Looking for a decent Keyboard

Firewalker

Firewalker

Silver Knight of the Realm
86
40
Hey guys, I'm in the market for a decent electronic piano. Trying to get some input if anyone here has any to give me, I have about $500 that I want to put down on one. I've only had about a year of piano lessons but I pick up most instruments pretty quickly and I really want to try to get into the keys. Looking for something I can use for a while and maybe play in a band. Hopefully something with some extra utility as far as maybe laying down tracks and then playing over them. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.
 
Alex

Alex

Still a Music Elitist
14,503
7,424
$500 can get you a mid-range synth. Are you looking for something with internal speakers or do you have an amp? Most higher quality keyboards will require some sort of external audio device. If something with internal speakers is what you're looking for, I'd go for a Yamaha DGX. The possibilities expand greatly if you start looking at keyboards that require external speakers.
 
Firewalker

Firewalker

Silver Knight of the Realm
86
40
I wouldn't mind getting one that required an external amp. The aim is to eventually play it with a few of my friends in a band so I'm sure an amp would be needed to compete with the sound anyways. That DGX does look nice though.
 
Alex

Alex

Still a Music Elitist
14,503
7,424
I used to gig with a DGX. Nothing wrong with them at all. They still have the 1/4" outputs. I eventually upgraded to a Yamaha MM6. There are a lot of synths in the $500-ish ballpark of solid quality. The Yamaha MM6 is great because it contains a subset of the Yamaha MOTIF workstation samples - which are very high quality. The pianos and organs are very good.
 
Dr.Retarded

Dr.Retarded

<Silver Donator>
8,281
21,447
You could look for a used Kurzweil. Their samples, especially the pianos, are all professional grade, and the keys have really nice action. Probably find a K2000 for around that much, maybe even a K2500 (just might not be a full 88 keys). I've had my K2600XS since 2001, and don't think I'll ever get rid of her.
 
S

Seventh

Golden Squire
892
15
I'd go with this. They sound fantastic, and are only around $600.


Your other option (what I have) is a weighted MIDI controller and any of the myriad of piano sims. I have EZKeys (decent) and 4Front TruePianos (awesome), and neither were that expensive. For a controller, I have an Axiom 61:

Amazon.com : M-Audio AXIOM 61 Advanced 61-Key Semi-Weighted USB MIDI Controller 9900-51413-10 : Musical Instruments

And while I'm a shitty piano player, my actual-pianist buddies think pretty highly of it. The nice part of going MIDI is that you can use "real" piano samples, or go nuts with something like Kore/Kontakt and do all of the insane synth shit that the high end Kurz's pull off.
 
S

Seventh

Golden Squire
892
15
This is TruePianos, it's $180 but (again, IMO of course) one of the best sounding piano sims out there, and a steal at that price.


Edit: Whoops, missed the part where you said you wanted to jam with buddies, so I suppose that wouldn't work, heh.
 
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