Advice on Controller Keyboard

dean2371

I'm just getting into computer recording and fancy a midi keyboard to record some chord and arpeggio based backing tracks. I'm a complete novice at computer recording but can play the piano a bit. Any recommendations on a basic and cheap (sub-£100) keyboard? I used to have both a Moog and a Roland synthesiser in the 80s and fancy reliving that experience (or most of it), so suggestions for software plug-ins also welcome.

Pointers to on-line or written resources would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

kin

I bought a Roland A49 seems pretty good to me but I am very inexperienced in this area.

It worked with very little messing straight out of the box and feels nice to play.

spark240

Used Novation Impulse or Nektar, both decent and affordable.

Sarge

The Novation semi weighted boards are nice, usually with plenty of controllers, knobs, faders and xy touchpads etc, I have an early Remote 25 (25 key} board and its a breeze to use with patches for loads of vsti plugins.

Sporky

Sorry to spam a bit, but I have an M-Audio Keystation 49e (ie 49 keys) in the Classifieds that has served me well for some years.

ChrisRG

I was in exactly the same position as you before Xmas and I got bought an M-Audio Keystation 49.  It's well under £100, has 49 full size keys and seems to do the basics.  I'm not a keyboard player and just wanted it to play in chords, drums etc.  The keys aren't weighted but I doubt you'd get that for under a ton.

I did have an M-Audio mini key controller (25 or 32 key) before this thinking that it would be fine but the keys were simply too small and there weren't enough of them to anything more than simple chords.

The Keystation 49 seems to be big enough to use properly yet small enough to tuck away down the side of my desk when I don't need it.

Drew_TNBD

Sporky said:

Sorry to spam a bit, but I have an M-Audio Keystation 49e (ie 49 keys) in the Classifieds that has served me well for some years.

Grab this. Nice little workhorse.

Snap

Software - a good place to start is to get a copy of Computer Music and install their free software. Its all good enough, and they have some neat synths too, which will get you well on the way to analogue synth nirvana!

Their V Collection has the lot in there, and right now its on offer for $199, RRP is $399. Their MiniV is the emulation of the Minimoog and it is v good.

xtedmanzie

kin said:

I bought a Roland A49 seems pretty good to me but I am very inexperienced in this area.

It worked with very little messing straight out of the box and feels nice to play.

+1

Great midi controller, simple, nice build and works great. Some others are way too complicated and over-spec'd!

randomhandclaps

Drew_fx said:

Sporky said:

Sorry to spam a bit, but I have an M-Audio Keystation 49e (ie 49 keys) in the Classifieds that has served me well for some years.

Grab this. Nice little workhorse.

I've tried loads and for what it is the M-Audio is very hard to beat.

Alternately if you can track one down and intend to use a lot of virtual instrument then the EMU Xboard range is the absolute best around.  By best I don't mean expensive either, they use to be quite cheap but people are catching on and they are no longer made.  I have two and an M-Audio for back up.