Best keyboard $300 or under?

[Ibrow]

Oh sure, now you tell me. LOL! I went with the above mentioned wk3000. It has 76 keys and a mod wheel. The ebay deal I got was the keyboard, stand and power supply for $260 shipped. Not bad really. I will look into the 1010 you recommended, as the onboard sounds, I am sure, will be, as put earlier, "cheese". LOL! I can always re-sell the thing on ebay for about the same amount I am sure. I look at it as "renting" until I find out if I have more needs or not.

Thanks for the reply!

 

[MISTERQCUE]

No one has suggested this!! Why not get a cheap keyboard with midi out and touch sensitivity, 100 bucks or so, and then spend $175 on Ebay for a Roland JV-1010 module? This would be your best situation. $285 or so for everything. When you are just recording midi to sonar, you wouldn't even need to use the JV, or record the JV sounds right to Sonar. Later, you spend another hundred on the drums &bass expansion card for the 1010, and you will have around 1300 great sounds, some of the best bass and drums, and lots of options for recording. I bought a Midi Master usb midi controller keyboard by Teratec. It also has a normal midi out as well to control my JV-1010, or to use USB straight to the computer. It is a killer little midi controller, and I got it for a hundred bucks on Ebay. brand new. I see the 1010 on Ebay for $175 all the trime, and I got mine for $175 on Ebay. I just ordered the drum and bass card yesterday. For $175, this would be your best bet.

Jeff

I agree somewhat in what homeboy above has stated!
For simplistic needs, a JV1010 will afford you a decent amount of patches that may adequately suit your basic needs, but be forewarned; the 1010 utilizes patches straight out of the '80's especially it's synths. i have both the 1010 & the XP30 with the XP30 obviously providing me patches that are more suitable somewhat for what's heard today.
The 1010's effect & patch parameters can be tweaked for taste with multi-layering of different patches within the unit during tracking will often provide unique and satisfactory results. However, be prepared to perform som freq'y adjmts. Most patches are heavy in the upper mids( a 2-3 db cut will ordinarily suffice) and instrumentation that borders on the hi's(flutes,trumpets,arpeggiators, strings,arps) will require some hi-end filtering to control inherent noise artifacts.

 

[Mountaineer]

MisterQ, dude! The wife made any delicious margaritas lately?
You're right ... the old modules require a lot of tweaking just to get them to sound presentable. I sold an old SC-8850 I hardly touched anymore just to finance my softsynths and sample library purchases ... got rid of some wires too and I haven't looked back.

Midi wavetable synthesis is dead, IMHO. Midi triggered and velocity layered samples, however, sound very realistic. The more you pay, the better they get ... in general. But do your homework.

Regards,
Mountaineer
( formerly PAPicker!)

 

[Sangram]

I picked up the DGX-300 for myself last week and I really like some of the sounds it somes with. The strings are usable with some effects, I think, and the organ sounds can also be used. I'm not so sure about the Piano sounds, though, or the bass - the latter are unusable on the internal speakers, which pump and distort bass. It also has a pitch wheel and 76 keys - for a first keyboard it's pretty good. I paid a lot for it thoug, more than twice what you paid for the Casio (the industry here is into profiteering, and no ebay)....

I need it for the exact same reason that you do - adding strings and synth to my music (I play guitar), along with drums and bass (I can't use Frooty Loops or Reason as drum machines, I prefer banging the notes out on the keyboard, and partly because I don't have copies of the software - the demos don't impress me).

I also considered the PSR series, the 172, 272 and 290. I liked the sound of the 272 better than the 290, and the DGX won out because it was 6 octaves, had the wheel, and looked a little more impressive. Since I'm not going to buy any more keyboards (unless something goes wrong with this) I figured to buy the best I could afford and run with that...