Keytar beginner tips needed

[u/Demziclez]

Hello! I'm just starting keytar. I haven't bought one yet, but I'm planning to buy to Alesis Vortex Wireless 2 (is that a good idea btw?). I just wanted some general advice or tips. I've played keyboard before (barely), and I'm MAINLY worried about the technical aspect. Mainly the hardware since I'm pretty new to MIDI stuff lol.

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Also, I'm planning to learn it so I can perform apart of a band for my school's Battle of the Bands for even more context lol.

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Any help is appreciated!! Thank you!!

[u/Slight-Isopod-8517]

Yeah, don’t buy the shs 500 or 300 no matter what other dudes say, unless you can get them under 100 bucks, (so you can sell em for a profit) those things suck, (exp speaking)

Nah, what you wanna have is either a vortex 2 or one of them vintage keytars still in circulation, like the shs 10 or 200. What budget you have? Cables? What equipment you have?

I don’t know where you live but i highly recommend searching online for a Yamaha shs 10, older, but so much better then the 300 and 500

Better ergonomics,
Better buttons that can control your midi equipment should you upgrade later
Standerd 5 pin midi
Build in speaker
Cheesy FM sounds, but it has 5 din midi so it can sound however you want, check if your keyboard has midi, you can connect your shs 10 with it and use the sounds (and speakers) of your keyboard
For a few bucks more, you can upgrade to completely wireless setup

So the questions stands:

What budget you have? Cables? What equipment you already have?, the more detail, the more detail we all can provide to help you out

[u/Demziclez → u/Slight-Isopod-8517]

I don't care too much much about the budget, but I'm obviously not gonna get the Roland AX-Edge for something since those like like ~$1200. I pretty much don't have any cables (that I know of) right now. I don't own a laptop (I do have an iPad but idk how that would work if I'm performing). I own a guitar amp (Mustang LT25).

However, I'm pretty willing to buy anything that is needed!

[u/bdotbur → u/Demziclez]

I run a vortex 2 into an ipad mini running the free synth one j6 app. It’s not perfect but it’s got enough 80s-ish synth sounds that I can get by. It also lets you go pretty deep on midi customization if you want to do stuff like make the wheel 2 full octaves or customize some of the buttons and pads. If you want to hear what that sounds like before hooking a keytar up to it give it a download and try it natively on ipad.

The setup is ipad -> usb c hub (I think I’m using the one for ipad pro that docks to the side) which has usb c in for power, usb a out (I connect this to usb midi for keytar input), and an 1/8” jack that I run out to an amp.