If not why not .. :: My keyboard has arrived

My keyboard has arrived

2009-06-24 6:13 pm 9 Comments

While looking at Video's of various DJ's and most importantly contollerists, I realized that I could really benefit from improving by DJ skills if I would know how to play the piano. Not only would this provide me with a better theoretical basis, it would help me get a better ear for key's, improve my sense of rythm and also my finger timing and accuracy. I remembered that GarageBand comes with free learning video's. I checked them out and thought that this indeed could help me along the first steps. However using the free iTouchmidi app with only a single octave woud obviously not suffice. So I brought my idea to DJTT who quickly made me realize that I should not start on a small 49 key or less keyboard. After hunting on the web for a good keyboard, ideally used, with 61 or 88 fully weighted keys I ended up going with the M-Audio Keystation Pro 88.

It has 88 keys as the name implies and features fully weighted hammer action keys, plenty of butons, knobs and faders as well. Next to a fairly big display it also works as a fully USB powered MIDI controller! It got fairly good reviews, with the two main drawbacks being that its not so super sturdy and that the keys while feeling quite good have the same resistance on all keys, which is apparently not the case on a real piano. For now I do not intend to travel around with the keyboard, so lack of sturdyness isn't such a big deal. I am currently not anticipating playing on a real piano or even trying to become an amazing pianist, though I do want to get to the level where I can play a few songs if I end up at a party with a piano. So I can accept that there are soem differences to a real piano. Again the focus is to train theory with a practical application, rythm, my ear, finger timing and accuracy. For this the Pro 88 will do me good I am sure.

It also comes with a license for Ableton Live 6 Lite, which thankfully can be upgraded for free to Ableton Live 7 Lite. After finding out that Traktor and Ableton do not play that well together via the MIDI clock, I have dropped Ableton for now. But I do see it as being something interesting to play around with down the road, though as a DJing app I have the big issue of the lack of AAC support. Anyways if I do decide to play with Ableton, I now have a license to get started or to at least get the full current version at a reduced rate. Until then I have my work cut out for me in trying to learn the piano and still messing around with Traktor.

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Duo

Hey let me know how it goes! I've been wanting to do the same. Well the piano part minus the DJ :). I didn't know you DJ'ed!

2009-06-30 6:14 pm

DJ Suicide Dive

Its going quite well. I am now at lesson 3 in GarageBand. I am trying to do at least 2x 15min of practice per day. If possible I try to do 4x. I keep the lessons short because its still quite and adjustment for my hand and arms and I do not want to risk injury (which is actually not uncommon for starting pianists).

2009-06-30 8:04 pm

Matthias

Nice keyboard. And so cheap.. But did I understand it right that it's only a controller. No sounds on board? I prefer using a "workstation" (yamaha motif xs 8 at home) but I'm not a DJ. :-)

88 keys is definately better if you want to use it as piano. I played about 10 years on a 61 key keyboard and it's really no fun because there is always at least one key missing..

I'm looking forward to hearing your first song! ;-)

2009-07-02 9:53 am

DJ Suicide Dive

Yeah, its only a controller. I have it hooked up to my spare Macbook. I might eventually get another mixer with a real audio interface. Then I can mix stuff together with my MBP. And of course I can also hook it up directly to my MBP.

Anyways, I just finished the first lesson where I have to play with two hands. Took some mental adjustment and optimization of my finger control, but now its starting to feel natural. I am quite excited :)

2009-07-02 10:13 am

KeyOfGrey

Congrats on the keyboard purchase! M-Audio makes some good stuff...I'm glad you decided to go with the larger sized keyboard. It's nice not to be limited (and also to not have to press another button to get into another octave) by a limited amount of keys. Can you read music? Because if you can, I'd suggest picking up some sheet music of a song you like. That will give you incentive to learn it all the way through. I find that a lot of people who start learning by playing scales or music they don't like, don't stick with it.

2009-07-26 8:59 am

DJ Suicide Dive

Yeah, I can read music. After all I had 4 years of violin lessons when I was a kid. Need to get fluent in recognizing what the actual note is though. In that respect I really like the GarageBand lessons. It combines some music theory, note reading with learning an actual song with a band. That being said, none of the songs I learned all the way up to lesson 7 were the kind that you could play on your own at a party or something. Anyways 2 more free lessons to go. After that I will probably try out buying one of the song lessons and also buying some sheet music.

2009-07-26 9:19 am

Pathan K.

Hi, "DJ Suicide Dive,"
It's interesting that you said "...injury (which is actually not uncommon for starting pianists)".
I guess, you must have seen few cases yourself.
I am a pianist and a teacher, and some among my colleagues, in both groups, keep telling me that these health problems do not concern beginners. And they give me two reasons: (1) they can't see them in their students, (2) there is no convincing research on this topic.
And that's all bad. I believe that we, teachers, owe our students special care, that we should read the "writing on the wall," that we shouldn't be waiting until someone else tells us there's something wrong with our historic teaching procedure. Will it change?

2009-07-29 7:28 am

DJ Suicide Dive

Well I just felt I should be cautious and not over-strain myself. So far I think things have gone well with my approach as I think that doing many yet small sessions is more helpful than doing few long sessions not only prevents injury but also helps me learn faster.

2009-07-29 7:37 am

Pathan K.

From what I know, you might be doing everything "by the book" and get affected; this is what we learned when these disorders came to surface. Your taking it in small doses can be helpful (although I have met people who complained of unpleasant sensations in their hands after just a couple of lessons). So be careful.

2009-07-29 4:39 pm