[Pablo Crucelli]

Howdy.

Do you guys know of any decent stage pianos around the £300 mark? Or should I be looking at a lot more for a good quality, good sounding one? Also synths - what are good basic ones, and how much am I looking at for them?

Cheers guys,

In His Grip,
Paul.

[Indie Levi]

Well, I'm only speaking from experience, but here's my take:

You need to first decide the size of keyboard you want (66, 76, or 88 key). This really depends on your style and the kind of music you are playing.
You then need to decide if you want waited or unweighted keys. The weighted boards are substantially more expensive and usually only come in the 76 to 88 key range.
As far as the best two brands of boards are concearned, go with either Roland or Korg. Roland is the better of the two and a bit more user friendly, but that comes at a higher price.
Sorry, but I don't know how pounds translate into dollars, but in the $300 range, Casio makes a decent sounding board for about that much. Go on the Casio website and browse around a bit. You might also look on the Korg page, but I think the cheapest model worth buying there goes for about $800-900.

Ultimatley, you don't want to go too cheap on a board, or you will just be frustrating yourself later. It's better to save a bit more and get something you will not want to replace right away. My suggestion is to go and play on a few and see how you like the feel and especially the sound. I'm a BIG Roland fan and for $2000, you can get one of the best boards on the market. Well, I hope that helped a little.

God bless.

[bread man]

£300 is probably more like $500 US, maybe even a little more.

For basic synths - the Alesis Micron and the microkorg seem to be the standard models. I've only played them in stores but from my experience, the microkorg was a lot more user-friendly.

Of course, you could always download some free soft synths and use a midi controller.