Keyboard newbie, looking for help

[OTG]

Hello all, nice forums you have here.

When I was a kid I took piano lessons for about 7 years. Needless to say, I quit soon after the beginning of my teen years.

Anyway, I've been dying to start playing again. Any time I go to someone's house who has a piano I just love playing every song I can possibly remember from back then. So, since fitting a piano in my room is out of the question, I've been contemplating getting a keyboard. Problem is is I have no idea even where to start.

What are some good brands? I don't need anything too fancy but I also don't want to buy a piece of poo either. I'd probably be willing to spend anywhere between $500 and $700 (MAYBE $800). Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[elwoodblues1969]

The Alesis QS8.2

The Alesis QS8.2 leaps to mind,as I think it's a fantastic starter keyboard & very nice quality for the price-which makes it an exceptional value.

It has something like 640 sound presets with 48kHz sound quality(better than cd quality),a nice assortment of 24 bit digital effects,very decent quality acoustic programs & synth sounds with some sound shaping capabilities.
It is a 88 key,weighted keyboard and it goes for $699 at Sweetwater.com -which is the lowest price I have found for this board.

It's original retail value was $1499 and the price came down considerably,due to it having been released in 2001,& also because the release of the Fusion brought the down price also.

The only real drawback to this keyboard,is that it comes from the factory with just 16MB of sound samples-which is considerably low in comparison to other keyboards for under a grand that typically have anywhere from 25,to 64MB of ROM samples-of which is also a contributing factor to it's very cheap price currently.

However though,you get what you pay for & at it's current price,I think it's a pretty fair deal and I just may grab one for myself.