Hi i am a beginner and not a professional, i was wondering what would be the best keyboard to buy to attach to a mac within the price range £80 -£170. I am looking for something that is not to basic and i will not get bored of to quick.

Thanks

i use aq Yamaha Portable Grand DGX-305. but it may be out of your price range as mine cost around £300. it may be good as a second keyboard though.

Uh…

Piano or not?
Number of keys?
with some controllers thrown in?

second hand synth heaven... i got a jx3p for 180 quid lots of analogue to play with and midi but no velocity, well, one velocity! you could get any number of roland digital synths for the money you're talking about, a D50, D550, an old ensoniq, there are too many to mention really and you're prob in the wrong dicussion group anyway for synths...there are a lot of websites that discuss or list different type, synthzone, vintagesynth, synthmuseum, sonicstate the list goes on and on. You could try ebay but let the buyer beware!

Not sure! Something that is good and i wont need to replace to quick. I am looking at some of recommedations above. I was looking at the one on the apple site are they any good or all hype!?

I just need pointed in the right direction cos as you have guess i aint got a clue!!

@ ourmanflinty: well, I've got a JX3P, too, and I luckily found a replacement chip that provides velocity via MIDI - fantastic modulation possibilities! Try to find one somewhere!

beingmf...that's great!...any other details about who produced it or where from or what size eprom or anything really? How much did you pay for it. Merry Xmas ho ho ho

If you are a complete beginner, I'd suggest one of those dinky two octave (25 keys) keyboards from M-Audio like the Ozone. This will give enough keys to play with one hand and it also has a headphone socket and a couple of inputs (1/4" TRS and XLR - These are types of leads that connect guitars/microphones to other devices like speakers/mixing desks/amps).

I'd also suggest you start with something simple and not too fiddly. Garage Band will be fun but you will find it limiting if you want to sound professional.

If you're into Dance orientated music or Hip Hop, You can't go wrong with Propellorheads "Reason 2.5". With a little tweaking and a few days of head scratching you will get some massive sounds out of this bit of software.

So- You need a keyboard to get the notes into the MAC and a software program (sequencer) to record them.

A lot of music shops do a Reason/Midi keyboard bundle for around £250. Worth paying a little extra.

Thanks B3! i have used reason a couple of times it is so cool but quite hard to use,but fun!!

It was using reason that got me back into music!

Thanks for the advice!