Nice MIDI Controller for cheap: Should I buy?

[Goggles]

So I've been looking into some midi controllers to hopefully help vamp up my production, and, being the bargain hunter that I am, I went looking for some nicer controllers for cheap. I've been looking into Novation equipment, and recently I found a near-mint condition (from what the ad says) 49SL Mk II controller. It's $100 under the normal price, but, still, that's a lot of money for a college student to pay.

I've heard good things about this controller from online reviews, and many people seem to compare it favorably against the Axiom Pro controller. And it IS Novation's supposed "best" controller. But is it worth the price tag? Or should I look for something a little less expensive, but not as "professional"? What do you guys think?

[Spirit]

Tbh, i dont even have a MIDI controller right now, everything is done with mouse and keyboard, bit more tedious but yeah, it works for now.
The main things you should consider when buying a controller are
>Budget
>What features you need
>review/reliability
>how serious you want to be
Like, do you just want a keyboard to put in notes, do you want it to be velocity sensitive, do you really NEED those drum pads and all those knobs
Also, do you want to spend $400 on something that may just end up not being used, how serious are you taking your production to warrant spending that sort of money on something
My personal advice is to spend >$100 on a cheap controller, that way you can see if having one really helps improve your workflow or not, and you dont end up with an expensive paper weight

[the4thImpulse]

What Spirt said above is stuff you need to consider and I will give my advice below.

The 49SL Mk II is a very nice controller. My friend has one in his studio and I have used it quite a bit now and for a $100 is a great deal (if it really is in great condition). Even if you cant play a piano a simple midi keyboard would still really help when you programming synths; you mess around on the keyboard with one hand while you tweak the synth with a mouse. Its not something you need but i will likely really help in some way and the SL MkII has knobs buttons and faders that you can map to parameters (like filters) and mess around with to get more ideas (I do this a lot with my APC40 and has become a big help in my own music).

[Lavender_Harmony]

It retails for around £300 Which is about $476, so going by your post it'd be around $360, am I right?

The MKII is a very, very good controller, and a 46 note will serve you well. However it is a bit of a sting in terms of price. It's a good deal, but if you're thinking you might not get that much out of it, there are a lot of other, more affordable options.

If space is an issue, you can go for the smaller two octave keyboards. The M Audio Oxygen range is very nice, and The new 3rd Gen 25 note goes for around $150 (On Amazon right now they're doing a $99 dollar deal on it here) Which is a decent price. You may find the size restricting, though. It all depends on what you wanna do with it. A more budget option would be Behringer. They get a lot of flak, but I have a 61 note controller from them. It's certainly not great, but it definitely gets the job done when I need more keys. This one gets a good rating. Ignore the first review, as it knocks a star off the score because the freebie software it's bundled with is too hard for them (Review the product, please. Ugh.)

Shop around, see what suits your budget best.

[Freewave]

It's certainly easy to find a basic midi keyboard that will function well in the $100+ range if you're looking for a 49 key basic one. Again a midi keyboard is just what put the notes where you want and its the software that's your true engine. If you want knobs to control effects or pads to do drum patterns or to do this for LIVE performances than look for something more expensive. That's a pretty advanced keyboard and likely a good investment (and one that could be resold at close to your purchase price if you don't end up keeping it) but may be way more than what you need or could pay for. I paid $100 for my m-audio keyboard new which i dont often use and its all i've ever really needed.

[Facade]

It really depends on your needs for me all i needed was a 5$ cable to plug my midi keyboard into my computer and has made a serious improvement for me but that's just me you should find some one that has something similar and try it out to see if you like it