Midi v.s. Synth/Keyboard

[thewaadrap]

yo future producers,

ive got a question. ive been making beats for a long ass time on fruity loops. i have been making beats now for 2 years with nothing more than what comes with the pirated version of fruity loops. with this in mind its time for me to change my ghetto ways and upgrade my shit.

i plan on purchasing a new midi or synth here in a week and i have a few questions related to which one i should purchase. also keep in mind that i will be getting reason and my budget is $200-$400 maybe $500 for the midi or synth.

1. which (midi vs. synth) has the best sounds and if so which one? if you could explain to me also how you get sounds if they dont come with the hardware that would be cool for example a midi.
2. i want a drum pad (the buttons you push to make drum sounds) this is mandatory unless i can get one for relatively inexpensive on its own.
3. im going to be making hip hop (mobb deep style) beats

any other info you want to provide is welcome
peace

[krushing]

I think you need to get your basic concepts straightened out before anything else. There's no such thing as "a MIDI" - MIDI is a communication protocol used by various pieces of gear to send commands to each other. Saying "I'm getting a MIDI" is like saying "I'm getting an USB", so it just doesn't make any sense. MIDI doesn't have anything to do with the actual sound - the commands are usually something along the lines of "play this note, for this long" or "change this parameter to that". Essentially when you're drawing in notes in FL, they're MIDI commands that tell whatever the sound source is to do something - but by themselves they don't sound like anything.

What you're looking for here is a MIDI controller, the most usual form of which is a keyboard. They don't have sounds, they just trigger other stuff, be it a software synth in FL (for example) or a hardware piece. And then you have actual synthesizers, which do create sound on their own, but confusingly enough can also act as controllers for other stuff.

With that kind of a budget, I'd probably be looking at controller keyboards, possibly something with built-in drum pads (although these tend to be, well not so great compared to pure pad controllers), as you're not going to get anything that great in the hardware synth department with $500 - or well, you can, but it depends on what kind of sounds you're looking for.

[CPhoenix]

Yeah, if you want hardware synth sounds... the cheapest is to get a sound module and a midi controller. You could grab a Roland JV1010 module for probably $100-$200 bucks, maybe less if you find a good deal. Great little unit. I believe Alesis also makes a small unit that packs a punch w/ bread and butter sounds.

The better/easier buy would probably be software though. You'll need an audio interface w/ the hardware sounds. Software is easier and isn't behind when ti comes to qualit. It's just as good, if not better quality.