Midi Keyboard Recommendation?

[Scott]

Hello: I'm looking for any recommendations for a Midi Keyboard. I just bought and tried the MidiPlus AKM320.  The Keys are too tiny for my hands. So, I'm looking for a controller with full size keys and basic operation. I just need a volume and octave adjustment.  I'm not a real keyboard player. I just use it to layer some keys into my song ideas.

Thanks

[John Vere]

Sure, this is what I’ve been using for almost 30 years. I’m on my second one. The original a P200 from 1987 still works but didn’t have USB and a few features I wanted.
https://www.roland.com/nz/products/a-49/
Roland A49.

I bought it because Roland stuff lasts forever and if you get a bad key they have replacements. I think only Roland, Korg and Yamaha have replacement parts.
I know Akai doesn’t because my 3 year old Synthstation is a door stop now. 

And most importantly it feels good under the fingers. It feels professional not like a cheap kids keyboard.

Bus powered or adapter. USB and 5 pin midi. Small and light. Change octave or pitch in seconds. Can control any midi parameters. 2 controller knobs and a weird eyeball gizmo called the beam. I also prefer the joy stick over mod wheels. 

If all you’re doing is playing parts into Cakewalk it’s perfect. For live it would have been nice to have more control knobs for midi. 

Edited February 9 by John Vere

[Glenn Stanton]

i have several - synth-weight M-Audio Keystation 49 (sits in the "keyboard" draw of my desk), a Komplete Kontrol S49 MkII Pro  (which has a semi-weighted feel) and i use it with the Komplete Kontrol app so i can simply play around switching up my libraries to get ideas.

and my preferred one: Kurzweil 88 stage piano which has properly weighted keys and some nice built-in sounds but mainly it's used for MIDI. like Roland and a few others, it's heavy duty, replaceable parts, as well as highly maintainable. i have an older Roland 88 (weights about 90lb) but many keys are busted up (lent to someone who kind of beat it up), and it really needs a whole new set of keys (~$300), however, to replace them looks pretty easy as they're all on a long rod that they can slide off and back on to. so my son has it as a project 🙂 

a properly sized 61, 76, or 88 key should have sufficient width on the keys (they generally mirror the key sizes on a regular piano), whereas the smaller # of keys then to shrink them all a bit. the MIDI controllers are nice but require something to play with, whereas a keyboard with sounds & MIDI can be useful for quick access for writing (without firing up an audio app). and budget-wise figure $150 on the low end (like the M-Audio) and up to a few thousand $ (like a Nord etc).

[John Maar]

17 hours ago, Glenn Stanton said:

i have several - synth-weight M-Audio Keystation 49 (sits in the "keyboard" draw of my desk), a Komplete Kontrol S49 MkII Pro  (which has a semi-weighted feel) and i use it with the Komplete Kontrol app so i can simply play around switching up my libraries to get ideas.

and my preferred one: Kurzweil 88 stage piano which has properly weighted keys and some nice built-in sounds but mainly it's used for MIDI. like Roland and a few others, it's heavy duty, replaceable parts, as well as highly maintainable. i have an older Roland 88 (weights about 90lb) but many keys are busted up (lent to someone who kind of beat it up), and it really needs a whole new set of keys (~$300), however, to replace them looks pretty easy as they're all on a long rod that they can slide off and back on to. so my son has it as a project 🙂 

a properly sized 61, 76, or 88 key should have sufficient width on the keys (they generally mirror the key sizes on a regular piano), whereas the smaller # of keys then to shrink them all a bit. the MIDI controllers are nice but require something to play with, whereas a keyboard with sounds & MIDI can be useful for quick access for writing (without firing up an audio app). and budget-wise figure $150 on the low end (like the M-Audio) and up to a few thousand $ (like a Nord etc).

I have two NI Komplete Kontrol MIDI keyboards, an S61 MkII and a new S61 Mk3. Both are excellent. The new Mk3 keyboards support Aftertouch. I also like their simpler control layout. I don't use Machine, so I never used those controls on my MkII. They are really well made. One thing with the Mk3s...they are USB-C port powered.  If you only have USB-A ports and use a USB-A to USB-C cable, you need to make sure that your USB-A port is the type designed to supply full power. Mine didn't. Easy to fix. You don't need to buy a USB power supply. One of my spare Samsung fast charge thingamajigs for cell phones worked great!

Edited February 10 by John Maar