Ebay’s a bit rubbish at the moment. I’m looking for at least 61 keys, lots of twiddly knobs, a mod wheel and maybe some pads (dunno what I’m going to do with them but I’m sure I could have fun with a soft synth, like VCV rack).
I was looking at that e-mu 61 key controller. Was going for £30, then 3 seconds in and it shot up to £51, and that still was a good deal compared to other sites. Apart from ebay, is there any other auction places that are good for gear? “Musicial Instrument auctions” have a bunch of hoi polloi fart sniffers selling steinways. I doubt they’d be interested in selling me some plastic digital tat.
Fremen did say 37 wasn’t enough. So I figure when they said “at least 61 keys” they meant it.
Sniping’s a fact of life on eBay. The present high bid often has nothing to do with the final selling price even a minute before bidding closes. You can bid the maximum you’re willing to pay and hope for the best; you might do better by using a sniping app yourself; but unless you get very lucky, the apparent bargains will turn out not to be, and buy it now sales that take offers may be at least as good as auctions. Unfortunately I think on eBay and elsewhere, most people selling instruments think they’ve got the next best thing to a Stradivarius and set their prices accordingly. Patience helps, and a willingness to bid and lose on ten auctions for every one won.
You could split the requirement as there are plenty of cheap 61-88key MIDI keyboards (that may only have a few controls) and MIDI controllers again are cheap and you can pick and choose the mechanics you’re after.
Get two cheap items and stick them together.
I wonder if an organ-style dual-manual approach might give you the most flexible experience. Unless you’re playing really heavily technical Chopin or something your needs can probably be served by a couple of 32-key controllers as long as they have efficient octave switches. There’s no intrinsic advantage to having a single long stretch, that’s just an artifact of piano design.
Reverb is the default for selling music gear anymore, prices are usually a bit more fair for the cheap stuff and a bit bloated for the pricier stuff (You can make a fortune flipping reel to reels on there right now)
Even the 51 doesn’t sound too bad for a 61 key. Less than a pound a key!
Thanks for the reverb link. Been looking at 61 and 88 key controllers. Really not much going at the moment. Reverb seems to be even more expensive! Perhaps not many people are selling their keyboards second hand?
Shame, that e-mu one was a bit scuffed but I feel like I really missed out on a good deal there.
Echoing @Farabide’s suggestion, look for a keyboard and a knobby thing separately. I see a fair number of 88 key electronic pianos going fairly cheap, presumably when kids stop taking piano lessons. I don’t know if you have Craigslist or the equivalent where you are but that’s a place to look. Or pawn shops, but maybe not during a pandemic.
yeah I did get curious about that. I’ve seen people with homebuilt twiddly knob panels just for a microkorg (no idea how that words, or how you say “this potentiometer controls CC 61, this one 74” without some sort of programmable chip) and I think that’s a great idea as I’d love to be able to control both filter cut off, noise level and oscilator shape at the same time.
There’s not many going on ebay or reverb at the moment, but the 88 key midi controllers I saw, nearly all have four twiddly knobs, mod & pitch wheel and some buttons to program the knobs. I imagine the pianos would be even more expensive?