So I'm mainly a guitar player. I do play piano and have a good stage keyboard (Yamaha YC73). It is however quite large and at the moment doesn't warrant taking out to gigs. I've got a few things on the go where I could take a keyboard along and use it for the odd song here and there. I'm thinking also that in the house, it would be useful to have a keyboard I could just wahck on my desk and hook up to the pc or ipad.
I do have an Ipad and the camera conneciton kit and started downloading a few music making apps/vst's on it.
Is it realistic to use an ipad and a 61 key midi board for gigs? As I mentioned it's not for major keyboarding but something I can use in a few songs.
If so any recommendations on what keyboard to get (don't want to spend oodles of cash so around £250-£300 tops really, although cheaper would better)
Also what good apps are people using on the ipad with midi keyboards? particularly interested in good pianos/organs/ plus synths.
Good DAWS as well? With a good range of instruments would be great.
Comments
or just a silent keyboard (controller) for iPad/daw?
happy to help, I’ve got some experience
Got a Roland Juno DS61 and was blown away by value for the price. Great sounds, favorites, manual controls, light as anything, sample pads which are great for special fx, and a vocoder even. Bit out of budget.. but so much better than adding a silent keyboard to an ipad. Set up and go.
i use Garageband, Auria Pro and a few other Korg synth apps on my iPads with it via midi for recording. At gigs the iPads fo the digital mixer remote now.
Korg have the best synth apps imo. Not cheap if you expand them but top quality. So you may end up spending same as a standalone synth/keyboard. Garageband is pretty packed with good stuff for free and Bandlab is def.worth checking out. App and browser on PC/Mac
That's mostly analog type sounds.
Another option would be the Roland MC-101 Groovebox. Though it's a groovebox you can control it with MIDI like a synth and it's got the Roland Zencore which is the latest synth engine.
Although actually that doesn't make much sense as the sound would need to come out from the ipad? so would need a bluetooth connection or similar I guess..
hmm maybe this is a bad idea.
Yamaha reface
Behringer Deepmind 6
Korg Opsix (I have, love it) and the others in that series, mod wave and something else.
All of these can control via midi too (just check the Refaces) so if you do want to hook up to iPad you can.
Look out for the size of keys (reface is small keys, just fine but you may not want that)
I was using this setup with a £50 midi keyboard for the last 20 gigs or so. I went out and brought a Korg i3 and will be gigging that from now on but have to say, the sounds aren't as good a Mainstage
https://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/music_production/synthesizers/mx_bk_bu/index.html
As much as I love iPads for music-making, relying on one at a gig...? Not sure. But for iPad ROMpling, there's Pure Synth Platinum (£18). IIRC it was designed specifically for the US gospel crowd and is packed with organs, keys, pianos and whatever tones you need for bothering God digitally.
Thanks for all the advice chaps.
I went through similar recently but having the newer ipad with USB C makes it even more difficult because there's no headphone out. You need Midi in and Audio out via a dongle or Audio/Midi interface. Should be fairly simple with the older ipad with camera connection kit, using the phones out for audio.
The YC73 looks ace btw.