Affordable keyboards for home recording

[Miles T.F. Baxxter]

I have been looking for a good, affordable keyboard, mostly on eBay (as I don't know where else you can find items at a better price online). Currently I've been looking at the Casio VL-1 VL-Tone and Casio PT-30 models, but they usually go for more than 200 NOK / 16 GBP / 29 USD, which is more or less my spending limit.

Living in Norway, I also need to keep my eye on the shipping costs. Shipping large keyboards from the US can be quite expensive - so I'm mainly looking at smaller keyboards which won't cost too much to ship (and on eBay, I mostly look at those from UK sellers, as that's closer to Norway and hence shipping is cheaper).

Does anyone here have any suggestion on a good, generally affordable keyboard model I should look for? I already have a Casio SA-35, but it's not too impressive; it has different tones (not all of which sound too good) and some basic pre-programmed drums and songs. Any suggestions where I can find affordable keyboards online would be appreciated as well.

I am mainly looking for something that'd be good for lo-fi home recording. I also think I should look for something with a sequencer, though I'm not entirely sure what it is; have I understood it correctly that it's something which allows you to record yourself playing on the keyboard, then you can loop it while you're playing something else (and thus making it easier to be a "one mand band" and make more complex pieces)? Considering the shipping, it should preferably be small in size and light in weight.

Any advice or suggestions would be much appreciated! And if anyone have any they'd like to rid themselves of, feel free to let me know. =)

[Drake Blackpaw]

Miles,

If you are just doing home recording I'd suggest looking at soft synths for generating sounds and just using the keyboard as a midi device.  There are tons of soft synths available, many of them as freeware or shareware.

Going this route, you would need a sequencer that acts as a host for the soft synths.  

A great site for information on sequencers and soft synth technology is KVR Audio.  They have forums on all the stuff, plus reviews and links to download trials or full copies depending on the licensing for the software.

Myself, I use the software Reason from Propellerhead for practically all my synth, percussion and bass sounds in my recording.  I control it using a Korg Minikorg synth to send notes via midi.  Reason has it's own sequencer, but since it cannot record audio I use a program called Tracktion for audio.  If you interested in hearing some samples of what you can do with soft synth stuff, you can listen some of the songs on my site: Drake's Den.  I'd suggest listening to some of the KVR Audio contest entries.

[Miles T.F. Baxxter]

Thank you for the advice! I'm not sure if I know what soft synth really means, though, and when I think of MIDI I usually think of the audio files with the .mid extension. I'll check out your suggestions.

I should have emphasised a bit on size, as that's more or less of the essense if I'm buying anything online from abroad - so I can't buy anything too heavy nor too big.

To give anyone who's willing to give me a paw and have a bit of spare time a better idea of what I'm looking for, I've taken the liberty of making and uploading a few samples. But they're not the be-all, and-all; I could very well be thrilled with a keyboard which sounded differently from those used in the samples. The samples are OGG, roughly 45-30 seconds in length, and roughly 500-300 kbs.

The samples are:

Hefner :: Karen
Taken from the band's detailed discography, talking about this song: "The key board is the classic Casio PT30 a must for any home recordist £3 from any boot fair." Which is why I wanted to get my paws on that model.

The Unicorns :: Ghost Mountain
I think there are also one or two string instruments in here!

James Kochalka Superstar :: I Orbit You
Actually a tune from one of the Super Mario games, I think, with added vocals. Sounds good though!

Hefner :: When The Angels Play Their Drum Machines

Hefner :: Peppermint Taste

[Drake Blackpaw]

Those are certainly some retro synth sounds.  The mario based on sounds exactly like a video game.

Sorry for not being clearer in my first post.  Soft synths is short for software synth.  The whole synth is programmed in software and runs on your computer.  You can control a software synth with any keyboard that has a midi out connection by connecting it to your computer (requires a cheap interface - $20 bucks or so).  When you play a note on your keyboard the keyboard sends the midi data, which contains the note you played plus the velocity (how hard) you played it to the computer and the soft synth plays the note.  A .mid file is actually just a file containing midi data.  Your soundcard has a built in synth set to the GM standard (sound/patch mapping) and when you play a .mid file the soundcard's synth plays the notes in the .mid file.  

 Your current keyboard probably has a midi out so you could control software synths with it.  Since soft synths are essentially computer programs, there isn't much to be shipped.  Many can be downloaded and others just come in your normal software box.  

I know someone has created a soft synth that emulates the sounds used in the old video game machines, which I think he sells for $30 (there may be free ones out there).  There are also soft synths that emulate the old casio, yamaha, roland, moog and juno synths.  Some are free, some can cost a bit of money.  The free ones are usually decent, but the pay ones often do sound better/closer to the original.

I can't help you with actual hardware synths, but here is a site you may want to check out if you are looking for information on older synths you may want to buy: Vintage Synth Explorer.  It provides a review and technical information on many of the older synths along with who used them for recording.  I know there are a couple other sites that also provide reviews and information on older synths, but this is the first one I was able to find.  Some of these sites may have forums as well and can probably give you more advice on finding a keyboard/synth that meets your needs.

I moved to doing everything with software because I can virtually have any synth I ever wanted in software on my laptop. I couldn't afford or even have space to house them in actual hardware.  However, I do understand how nice it is to actually have the real thing beneath your fingers and play with it as I of course need to touch and try any of the older synths I come across in a music store.  '>

[Kattywampus]

General MIDI is your friend!
Soundfonts are endless, and billions are free!  (BTW, I have a few soundfonts based on old video game systems, if you're interested, SkunKat.. =^_~= )

But yeah.. anyway, get you a nice cheap Yamaha Keyboard from the PSR series.  You can get a decent one that uses MIDI in and MIDI out (with a gorgeous set of MIDI voices) for under $200.  The one I use is called the Yamaha DJX (the original) and it even comes with an onboard sampler AND sequencer, although I haven't managed to export anything from the sequencer to GMIDI yet.  (there's gotta be a way)  But anyway.. it's purrfect for learning, as you seem to want to learn basics and stuff.  

I use Anvil Studio www.anvilstudio.com (which is absolutely FREE) to do the majority of my sequencing.  It's what I have learned (and am still learning) to teach myself how to sequence and deal with GMIDI.  You can always change the sounds to be whatever you want.

 Oh yeah, and get a soundcard that ROCKS.  Mine is Creative's SoundBlaster Live! Value card.  It's extremely affordable and rocks my world.  I can give you some samples recorded from mine.

 Pounce! GMIDI file using the DJX strictly as a controller.

Pounce! (MP3) Same exact song only recorded from my soundcard purrformance.  ..well actually, I guess I've added stuff to the end of that MIDI file since I recorded it, but it's still the same song.

Both files sound the same to me due to the sound card I'm using.

. . .and crap, I forgot I don't have a version of that song recorded through the keyboard's voices..   Oh well.. but I guess the point I'm making is, as long as you have a computer, you don't really need a whole lot of crap on a keyboard, especially if you're trying to save money and even more especially if you're not going to be doing public purrformances any time soon.  ...although, extra crap is nice to have.  =^_~=

[Searif]

I got mine from news paper, its a casio CT-636... quite basic nothing to fancy, was about 100 canadian

[CarLOS]

I bought my Yamaha PSR-320 for $600 new. I don't regret it '>

What sound do you want?

For synth strings and voices - go Yamaha.
For awesome piano/brass - go Roland
For ultimate control - go Technics

Bottom line is don't cheap out. Find something you like and look at the price tag later. Most music places will accomodate a starving musician quite amicably '>