PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic looking for advice on a keyboard

time to get a midi keyboard.

Confused about what way to go, i.e. midi keyboard controller no sounds, or Roland , Yamaha and get extra benefits like styles ,patches etc.

Any input as to what others have done would be great.

Was looking at the Roland bk3 anyone have/know anything about this one or any good similar boards. ?

I have no idea what your music taste/goals are or what level of song writing/recording your are trying to achieve.

My personal take...knowing what I know now and all the options available I would just go with a simple midi keyboard controller without all the onboard sounds or midi sequences.
IE: Roland A-49 Keyboard Controller - Black

For the patches/sounds I would buy modules (flat black boxes) that cater to the kind of music I want to play or record.
IE: although dated, I have and still use the:
Roland JV-30 (1994 - as a controller only - all sound oscillators died some time ago)
Roland MBD-1
Roland MVS-1
Proteus FX
(These can be gotten used pretty cheap.)

Or....forget the modules, save real estate and just buy the VST programs of your choice....there's likely hundreds to audition and choose from.

I would not steer anyone to a pricey keyboard workstation with all the built-in patches/bell/whistles unless you're rolling in buckaroos.
If you are actually a gigging musician then these suggestions may not be applicable.

But....that's just me.
Hope that helps.

Do some research....choice is yours...good luck.

Are you a mod wheel pitch bend wheel person or a joystick person? This matters more than brand. Why? Because you can't buy a Roland with mod and pitch bend wheels and you can't buy most other brands with joysticks.

The big problem with joysticks are that you can't control the modulation and leave it in a certain position. This severely limits half of the usefulness of a joystick, and in my opinion it's why even Korg offers the wheels now.

You left Casio off the list, but their offerings nowadays often run circles around the other brands for price/performance.

Remember that if you buy a controller with no sounds, you have a controller with no sounds. If you buy an actual synth, you can use it as a controller with the volume off so you don't play the onboard sounds. That way you have both your controller and a synth. I have a practice keyboard that I use in my downstairs where I have a "secondary" music area so if I get an idea I can pop it into a DAW down there rather than hike up those steps and power everything up for just 10 minutes to plunk down a skeleton of a song. Hit some pawn shops! Now I suggest strongly against the "toy level" things that Yamaha makes with the little speakers onboard. They are usually not all that durable and the sounds on them are tinny and cheap.

Thanks guys for the advice,

I already have a Roland sonic cell, I do use this in gm. mode.

And was looking to add a keyboard so I could use the patches.

I'm not a fluent keyboard player, I get by on chording and thought I could be using it too add a wee bit more character to my tracks.

If I am going to spend about 400.00 gbp, That's when I thought midi keyboard no sounds or keyboard wi
th sounds.

Ill keep looking and researching.

I'd also say get something with speakers and built in sounds. As Eddie pointed out, you can always turn the volume down.

My advice would be to get at least a 61 key synth. Midi out can be either midi port or USB. And weighted or unweighted keys depends on you. I prefer the weighted keys because I was a piano player and piano's have weighted keys. Also you might wish to consider touch sensitive keys. The harder you press, the louder the initial note, again, just like a real piano.

And yes, the Casio brand has come a very long way from the cheap sounding stuff they were known for years ago.

I have a Yamaha DX-27S and something from radio shack that was given to me. The DX-27 is my standard piano here.... non weighted, non touch sensitive. Go figure.

Hi

This is such a difficult Question as has been said much depends on you reasons for
Wanting it.

If you buy a full keyboard with on board voices you can use this as a midi module for BIAB all keyboards of this type will have a set of basic GM midi voices + a whole other host of panel and extended voice banks however to access the later in BIAB you will need a PAT file or a Sona instrument def file to convert..
This way you get a sound module and a keyboard.
Have a look at the YAMAHA DGX range these have a full set of XGlite Voices and a full size 88 note piano

Personally I have a YAMAHA CVP 405 in polished mahogany but it’s the size of a baby Grand piano BIAB is great played through this using its voices and using the full key bed for playing.

But for every day use I use a NOVATION IMPULSE 61 Controller keyboard via an AKAI IEpro interface to my laptop then use various VSI /DXI etc in BIAB
Just some thoughts
Mike

The Graphite 49 (49 key) is terrific. Great action on the keys with plenty of programmable buttons and keys. It was worth absolutely everything I paid for it. The size is good enough to play pretty much any individual instrument parts you want to program in and it makes for a decent control surface. 2 years still going strong!

I did order the m-audio Oxygen 49 , I sent it back too flimsy.

Keys spongy terrible feel , I did think for the price it would have been better.

That's when I thought a decent loaded keyboard, with decent keys better feel, solid structure as long as it had midi in/out.

And sounds would be a plus and being able to use it on GM Mode etc.

And now I had to raise a bit more cash to get as best I can keyboard synth.

I just felt that I was being short changed as such with the keyboard being just a controller.

Thanks great response .

P.S. Now going to check out The Graphite 49 and YAMAHA DGX range.

As far as I can tell, you have not said if you own Band-In-A Box.

If "chording" is the extent of "a bit more character", then you need to investigate and understand what BIAB can do for you... let a stable of the top musicians in the world "add character" FOR you. The money that you are considering spending on a keyboard could get you WAY more if you buy and learn to use BIAB RealTracks...

If you spend the time it will take you to figure out that keyboard learning to use BIAB RealTracks instead, you could be on your way to creating incredible recording... instead of trying to figure out how you will make that keyboard give you anything worthwhile...

I had the same issue with a silver generation Oxygen 49. Terrible key feel.

Floyd I have biab 2017 everything pak and all add ons that I know of

I just never really took to the real tracks I don't know what it is, I find them a bit too busy in the sound department.

so I bought a sound module and now I hear a better potential in the midi side of things especially when I add real drums and maybe an acoustic strum guitar real track.

I honestly don't know what it is I use sonar artist as my daw and I have spent a good bit of money on plug ins etc this past year.

If you had the Everything pak and aren't using the RealTracks, you really ought to spend some time investigating them.

There are plenty of RealTracks that are not as busy. Try some of the Held versions...

Perhaps you could add a link to one of your songs to give us an idea of what you do... or a link to a song in a style that you are trying to create - perhaps someone here could suggest some RealTracks to use...

Or - it might be that some of the new Loops would fit the bill for you - there are now 1000s in BIAB...

your right Floyd I don't think I gave them enough time or effort,you have given me food for thought.

Im going to go back and do a little more on them I don't even know what held is.?

I do believe it is me as I hear you guys doing all the stuff you do and I got round to thinking, maybe its because I have the compressed files.

Thought about upgrading again to the wav ones but as someone already said on here you cannot d/load this and delivery custom is another 40.00 + gbp.

What's that banging noise!!, Just me banging my head against a brick wall

The "compressed" version - as you call it - is no different than the "wav" version - for your purposes. Upgrading will not change things for you at this point, so get past that thinking. Everything I do is using the "compressed" version.

point taken Floyd been at it all night reading the manual as I go.

I have opened real band out of curiosity when I got biab, now I've been on it all night.

I now see were my downfall started, generate tracks etc.

This is a great programme the more I delve into it , the more I understand why you guys rave about it.

To be honest opened it first time and thought , a wee toy daw.

Now it does more than any daw because its a follow up to biab where you take it a bit further, been reading older posts about things in the forum

I will hang on to the money I was ready to spend on the keyboard a bit longer , I think it may be going elsewhere .

TA FOR THE WAKE UP CALL.

If you want to seriously develop keyboard skills, and it sounds like you are not necessarily a classically trained piano player - then you have some questions to ask yourself.

1. Do you want to become a better piano player through practice and exercise?

2. Do you think that you will supplement BIAB through your own soloing on keyboard and using either a built-in to the keyboard sound source or external hardware based sound source, or with a software based instrument? (Based on your response immediately above, I am thinkng that the answer to this question is "No" at least for now.

3. Do you think you will ever gig in a band as a keyboard player? If so, what style do you see yourself playing; classic rock or country, gospel, modern rock, progressive rock, R&B, etc.

4. How is your back? (related question to #3)

All of these questions should guide your choice of keyboard.

Answer to question #1 immediately divides the field of choices significantly. If your answer is 'yes' to question 1, then do not consider any non-weighted keyboards. Period. It's my opinion, and held by many others, that you cannot improve true piano playing skills with unweighted keys if that is your only keyboard you have to practice on. This also somewhat determines the number of octaves you should be choosing. I would not buy anything less than a 76 note keyboard if the answer is yes to question 1.

If the answer to question #1 is "No", then the field of choices is much wider, including weighted keys, but many more choices with unweighted keys and fewer octaves. For some styles, weighted keys are a detriment. For example, playing classic rock and R&B organ; it's better to have unweighted keys for that (my opinion - some do just fine with this, but I can't). I'm actually playing a real Hammond these days (M3 with speaker defeated going into a Leslie amp/cabinet simulator). I also believe synth soloing or even simulated acoustic instrument soloing is better achieved on a non-weighted keyboard (with mod and pitch bend wheels in my case), because that's what I've done for the past 30+ years. In this case, 49+ key keyboards work well, and going to fewer numbers of keys starts to force you into a single-handed technique. For synth soloing, this can actually be just fine if you have handy octave +/- buttons for the free hand. This is one area where the Oxygen 49 layout was pretty great for the left hand; mod and pitch bend wheels at the ready as well as octave +/- buttons right there in perfect position for it. (Here's an image of the silver edition Oxygen 49 where you can see the octave buttons right above the mod and pitch bend wheels https://www.google.com/search?q=oxygen+49&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiGzqa1u7PUAhVJ8IMKHQ87BWIQ_AUIDCgD&biw=1440&bih=765#imgrc=KpSsy7ULZBZWQM:)

Here's a track I did several years ago using the M-Audio Oxygen 49 with only freeware VSTi. At about 4:40 into the track, I'm making very extensive use of the mod wheel (for the filter settings) and the octave +/- buttons to dance across the octaves, and the pitch bend wheel for nuanced wiggle on the solo line. There is a glitch that occurred right at the beginning of the song related to either .mp3 encoding or placement into Soundcloud.
https://soundcloud.com/rockstar_not/rockstarnot-ambishot-2-1

Answer to question #2 seems like you are already answering this.

Question #3; specific to organ. Here's a track where I contributed s some classic rock organ, with an unweighted keyboard and the GSi VB3 plugin. The slides on this song and how fast they were done (I played this live to the track) would have been almost impossible with a weighted keyboard.
https://soundcloud.com/rockstar_not/hitched-collab-jeff-desantis-w-scott-lake

4. Try to get a lightweight keyboard if you are gigging.