I REALLY liked the DX7. I think I'll have to lower my budget to $300.00, again, I'm broke. I don't even know how to play the piano, buying a cheap MIDI controller seems like a less regretable choice. Also, I might not even be able to find a DX7 here, not even a second hand.
2nd hand DX7 prices on eBay seem to float around the $300 mark, so you might just get lucky. That said, the DX7 is a FM (Frequency Modulation) synth, which is a completely different synthesis method than the regular subtractive (the Minimoog, for example) method; it's notoriously unintuitive at first, and the 80s interface of push-buttons and a small screen don't do anything to make it any easier. In other words, it's a very tricky synth to begin with - unless, of course, you're fine with just using presets (of which there are plenty).
To be honest, buying a MIDI controller seems more discouraging, I don't even know what software to get, and from what I've heard the sound quality is really bad compared to a synth. I might be totally wrong. This local store has a 32-key M-AUDIO midi controller at $125.00, should I avoid this? I'm going to the store tomorrow just to test stuff, I'm not buying anything straight away.
Well, you can't really say that "software quality" is worse than "hardware quality". There are great software synths, and there are shitty hardware synths, and vice versa. Granted, real analog synths still tend to sound better than software synths emulating them, but it's rarely the case that software quality would be "really bad" (although with the hundreds of plugins on offer, there undoubtedly are some that are). Also, often with free/cheap software synths the preset quality can be anything - often a great programmer might not be a great sound designer. As any true synthesist will say: "don't judge a synth by its presets". Regarding the M-Audio stuff - they tend to feel pretty cheap. Don't really like them myself, but it's not to say you can't work with 'em. I know it's a bit less of an instant gratification with a controller, but at least you get to try all kinds of synths and decide what kind of stuff you actually like.
I care more about quality, but if there's a small quality gap between a cheap MIDI controller and an expensive synth then I rather buy a MIDI controller.
I wish there was an easy answer for this...but at this point, I'd just go with a controller. When you've gathered some experience & a solid footing in the world of synthesis, you'll also have a more solid basis on what to look for in a hardware synth. Of course, as said before, you can use pretty much any synth as a controller as well - so you still could go for a DX7
and use it to control those software synths. Although regarding the DX7 it has to be mentioned that the original MkI model has a "bug" in its MIDI implementation, so it only sends velocity values 0-100 out of the full range of 127, which somewhat limits its usefulness as a controller (the newer DX7II fixes this), but this is a very specific bug regarding this one model of this specific synth, which I wouldn't even mention if we weren't talking about this particular synth. Not really aware of other similar issues with other synths.
Also, can I just plug a synth into my audio interface? Got
a Focusrite Saffire 6.
Yeah, that'll work just fine. I'm actually using
the Saffire Pro 40 (which is basically the same thing but bigger) & have all my hardware synths running straight into it.