music production, equipment and the likes

There are a butt-ton of MIDI Keyboards available, you can use an iPad/Android tablet app that has a MIDI controller function, or you can buy a physical MIDI Keyboard. Here's some good cheapy ones that I like:

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  AKAI LPK25 (Small)
  MasterKey 49 (Standard 49 Key)
  Alesis Vortex (a MIDI keytar, great for looking badass whilst gigging)

As for sound cards, I hear the best ones as far as value for money are a fairly low-end focusrite, such as the scarlett 2i2. Hope this helped.

 

Think of MIDI as a language that keyboards computers and other electronic instruments use to talk to each other. So you can play notes on a keyboard and the keyboard sends that info to the computer to "record" it in a sequence, repeat and edit as you want, then the computer can play all the instructions back to the keyboard or another keyboard, drum machine, etc... to "play" the final song that you can record as an audio file to post online/distribute/burn on cd/etc...

Many soundcards (usually a part that fits in a desktop computer, but some external sound cards in a small case also exist) also have "midi" capabilities and can generate some sounds.

 

Sound card is the old term for "audio interface", which is what they're called at most music stores and in discussions now. If you're recording music to your computer you need one because it eliminates any delay "latency" in the sound. So imagine if you're playing a keyboard but you don't hear the sound of the keys until half a second after you press them. That's what it's like recording *without* an audio interface. It's really hard trying to play and record like that, trust me I've tried

First thing I would start with is a Digital Audio Workstation, or DAW. A DAW is the main program that you use to house your tracks, your sound effects, your plugins and stuff. The DAW is where you do all your organizing and arranging, where each instrument or take has its own track that you can edit in a million different ways. (Fade in, fade out, volume, panning, EQ, signal processors, etc, etc.)

Some major DAWs are Cubase, Pro Tools and Live. The one I use is called Reaper. I use it because it's not expensive (a personal license is like $40 IIRC) and also because it's easy to learn and not complicated like some of the others. Also they're always making it better and the community is super helpful.

OK so now you have a DAW and an audio interface. The next thing you need is a MIDO controller, which is just a fancy name for a keyboard that plugs into your computer. (Some do a lot more than that, but for electronica a keyboard is the best way to start.)

A MIDI keyboard is different than a regular keyboard because it's designed to send the notes -- and the way you play them -- to the computer and into your DAW.

Then to actually make electronica, house, chiptunes, whatever, you need a soft synth, aka a software synthesizer. It's just a program that takes the notes you play and makes them sound like whatever you want. This is the really fun part. There are TONS of software synthesizers out there, all with different kinds of sounds. Some of them are made to sound exactly like concert pianos, some are made to sound like old hardware synthesizers, and some make all the bleeps and blips and sounds of an old Nintendo game.

So...as an example, one of my favorite softsynths emulates all the old sounds from bands like Earth, Wind and Fire. Another one of my favorites makes spacey, atmospheric sounds.

Images and Words gave some good examples of MIDI keyboards/controllers. The small Akais like the LPK25 are TINY and more for traveling. I use this one:



I like it because the keys are like a regular piano, it has after touch so you can play it with soul, or at least that's what I like to tell myself lol, and it's 49 keys so you can play octives and stuff. I should mention that I'm self taught, I'm a pretty terrible piano player, and a not very good guitar player. When I started I was exactly like you, I had no idea how to start or even what to get and just stumbled my way through it. But that's the awesome thing -- you don't have to be an amazing musician because you can edit stuff, fix your mistakes, and do as many takes as you need to.

Anyways I've written a lot but I hope this helps. If you have questions, fire away and I'll do my best to answer them if I can. Good luck!