Midi controller or portable type keyboard?? Help please

Hi all

I would like some advice on whether I would be best with a portable home keyboard (yamaha type of thing) or a midi controller to use with my computer?? I want to use the keyboard for recording overdubs, and fairly basic keyboard part to supplement my other instrument playing (guitar, bass, mandolin, drums etc). I would be mostly using piano, organ or string types sounds - maybe the odd synth.

I mostly record with a mindisc multi-tracker (simple to use!!) so if I were using a midi controller keyboard it would be to access sounds from various software packages like Reason or Cubase, then recording the part to the minidisc (weird I know, but more straightforward than using the computer IMHO).

I have a Soundblaster Live soundcard, so I don't really want any hassles with latency etc. Would a USB compatible midi controller solve this???

In view of these queries, would a portable home keyboard be a more simple to use solution, or are the sounds very inferior on these units???

Obviously I could connect a portable keyboards midi output to the soundcard to get the best of both options - I assume the latency problems would still be there though??

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Howard,

I have a similar setup minus the minidisc, I use sonar and a Korg Oasys card for the synthesis sounds. I use a Yamaha P120 to interface with my computer and I am also impressed with the onboard sounds. The action on the P120 is very good IMHO compared to Korg, Roland or Kawai's.

This is how I eliminate latency in my projects:

1. Record and perfect the MIDI track using Cubase. 2. Record an audio track from the Cubase midi that is either routed through the keyboard or through the program.