Do I need a keyboard with all the bells and whistles?

[bachman]

I am a classical pianist, interested in electronic music production and djing.
I will be buying a keyboard that I primarily need for practicing piano. Accordingly, all I require is for it to have good weighted keys/action (88 keys)along with a few different sounds (piano, harpsichord, organ). Nothing fancy.

I have seen some peoples home studio's with PIMPED out keyboards. And thus my question: is it necessary to have a keyboard with a wide range of synths, sounds, knobs, buttons, levers, etc... for an initial setup??? (I make chillout, minimal, and tech house music). Would I be fine with a simple digital piano with USB out?

Thanks,

[UKRuss]

Bells and whistles are mainly for tarnce.

USB out is fine, then you can access all the sounds you need via softsynths using it as a midi controller.

[McQ714]

hehe.. he said pianist!!!

doesn't quite work when you actually have to spell it out...

[3dot...]

you got bells and whistles samples in the Live Library...

[3dot...]

[3dot...]

I have seen some peoples home studio's with PIMPED out keyboards. And thus my question: is it necessary to have a keyboard with a wide range of synths, sounds, knobs, buttons, levers, etc... for an initial setup??? (I make chillout, minimal, and tech house music). Would I be fine with a simple digital piano with USB out?

Thanks,

if you have a good weighted keyboard that has midi out your good...
you'd probly want to control your 'mixer' and fx with something as well...
especially if you're gonna dj
maybe you'd want one of these..
http://www.novationmusic.com/products/m ... o_sl_mk_ii

I recommend it because I think it's the easiest way to control Live out of the box..pre mapped...
it has a mixer section and a device control section...and it's easy to get around with... could easily be fitted on top of a keyboard..
(and could be much deeper ..if you need to later)

[taoyoyo]

If you don't have any other midi controllers the b&w keyboards might be worth checking out.

I have an M-Audio 88es (you might consider that as a fairly inexpensive sans-b&w keyboard) at the moment but it takes up too much room.

Seems like almost all of the controller keyboards out there right now either have a flight deck on them or the keys are really poor.

[bachman]

thanks for the tips,

The M-Audio is nice, but I need something more robust - have my eye on this: http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/van/m ... 97701.html

For a controller I was thinking of buying the APC-40.

[funky shit]

hehe.. he said pianist!!!

doesn't quite work when you actually have to spell it out...

got me

[3dot...]

APC would do..

[Akshara]

+1 on the APC40 and the Clavinova, or something similar. Best of both worlds.

[taoyoyo]

thanks for the tips,

The M-Audio is nice, but I need something more robust - have my eye on this: http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/van/m ... 97701.html

For a controller I was thinking of buying the APC-40.

That's not a pairing you see very often!

If you've got the room and the cash, I'd go for it... the APC is recommended heavily (along with NativeKontrol's apC patches which allow you to use a lot less mouse and a lot more APC buttons within Live)

[bosonHavoc]

that clav doesn't look very portable

i never met a piano player that wasn't picky about the sound and feel of the keyboard..

i would recommended getting something like a Yamaha p series stage pianos,
the roland RD-700 or 300, or something to your liking that is comparable.

no midi controllers that i have seen even compare to a stage piano
then of course their is the sound.. a good piano sample library is going to hog up allot of system resources and hard drive space..
plus after buying a good sample library and dummy keyboard you could have bought a stage piano.

[infiniteB]

Yamaha Motif - Stevie Wonder uses, Steve Windwood, many Classical Pianists... wonderful (the best) hardware sequencer anywhere, hands down. Wonderful sounds.... The greats use it for a reason, not for show, not for useless bells and whistles... just my 3 cents...