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what kind of cheap keyboard would you recommend?

That part of is definitely poor advice, although prices are lower these days.

Get something with at least 61 full sized and weighted keys. None of those light weight organ type keys, they need to feel more like piano keys. Polyphonic - able to play at least 8 notes simultaneously.

That would be the bare minimum IMHO. Getting the full 88 keys will probable ensure the rest but maybe not in some cases.

This for certain. The piano is way more fun to play with weighted keys and much more expressive. I bought my first weighted key piano, a Roland FP-30, this year and have been playing almost every day just for the fun of it.

> Polyphonic - able to play at least 8 notes simultaneously.

Don't you kind of have to go out of your way these days to _not_ get something polyphonic?

Polyphony on keyboards is less about physically playing multiple keys at once, but having the sound of multiple keys audible as they decay. Even the cheapest keyboard will let you play many notes at once; those that will actually sound a large number of keys after you've hit them are pricier.

Yeah, but they still exist and you'd be surprised at some of the models with this deficiency.

> Get something with at least 61 full sized and weighted keys.

As someone who plays a musical instrument as a hobby, getting an el cheapo toy seems a good first step to me.

You get to see whether you actually enjoy playing and it lets you become familiar with the practice schedule. When you start to feel limited by your tool, you advance to a proper one.

Otherwise you risk buying expensive gear and letting it collect dust 2 months later.

Some low price keyboards are so bad that they might not properly convey the fun of piano because of their limited function and make you think you don't like it. You've gotta make sure that what you buy gives you an accurate picture of what it is like to play a quality instrument because a crappy instrument is not fun.

For example I bought a $200 keyboard once because I thought it would lighten my load as a gigging pianist. Nice and light, 88 keys, built in speaker. Much better than lugging around my thousands of dollars of pro gear. But when I got it, it didn't have weighted keys, ok not fun but I can deal with that, but then it didn't have velocity sensitivity... Every note was just on/off. This was a deal breaker, it is strait up not fun to play a piano like that. I mean it's in the name Piano/Forte the instrument that can play loud and soft.

I forgot to call out velocity sensitive. It's a must but I thought it's almost a given today but its not.

I got a Cassio CPS-85 over 20 years ago. It was $900 bare minimum for me at the time and I still think the weight of the keys is a bit light. Still, that was my minimum and it still is though something like that should be cheaper today.

You can start with pressure sensitive, not weighted. Much less expensive.

I would recommend a casio S300, should cost about 135$. Has touch sensitivity, and about 400 built in sound bank, ear phone jack, light and easy to carry/store as well.

I'd scrounge craigslist and ebay for a lightly used Yamaha, Kawai or Roland digital piano. $300-400 should get you something that is next to brand new. People do a lot of impulse buying find out that it is hard work and then get rid of them again.

I bought a weighted Yamaha Arius e-piano (YDP-163) about 3 years ago and am very happy with it! (Cost was around 1000$ I think, but there are also cheaper models.)

I had a very cheap children's keyboard with non-weighted keys before. It was totally frustrating to play on that. Weighted keys made a world of a difference!

I would say no cheaper than $500 from Roland, Yamaha, or Casio.

He says "el cheapo keyboard", but the search term would be "MIDI keyboard controller"

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