looking for a keyboard

M

Messenger46256

New member
I'm a total noob and recording my own music, but not a total noob at piano. I've played for 6 years, but I've barely touched keyboards during those 6 years. Only been playing on uprights, grands, etc... Anyway, I'm really wanting to get into the world of song-writing, doing covers, etc, and I'm looking around for a keyboard to do it on. However, I'm not exactly sure what I need. Other than USB/MIDI, I don't know what specs I should be looking for, etc. Any advice on this? I'm going to start out probably doing simple chord/vocal covers of some of my fave songs, playing by ear a little, etc...
I found a few keyboards locally I can get really cheap, do ANY of these look good?

Casio WK-1630

Yamaha YPT-300

Casio CTK900

Yamaha YPT-320

as for a first mic I was considering an Audio Technica AT2020 USB Condenser mic.

So, are any of those keyboards really good or really bad for what I need? And is this mic decent or am I way off?

Thanks,
The Newbie :-D
 
Are you only going to be recording, or also playing gigs? read the sticky threads at the top of the Newbies section of the forum and the Microphone one about USB mics before buying any equipment.
 
Messenger46256 said:
So, are any of those keyboards really good or really bad for what I need?
Click to expand...

That's a big question, because we don't actually know what you need. See mjbphotos' response above.

However, I went and had a look at each on the web, so I've got some observations:

1 All seem to have just 61 keys. A piano normally has around 88. Is that going to be a limitation?

2 My guess is that they will have touch-sensitive keys, but not weighted keys, like an acoustic piano. Will that be a limitation?

Sound technology has improved vastly over the years, so I expect those keyboards would have pretty good internal sounds.
 
no, no gigs.
i dont' think 61 keys is really going to restrict me. i mean, to an extent, yes, i would prefer a full 88 key board, but i can't afford it nor do i really need it.
no, i have no preference on weighted keys vs. touch sensitive.
going to read those articles now... sorry about the lack of info. so clueless here.
 
The Casio WK series has some pretty good sounds in it, much better than the CTK series and the WK1630 is 76 keys, so you might give up some # of sounds compared to the Yamaha for the advantage of anotehr octave of keys (believe that extra batch of keys is worth it). The Yammies have good sounds, especially piano and strings.

If you shop around for used instruments, you should be able to find real deals on some Casio WKs, like the WK500 (I have one) which has been replaced/upgraded to the WK650 now.
 
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