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And I want two things, a pair of decent headphones, and a midi controller keyboard.

Any suggestions? I know it's not a lot for high end shit, but I've only started producing so they dont have to be epic.

I think that's a massive budget. You won't need to spend all of that.

Headphones - Sennheiser HD 25-1 II

Great for production and DJ'ing.

buy an Akai MPK Mini for the keyboard stuff if you want to go portable.

wrong part of the forum bruv, head to production, they should sort you out....

you can get top of the line headphones or imo top of the line keyboard.

youll be hard pressed to find better headphones than the hd650s

and i know its a personal preference thing, but a lot of people will agree that the novation slmk2 is the sickedest keyboard.

AKG 240 = £85
http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/3 ... terling_uk

Leaves you £215 to play around with for the keyboard. how many keys do you want? do you want any knob, sliders, pads, ect?
If you can go a bit over budget you could get a MPK 49 = £299
http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/2 ... terling_uk

If you just want a basic keyboard,have a look at these headphones.
http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/3 ... terling_uk

With a budget like that I'd say go for Beyerdynamic DT150s and with the MIDI keyboard I wouldn't go crazy on controls just because I like having my keyboard and my controls seperate, personal preference.

Novation keyboards are really nice, I uses Sennheiser headphones (Hd 280 pro) too but haven't really used many other headphones to compare them to so can't tell you if they are good or not...seem pretty decent to me.

Firstly, as mentioned above, figure out what you want from your keyboard, then search for one with those parameters.
Then, go to a hardwear reviewing website (somewhere like www.musicradar.com or www.soundonsound.com) where it will be reviewed by professionals who try out different bits of equipment all day long.
Because although I'm sure the people on this forum know their stuff, they will inevitably be in favour of the equipment they have chosen, rather than getting a balanced view of the whole market.

For the keyboard have a look at this thread : http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=172121

If you buy an Oxygen as suggested, you will be left with with ~ 160 GBP which can get you decent headphones :
* Ultrasone PRO 550
* Sennheiser HD 25
* Audio-Technica ATH-A500

samkablaam wrote: and i know its a personal preference thing, but a lot of people will agree that the novation sl mk 1 is the sickest keyboard.

corrected

EDN wrote:Then, go to a hardwear reviewing website (somewhere like http://www.musicradar.com or http://www.soundonsound.com) where it will be reviewed by professionals who try out different bits of equipment all day long.
Because although I'm sure the people on this forum know their stuff, they will inevitably be in favour of the equipment they have chosen, rather than getting a balanced view of the whole market.

That is true, but they don't have to live with the equipment, and only try it for a short period. So they never find out how reliable the equipment is in these reviews. I think when buying anything it's best to do as much research as you can, both user reviews, and professional ones. Then go try be for you buy, if you can.

back2onett wrote:With a budget like that I'd say go for Beyerdynamic DT150s and with the MIDI keyboard I wouldn't go crazy on controls just because I like having my keyboard and my controls seperate, personal preference.

Any reason you like em seperate?

Thanks guys for all the feedback, really helping me.

Are all midi keys / controllers compatable with every DAW?

ComfiStile wrote:

back2onett wrote:With a budget like that I'd say go for Beyerdynamic DT150s and with the MIDI keyboard I wouldn't go crazy on controls just because I like having my keyboard and my controls seperate, personal preference.

Any reason you like em seperate?

Thanks guys for all the feedback, really helping me.

Are all midi keys / controllers compatable with every DAW?

Any DAW what allows midi - yeah!

I like keeping my keyboard and controller separate too - I had one of those all-in-one jobbies and it was a pain in the arse! I like having my gear spread out. Only problem is you need more money and more space.

id probably get some really good headphones and save another hundred quid for a keyboard. shouldnt take too long ...

gravity wrote:id probably get some really good headphones and save another hundred quid for a keyboard. shouldnt take too long ...

This 100%..

300 quid on a pair of headphones is a good investment, if you look after them they will last you years, if not a life time. You can listen to music on them as well as produce on them as well.. A midi keyboard is a .. a year or two down in the line investment when you know for sure you're going to be making music for a long time.

You said you've just started making music, so if you got a 150 quid midi keyboard 8 months from now and you hate making music, its going to seem like a waste!

legend4ry wrote:

gravity wrote:id probably get some really good headphones and save another hundred quid for a keyboard. shouldnt take too long ...

This 100%..

300 quid on a pair of headphones is a good investment, if you look after them they will last you years, if not a life time. You can listen to music on them as well as produce on them as well.. A midi keyboard is a .. a year or two down in the line investment when you know for sure you're going to be making music for a long time.

You said you've just started making music, so if you got a 150 quid midi keyboard 8 months from now and you hate making music, its going to seem like a waste!

Yea, only started producing it. But I've been playing and recording guitar for years, music 'creation' has always been, and hopefully always will be a part of my life. How friggin cheesy haha. But I think I'm in for the long run ^^

ComfiStile wrote:

back2onett wrote:With a budget like that I'd say go for Beyerdynamic DT150s and with the MIDI keyboard I wouldn't go crazy on controls just because I like having my keyboard and my controls seperate, personal preference.

Any reason you like em seperate?

Thanks guys for all the feedback, really helping me.

Are all midi keys / controllers compatable with every DAW?

Mainly because the controls that come with keyboard are pretty cheap and (imo) aren't worth paying extra before, when it's a seperate unit it's generally better quality because it's being sold soley as a control unit, the ones on keyboards (low end of course) are basically just gimmicks. The same goes for the quality of the keyboard, for keyboards I'm looking at semi-weighted keys, after touch, sensitivity that kind of stuff, I wouldn't want to compromise any of those things just to get a few gimmicky controls with it. Also if anything goes wrong with your all-in-one your basically fucked.

Then again I think that anything over £100 that doesn't have either a fuck load of knobs/sliders/buttons (40+) or motorised fader/s is a waste of money and will not add much to your production setup. For controllers I'd either go for the very low end and get an absolute steal (I got M-Audio MIDI mixer 12 knobs, 4 sliders + x-fader and 10 buttons for £40 in a sale) or focus on getting a few quality well built controls (looking at the presonus/alpha track atm for a single motorised fader + a few transport controls) but then there's the Behringer BCF2000 which while it's a still a bargain is a bit more expensive than most low end controllers but not sturdy enough to compete with higher-up controllers (I still want one just because it's got 8 motorised faders)