Keyboard Recommendations...

[joshuajestelle]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking at purchasing a keyboard (musical, digital piano if you will) and I'm wondering if there's any folks on this forum that have any recommendations.

I'm looking for something with 88-keys, hammer action. I'm looking for something I can just play as a piano, and then also hook up to my Mac and use it with GarageBand and whatever other MIDI apps I hope to use.

I'd like to avoid something too expensive, but I'm willing to pay for quality, so I'd like something fairly nice.

As I've been looking I've been having trouble distinguishing between all the different types of keyboards out there. For example, Roland has digital pianos, stage pianos, keyboards, and workstation keyboards. Other company's have what they call portable keyboards or portable digital pianos.

I kind of like the look of Korg's SP100/200/300 series. They seem fairly simple and a descent price range for me $600-$1000.

So if anyone has any recommendations I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!
Josh

 

[pianoman181]

Hey-
If you're looking for something really versatile, I'd say have a look at the Korg Triton Le 88, It isn't too far out of your pricerange. It has weighted, hammer action keys, and has many nice features. If you are looking for something even better you can get into the Korg Triton 88 and Korg Triton Studio 88. But those are much more expensive and have features you'll probably never use. I'm looking to buy the Le 88 myself, and have used it on many occasions. I would also look at Roland for their midi keyboards, but for an affordable 88 key keyboard, weighted action, and very good midi interface capabilities, I would say Korg is the way to go. hope this helps.

-Ryan

 

[djbeer]

The Triton is more of a synth/secquencer. That may be more that he needs. I was looking at digital pianos but the cheapest one was $700. I ended up buying a Soundlogic SL-990 midi controller. It has hammer weighted keys that really feel like a piano. I plug it into Garageband and use it to play the software instraments. It works great. The keyboard cost me $400 at Guitar Center. Good luck.