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Really agree ^ to an extent. I've spent a long time working without any kind of human input device. There are interesting things that can be done that way. Kind of feel like there are two separate paths to programming wisdom. Like just working visually on the grid, you learn about the grid, how structures can work in the grid. Then there is the playing, you learn how your body likes to express musical structures, then there is that third step of fusing the two together. This is the hardest in my estimation, fusing the two frames of thought and expression. Powerful though.

Honestly, my keyboard doesn't get used that much right now. Just looked at it, and realized it is not even usb'ed at the mo. But I love writing melodies on drum pads, makes so much more sense without the topological hierarchy of black and white keys, to me at least. o.@

don't buy hardware start with some software. and if software is to much i think you know what to do from there (p!r@t3 it).

jaydot wrote:Never used a MIDI keyboard in my production life. Can't play the piano anyway lol.

Pressing keys and buttons and twisting knobs is one of the reasons I enjoy production so much tbh


In terms of playing the piano, once you've got a MIDI controller print out a list of the chords w/ what notes are in them and put it somewhere near your desk. Now when you want to play a chord, get a few pieces of blu tac and put small bits on the keys that are in that chord. Easy enough to pick up.

paravrais wrote: If you want to do anything melodic it's a must

no it's not, writing melodic notes is a must in that situation.

paravrais wrote:Plus it keeps you in a musician frame of mind so you're not just arranging stuff on a grid all day.

i think that going on about being in a "musician frame of mind" is bollocks tbh. most musicians never write a piece of music in their lives and just play other peoples stuff, not sure that's the frame of mind i need. programming your notes onto the piano roll, playing them in on the keyboard or even putting them in through a musical score makes little difference to end result. if you're going to make something good it will be good regardless of which of those methods you used.

wub wrote: In terms of playing the piano, once you've got a MIDI controller print out a list of the chords w/ what notes are in them and put it somewhere near your desk. Now when you want to play a chord, get a few pieces of blu tac and put small bits on the keys that are in that chord. Easy enough to pick up.

or say decide which scale your going to use and use a wipeable marker to colour the keys in that scale in.