Please help me choose a (MIDI?) keyboard for my intel iMac

[TastyCakes]

Hi there. I looked over the stickys and haven't really found info that helps me. I am looking to procure a midi keyboard for my new intel imac. Since Im a noob I want something fairly versatile and a good entry level keyboard at a decent price. I was looking at the MAudio 49e. Anyone use this and love it? With this could you (I'm not sure of the term) record a certain sound and make that sound a different pitch on the keyboard? Like if you took the sound of an explosion then spread it across the keyboard so the lowest key would be the explosion very low pitched and the highest the same explosion very high pitched. Also, do any keyboards like this come pre-programmed with those cheesy casio beats a la Wesley Willis (RIP!)?

If that keyboard isn't really reccommended then what would you reccommend? Any help is appreciated. Thanks

 

[zimv20]

With this could you (I'm not sure of the term) record a certain sound and make that sound a different pitch on the keyboard?

i'm not certain i'm understanding your exact phrasing, but i'm going to say "no". apologies if i misunderstood.

that m-audio keyboard, like all midi controllers, doesn't actually pass or process sound. they send out control information, like "note on", "note off", and "volume change", so that another device (which actually does process sound) can manipulate the sound to your commands.

when you're talking about recording a sound and processing it so that different keys play that sound at different pitches, that's called sampling. you need a sampler to do that, which you can get as either a standalone hardware piece or as a software app or plugin.

once you do that, then you can use the m-audio keyboard to play back those sounds.

 

[TastyCakes]

So what would you suggest? I have an old Dr. Sample somewheres SP-202 but I don't know if that would do the trick. Would it be better then to get an app to sample the sound and have that feed it to the controller? If so what is a good app for that and that works well with that or another controller. I would most likely use Garageband to record if that makes any difference.

 

[zimv20]

Would it be better then to get an app to sample the sound and have that feed it to the controller?

please understand that communication is one way: from the controller to the other devices.

regarding which sampler product to get, i'm not really the right person to ask. i have two hardware samplers, but i haven't used them in quite a while. there are (iirc) 2 software samplers built into Reason, but that does you no good unless you want to run Reason.

i reckon someone else here will be able to chime in.