Comments on: Best Cheap MIDI Keyboards For Music Production (2023)

By: Chib Ofred

Chib Ofred — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 19:48:25 +0000

I’m seemingly lost in the jungles of too many tracks in getting the right musical instruments that do the job better than others. I observed playing just the acoustic guitar, performing my songs, rehearsing them over time, enables me arrange bass lines, improving percussion, string and brass sessions with my mouth.

I’m setting up small home studio, bought Scarlett 2i2 studio package, hopefully to upgrade my laptop with budget midi keyboard and monitors, treat my room. My headaches has been ever-changing technology in sounds production each day. Millions of amateur musicians worldwide like me struggling to get one big hit. The truth is too many instructions and directives on how to, aggravating my plight and temptations to buy this and that on offers.
Email me to assist spend saved funds for upgrade, and if you’ve tutorial likewise.

By: ASJ

ASJ — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 07:44:18 +0000

In reply to Nine. More than 49 keys is overkill if you can't play piano IMO, and articulations are stuff for actual piano players, not for people who press one key to trigger an arpeggiator on a monosynth (like I do)

By: Tomislav Zlatic

Tomislav Zlatic — Mon, 29 May 2023 10:37:55 +0000

In reply to Darryl Lim. Cool! I'd really love to know how you like the Midiplus. I'm using the Arturia Keystep as my MIDI keybord right now because it's so portable, but I'd love to have a few MIDI CC knobs on it.

By: Darryl Lim

Darryl Lim — Sun, 28 May 2023 18:12:35 +0000

In reply to Tomislav Zlatic. I was looking for a cheap & portable midi keyboard this week, my M-Audio Keystation 61es (FROM 2006, WOW) was too big to keep moving around my limited room & desk space. In my local Asian Malaysian market, i settled upon the MIDIPLUS x3 as the best option for my criteria. More features than the similarly-priced Korg MicroKey2 37, for DAW control, & their pitch & mod wheels have been replaced with touch strips, that also have LED-level-indicators beside each strip (awesome idea, haven't yet seen this design on any other budget touch-strip controllers). Mine will probably arrive in a week or two, & i'll report back on how i find it.

By: Nine

Nine — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 21:10:02 +0000

Strongly recommend that people consider 61 keys the smallest size they should get, unless you need to put it in a backpack. 61 keys allows you the option of playing piano, on top of everything smaller keyboards offer. 25 keys/2 octaves won’t work with a lot of instrument plugins that have articulation options a few octaves down on the left side. Arturia and Native Instruments are good options.

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 13:34:27 +0000

In reply to Tomislav Zlatic. They were great. I love how easlly they've implemented audio interface in ozonic series. You got complete audio system out of a box.

By: Bruno de Souza Lino

Bruno de Souza Lino — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 11:17:59 +0000

In reply to Numanoid. "Reasonably priced" and "cheap" don't mean the same thing.

By: T

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 15:39:35 +0000

Big fan of the Arturia MiniLab Mk2 and the KeyLab88 Mk2. The MiniLab is perfect for a backpack grab-and-go setup. I can take it, a pair of Genelec 8010a monitors, a bus powered Steinberg UR44C and my MBP out anywhere that has power and get a lot of stuff done. All with one backpack and one little bag for the monitors. Pretty amazing. I use the KeyLab88 Mk2 as my main keyboard/controller in my home studio and I absolutely love it. The key bed feels right (I compared it to several other makes/models before buying), the integration with all of my DAWs and the Arturia plugin synths is excellent, and there’s enough faders, switches, and knobs (plus the transport section) to access most of the important stuff in plugins or when mixing. It is fairly heavy but is really well made and it has been a good investment. Highly recommended.

By: Shreepad M Gandhi

Shreepad M Gandhi — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 04:27:32 +0000

In reply to Pavlova.

To start with I used Casio CTK2400, 61-key for my MIDI requirements…
Recently, bought my first controller Arturia’s minilab3…the only shortcoming being 25 keys…at least 37 key instrument is recommended…
Minilab3 is good no doubt but the number of keys does function as a bottleneck.

By: Sando

Sando — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 06:24:32 +0000

As a piano player I’d strongly recommend Studiologic SL88 Studio, which is missing in this list.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 11:39:40 +0000

I have a Korg Microkey-61 which has been dropped quite a few times and still is a reliable, solid piece of gear after many years.
Came bundled with some nice virtual instruments including Korg’s Legacy collection.
A purchase I do not regret.

By: TImmey

TImmey — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 10:29:07 +0000

Can’t recommend the MPK Mini Series,as the build quality is bad. I have a Mini mk2 here with a broken G-Key.The case is bent over time as the material is thin and the Mini mk3 looks like it is using the same case. Search the Internet for “mpk mini broken keys”. There are no chance to get spare parts as Akai itself says “this is a throwaway device,we don’t offer spare parts”.

One Device i miss here is the “Studiologic SL73/88 Studio”. It has an excellent 88-key weighted hammer action Fatar Keybed (the same as in the NI Komplete Kontrol/Arturia Keylab 88), absolutely no “nonsense” keys besides Pitch/mod/x-y and the price is around 380-400€.