I have used a oxygen25 and the oyxgen49 and then steped up to a fully weighted 88 key workstation.
all worked great, my favorite ended up being the 49 for most stuff the 88 more for live stuff.
most the lower cost maudio stuff have plastic keys, and the semi weighted/fully weighted high stuff is wood and plastic
have no idea where the lead based thing came from, i believe they outlawed that stuff long time ago.
Not sure what your producing, but eventually with working with computer music you just might end up playing around with more sounds and genres of music.
so a small keyboard like a
25 works great its small and cheap wont take up much table space great for taping in notes or drum patterns. Eventually when working with multiple sounds or more elaborate sounds, even if your not a piano/keyboard player you will want to use 2 hands or be able to do a split so you can work with more things at once. So a 49 is just about perfect especially for drums or large samplers you simply have more sounds in front of you then having to transpose up and down with a smaller 25 key keyboard.
Also its good to have continuous controllers such as knobs or sliders to do live knob twisting or be able to record knob movements in your daw, so you dont have to program modulation step by step. just kinda do it live then clean it up later. So even if you dont know or use cc controllers its good to have them for later use. or heck when you bored just twist knobs and have fun with synths or effects.
so for just a little more maybe go for the
oyxegen49since it has 16 continuous controllers 8 knobs 8 sliders. otherwise another step up in modulation fun is XY pads and joystick controllers, and if you get real picky semi weighted keys and possible control features like start stop for your daw. things you might not use or think you need but as you progress and learn you wished you invested in more options for a controller. since you can invest 100 to 150 into your first controller then realize to get more function you basically need to spend another 300 to 400 to get there and that first 150 could have gone towards it.
basically maudio controllers are great the only other step up from there is
novations SL MKII controllers. XY finger pads and joystick style modulation and pitch really changes what you can do when experimenting or possible doing live stuff in the future. maybe you dont plan on that now, but computer music can open doors.
as far as speakers, any lacking area such as midrange or treble you can over compensate with EQ in your mix. So what you think sounds great on those speakers you are boosting or cutting in areas that dont need it. So thing will sound bad on other speaker systems. Its really hard to tell sometimes if a system has strange voice. Sometimes its more than obvious. Having deep bass and rumbling subs is nice but not necessary and again can make you mix strangely. Most important is a clear mid range and good treble. Bass response is good to but not excessive boomy sub bass, which alot of low cost home speakers or even fancy computer systems have. Many of them have really great bass but again lack the better mids and tweeters. Wish a had a recommendation for speakers absolutely no way you need to spend 1000 dollars to get a good reference speaker. And yes headphones are ok for late night listening of studio monitor. But not at all good for mix downs. Same reason you over compensate or over cut certain frequencies being so close to the ears, and the actual quality that the headphone is capable of. you might be able to find a good reference speaker at parts express. like a bookshelf speaker from
JBL or
Dayton or a small tower from [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] or [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
never heard any of them, just saying maybe a little research there might yield something.
