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90s Era MIDI keyboards for PC Market

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First post, by Lazer42

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I'm looking to get a MIDI keyboard of the style common for PC use in the 90s. Hopefully you know the style: white/gray, usually relatively small 32<x<61 keys, etc. Unfortunately I am having trouble identifying or remembering models to look for. The only one I have really come across so far is the Reveal MusicStar, but I feel like there were many others. I think Roland had one, for instance, though Roland had a lot of stuff back then and I'm not so much looking for one of their more professional/enthusiast level products.

I also came across the Creative Prodikeys, an idea so simultaneously dumb and cool that I love it - but unfortunately it looks like I wouldn't be able to get it working under WIndows 3.1, which I'd want to.

Any suggestions/help jogging my memory are appreciated.

Reply 1 of 5, by dionb

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Take a look at M-Audio's Keystation series.

I bought one for my son, who decided to be interested in making retro MIDI music for all of about two days. The M-Audio Keystation 49e is suitably silvery grey, has USB but also traditional MIDI DIN connectors, so can be used with Win3.1 with a suitable interface card.

Oh, and I have a Prodikeys DM. It's not just dumb, it's awful - combining the worst rubber dome crap keyboard Creative stuck their name on with a ditto music keyboard. Took it out of the box exactly once...

Reply 3 of 5, by kdr

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Lazer42 wrote on 2023-06-13, 14:57:

I'm looking to get a MIDI keyboard of the style common for PC use in the 90s. Hopefully you know the style: white/gray, usually relatively small 32<x<61 keys, etc.

I have a Quickshot "MIDI Composer" keyboard, it's from the mid-90s and has 49 keys with both MIDI and 15-pin gameport connectors. It's a pure MIDI input device, no sound generator on board. Pretty much nails the "90s PC perihperal" vibe IMHO!

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Reply 4 of 5, by AppleSauce

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I've got a Roland SK50IV ,
I should practice more on it though 😆
as an added bonus it comes with a built in sc50 inside or you can just mute it and use it as a regular midi controller.

downside is its not super small , so might be a bit unwieldy.

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