What (music) keyboard should I buy?

DustyBottoms

Howdy all.

I may be in the market for a keyboard. My new job has me teaching beginning piano and though I took piano classes in college, I need to be able to practice so I can brush up on my skills.

I don't know much about electronic pianos/keyboards, but I do know there is no way in hell I could deal with a real upright right now. Since I'm based on classical piano (and play on a pretty nice electric piano at school) I do know I'd prefer weighted keys. I also would like to be able to use it with MIDI someday, though I have no intention of doing that just yet. It just seems like something I should have access to.

Other than that I have no idea what I want or need. I know as far as brands that Korg or Triton are good but those are generally more high-end sequencers from what I know. I'm not concerned with crazy accurate sound as I will be using this almost exclusively for practice. I just need something that fits (so probably not a full 88 key keyboard) in my relatively small space.

Less than $200 is my budget, probably closer to $150. Like I said, this is not my area of expertise at all. I'm a string player, not a pianist. I'm sure I could pick out something acceptable using what little I know, but I figure you will all give good advice too. Thanks!

Noisymunk

With those parameters, you're going to be pretty limited in what's available. I'm not a keyboard player either, I'm a drummer, but I know my way around instrument and electronic shopping.

I did a little searching on Sweetwater and Musicians Friend, and it seems like your best option would be this little guy here:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/keyboards-midi/yamaha-np11-61-key-entry-level-piaggero-ultra-portable-digital-piano

Alternatively, if you want more bells and whistles, you could go with this:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PSRE233/

Now, these are both new. If you want to go used, your options could get much wider. With the economy and jobs down, music instruments are always one of the first things to get liquidated. However, you're buying electronic instruments from ebay and craigslist, and you never really know what you're going to get.

Edit: Neither of those are weighted. I really wish the search engine on both those sites was more granular, so I could sort out weighted vs. touch sensitive keyboards.

Now I'm not sure if you can find a weighted keyboard for under 200 new, might have to go used.

DustyBottoms

What exactly is the difference between weighted and touch sensitive?

Noisymunk

DustyBottoms wrote:

What exactly is the difference between weighted and touch sensitive?

Weighted is going to feel more like a real piano, touch sensitive is the opposite.

Raern

It's hard to say what kind of practice you want to get out of the instrument. But generally to get better at playing pianos, you want a digital piano instead of a keyboard. The key difference being that the digital piano has weighted action. Pun fully intended. You may spend $200 on something with springy plastic keys and no foot pedal only to find it's not helping your piano technique very much and you need to find another solution. So just be careful about knowing what you need to practice and whether the keyboard can cope.

Personally I'd struggle to practice on anything below this, which is an example of a digital piano with simulated hammer action keys:
http://www.amazon.com/Korg-SP170-Digital-Piano-White/dp/B002VO0V0C

If you can't afford the cost and/or the space then maybe some combination of a cheaper keyboard and spending a bit of extra time on the piano you'll be teaching on will suffice.
In that case just make sure you have velocity sensitive keys on the keyboard, old, cheap keyboards that don't respond to velocity will do nothing to teach you fine control.

EggyToast

Since you're concerned about the feel and size, I'd strongly suggest going to a music store and playing with their digital pianos. Ignore keyboards -- they usually have crappy keys and the ones that don't are, like you mentioned, Korg Tritons with tons of bells and whistles and are not geared specifically for people using them to learn to play piano.

If you go to a Sam Ash or Guitar Center or other music store, in the electronic section they almost all have a digital piano area. You can see the retail prices, feel the keys, check the sizes, and listen to the samples. Not all digital pianos use the sample sample set, so some may have a great feel but sound crappy, while others will feel just OK but sound spectacular.

Almost all digital pianos have MIDI out, and I'd be surprised if more aren't sporting some USB connections nowadays.

But get out and play with some, jot down some model numbers you like, and then go online to compare prices. Amazon, MusiciansFriend, Sweetwater, Zzounds, all have different prices for different products, and don't ignore shipping costs.

MrDelish

Noisymunk wrote:

DustyBottoms wrote:

What exactly is the difference between weighted and touch sensitive?

Weighted is going to feel more like a real piano, touch sensitive is the opposite.

Just to clarify, weighted is piano-like; they keys have weight to them and are pressure-sensitive (sound is louder the harder you press the key). Touch sensitive I think is just pressure sensitivity. Is this correct?

Raern

MrDelish wrote:

Noisymunk wrote:

DustyBottoms wrote:

What exactly is the difference between weighted and touch sensitive?

Weighted is going to feel more like a real piano, touch sensitive is the opposite.

Just to clarify, weighted is piano-like; they keys have weight to them and are pressure-sensitive (sound is louder the harder you press the key). Touch sensitive I think is just pressure sensitivity. Is this correct?

Yes, pretty much as you mean it. If a keyboard has weighted keys it'll almost certainly advertise it clearly.

Having said that pressure and speed are different. 'Touch sensitive' means the keyboard responds to striking the key at different speeds. 'Pressure sensitive' more accurately refers to an advanced feature of some equipment called Aftertouch that allows you to press a key then maintain or increase pressure to make the note change somehow... something a real piano can't do.