GCSE Music - best keyboard for composition?

[QuietLieDown]

Hello,

I'm looking for some advice about the best keyboard to buy for DS. He's in Yr 10, and is taking GCSE music. He's really keen on composition, and for his upcoming birthday I want to give him a keyboard that he can use for this.

I'm a bit overwhelmed by all of the different options, but I've figured out that I need keyboard with USB so that he can use the relevant software. That's as far as I've got! He's just passed G6 piano, so ideally I'd like it to be decent enough quality so that he can enjoy practicing on it in his room (our piano is in our living room, and I think he'd appreciate the opportunity to play in his own space.)
Any advice or info would be much appreciated. Thanks!

@QuietLieDown could you ask your DS's music teacher? I've found that our music teachers have always been helpful with this sort of thing.

I’ve sent you a PM.

Budget is the biggest consideration
as he is a pianist at the bare minimum he needs pedals, touch sensitive and 88 full sized keys.

Have also sent you a PM

He needs it to be midi compatible. As a pianist weighted hammer action is ideal is he wants to play it properly otherwise any keyboard will do.

He needs to decide if he wants a full size 88 keys or whether for this purpose a 61 keys will do.

My son really likes his Roland Juno which is a stage piano but my husband prefers the touch of a Yamaha. He can use headphones with these but if he wants anyone to hear him he will need an amp.

Roland Juno

He doesn't need something that plugs into the software, if you mean the thing where you can play something and it types it for you, if he can read and write music himself. Half the time it comes up with "phonetic spellings" for chords and you have to rewrite it to make sense anyway. There are lots of tricks to make typing in Sibelius faster, though many people find it easier to compose on manuscript paper and just type up afterwards (I did A level music). I can see a keyboard with headphones for working bits out in his room though, as the tinkering about and playing little bits here and there that tends to happen during composition can be more annoying than practice!

These datys anyone taking composing seriously needs to be using some kind of Logic Pro based software.

I think it depends on what sort of music you're composing, to be fair.

I got my DS a Roland FP-10 at Christmas as an upgrade to his cheap-ish Yamaha. It is a thousand times better! It has the feel of a real piano and sounds lovely. It was around £380. I don't think he's connected it to his PC yet, so not sure about that side of things...