitting in a harbor somewhere along the Swedish coast.

I knew I would be away from my gear for a long time which is why I put together my portable little setup (more here), but I did not foresee how much I would miss having access to my modular and my keyboards.

I packed an LPK25 but I just don’t gel with it, also the build quality is poor and the thing is already starting to fail on me. To replace it I’ve been fiddling with the laptop keyboard and the built in Analog Four keys, but It’s going to be at least another 45 days before my studio is back up, and as a result I’ve started to long for a good key bed.

I’m really tempted to grab one of the new, interesting ‘mini-synths’ like a BassStation 2, a MiniBrute or an MS-20 Mini, and with Arturia announcing the MicroBrute the availability of portable, analog, mono synths have never been better! While not the cheapest option it would add a lot of extra value over a Midi controller.

On the other had I’m also curious about the new KeyLab series from Arturia. While dependent on a computer to run the KeyLab software, the quality of the Arturia emulations are just killer.

What’s your portable keyboard solution? Computer and MIDI controller or an actual synth?