What's the best MIDI keyboard for a beginner?
 

What's the best MIDI keyboard for a beginner?

m-audio keystation 49

it doesn't seem they sell it anymore if you go to their site, what about the Keystation 61es? or keyrig 49? how are these keyboards

I would say go for that. the number 61 indicates the number of keys, so our basically being given an additional octave on top of the 49.

If you plan on using this midi keyboard for playing real piano sounds and/or entire pieces of music involving piano, I would recommend getting the M-audio with 88 keys. Otherwise you will be frustrated trying to play an entire song with half of the octaves not present. If you are just looking to make funky sounds to record with and won't need the entire span of a real piano... then 49 - 61 keys will be fine.

88s are just so damn expensive.. what's the cheapest 88 out there?

$177.99 @ J&R music seems to be the cheapest I see. CLICK HERE.

this is the one I own... works great for what I do. It's very basic and you will only be able to produce sounds with it by utilizing whatever software you are working with. The keyboard itself has no sound bank.

I have an axiom 25... Of course this is just for reason, and xpand and anything else really, but mainly for funky sounds as stated b4. I'm not piano buff.

About 150 american, and you get the mod wheel and pitch bend along with soem other goodies. Its plug and play for pro tools but I cant say the same for the keystation 49. I actually had one and took it back because well honestly it kinda felt cheap and looked it as well.
I know the 88 is way better but I had no need for it, 400 is a good bit of cash.

I don't even have a dedicated midi controller. But I can use my hardware synth as a midi controller by simply hooking up a midi cable in the out port.

ebay
You really don't need a new midi until you've ****ed around with an old one and reached it's full potential.