Midi and keyboards

Does anyone use any midi keyboards and such?

I'm looking at buying a cheap older midi controller and wanted it so i can add some additional sounds to some recordings I'm working on such as strings, horns and maybe evey some vintage synth and organs.

There are a lot free vst programs on the interwebs and figured it would work fine but I just wanted to know if anyone else had an opinion.

Thanks all

It sounds like the program you need is "Edirol Orchestral" The midi in that is so much better than half the midi sounds I've ever found before.

It does cost, but there's loads of torrents for it, too.

I've got the Casio WK-3000. I think it's been discontinued now and replaced by another model, but it is an awesome keyboard though. Has loads of DSP effects, all of which can be customised and saved on to the keyboard's memory. You can edit other tones (cutoff frequency, resonance, attack, etc) and save them to memory. I think you can download a program from Casio's website that allows you to create a tone from scratcb using different waveforms and then download them to the keyboard. I've never done this though because I haven't got round to getting the right cables! It cost me £300 ($600) about 5 years ago, there's one going on ebay for ~$160.

The one I'm looking at are 2nd had and much cheaper. I found 2 diffrent midi controllers for $50.

http://www.yamaha.com/yamahavgn/CDA/ContentDetail/ModelSeriesDetail/0,,CNTID%25253D1311%252526CTID%25253D208300%252526CNTYP%25253DPRODUCT,00.html

and

http://keyboards-midi.musiciansfriend.com/product/MAudio-Keystation-49e-USB-MIDI-Controller-Keyboard?sku=703605

but i also ran across this for $100

http://www.synthmania.com/esq-1.htm

Either of the $50 midi controllers will do what i need to do but the Ensoniq ESQ-1 is a real analog syth workstation but I'm not sure how well it will do the midi controlling and such.

I think I'll take a look at the Yamaha one tomorrow or friday

I use simple roland PC-180 A, which does its job. Also i think that maudio stuff is good, I have M-audio delta soundcard that ive been very pleased of it.

In vst-stuff, high-end audiocard is must for little latency.
B4 hammond is one of the best organs Ive seen and for strings and horns edirol is good like jazzy said.

also, you can use that B4 as an effect to your guitar track, which give darn groovy stuff...