If you don’t need portability, and you already have a PC, best bang for buck is to get the cheapest keyboard you can find that has the feel and number of keys you want. Do not be concerned about features (except MIDI controller stuff like velocity, aftertouch [genuine key aftertouch would be especially nice, but expen$ive, which would defeat the very point we’re discussing here!], controllers such as ribbon, multiple wheels, D-beam, or whatever, etc.), and do everything else via MIDI software and hardware on your PC.

$15 gets you a DS-XG (made by several third-party manufacturers) sound card with a Yamaha YMF724 chipset with 65-note polyphony (that was not a typo: 64 notes of XG wavetable, plus 1 note of genuine VL!) and the full Level 1 XG and GS sound sets plus the full VL-70m sound set (including the non-VL-XG VL sound banks). If you’re willing to spend more, several hundred bucks gets you an SW1000XG sound card which does all of that and then some in hardware, while the YMF724 requires CPU assistance (and thus has minor but noticeable latency — the faster and less-burdened your CPU, the smaller the latency) — the SW1kXG has the full Level 4 XG sound set introduced with the MU100R, and has an empty PLG slot so you can add VL, AN, DX, or any other synthesis technology you want, or even a VH vocal harmonizer, for only a hundred or so more.

Less than $90 gets you Band-in-a-Box from PG Music, which has functionality similar to that of the auto-accompaniment sections of the better arranger workstation keyboards, and then some. It can also do cool automated solos and even melodies with the latest versions. While the under-$90 version is cool, I recommend spending the extra money to get one of the package deals that gives you libraries of more style disks (there are nearly two dozen to date, and more coming out all the time, and each disk has roughly 20 styles! Plus there are currently 9 disks of extra Soloists, and a couple of Melodist disks also!). Less than $150 extra gets you all of the current supplemental stuff (called the Mega Pak). Or you can buy the Omni Pak, which is every software item PG Music currently sells for either Windows or Mac, for under $600. That includes the Band-in-a-Box Mega Pak, plus (for Windows only) Power Tracks Pro Audio (a capable but inexpensive MIDI/audio sequencer), plus all its add-ons (including lots of audio tracks), plus other software as well.

And you still haven’t spent anywhere near as much as a typical arranger workstation costs. And you get far more capabilities (except for portability, and you even get that if you happen to have a portable PC with USB ports and buy a USB MIDI adapter) than any of them offer.

You can get started for under $150 (Band-in-a-Box non-Pak @ $88 + DS-XG card @ $15 plus cables, etc.) plus the cost of the keyboard.