You can and you can’t - it depends on the type and sound you’d like from it. If you’re talking about a lead part, ya you can probably get away with it. Strumming, not so much - doesn’t sound quite right. And some drum loops are recorded drums. Others are midi. I suggest (maybe not for this project) but if you already play piano, pick up a guitar. You’ll likely figure it out pretty quickly. More on reddit.com

I’m probably biased, being a keyboard player myself, but I think keyboards have a big advantage for songwriting. You can mock up anything on a keyboard. Also, any reasonably modern electronic keyboard can feed MIDI into a computer. With that, you can simulate anything. I also learned piano as a child. There was a period of time in my life when I was separated from my piano... after which I swore I’d never again rely on an instrument I couldn’t pick up and put in the back seat of my car if I had to. When I did get a keyboard again, it came back to me so quickly, it seemed like no time at all. With modern computer technology, keyboards are so versatile. Depending on the genre, if you want a professional quality, releaseable track, you might need musicians who actually play guitar, bass, drums, etc. well. But for all-around one-man-band creations, whether they’re electronica or demos of songs that should ultimately be played by an actual band, you can’t beat keyboards. What you should get really, really depends a lot on budget. Since you know how to play piano, though, please get something with a true piano action (might be called fully-weighted, might be called graded hammer action — terms vary). Your touch will come back to you. Get something that can output MIDI (either USB to a computer or through an old-fashioned MIDI connector). There are some great reviews of keyboards on YouTube from Merriam Music; here’s one on digital pianos under $1000 . More on reddit.com

The truth is they haven’t gotten much better in the last 20 years. Due to the requirement that at least one cycle is necessary to detect pitch, the lower strings in particular suffer from noticeable latency, and even if your playing is extremely precise you end up getting misfired notes all over the place. For live playing, I consider this a non-starter, but even editing MIDI data entered this way afterward is a big pain in the ass. My solution to this (as someone whose brain works better using a guitar, my first instrument) was to find an isomorphic layout MIDI controller which imitates a guitar’s fingerboard. Mine is a custom mechanical keyboard, but these days there are quite a few affordable controllers that support this kind of layout. More on reddit.com

Ok shirt simple way Ficusrite scarlet solo. Cheap entry level and gen 2s are cheap on 2nd hand so you can pop ya cherry. Download reaper a DAW that is commercial grade but nag ware so you buy it when you make money with it sorta idea. YouTube reaper mania who is basically your tutor for basics of everything’s. You plug guitar into scarlet and a stage mic with XLR connections. Turn the 48v button on on the mic as you need power to feed mics. You can also use things like pedals before the focusrite just set the gain so it does not clip. You also have VSTs These are like DAWs version of a guitar pedal or so to speak with everything from eq compressors to loopers and even instruments. There are a slew of free things with reaper to the point you can see sliders for everything and even write your own if you want. After that it’s pretty much record into reaper. The things you will need to understand that ain’t obvious is automation. This is like fade in fade out channels or changing settings like reverb. You can even trigger midi pedals like Axfx kemper helix some amps synths etc you have a backing track with individual instruments so if a bass guy gets laid or drummer isn’t coming to a rehearsal you can mute etc. then you can play live with it even with lights video etc. or use it as a recording system with takes and punching out etc like all the protools things You should be able to do everything you need to make a good recording for Spotify etc with just the focusrite and reaper if you spend a little time with reaper mania YouTube tutorials. It’s a journey but as someone who has been doing it since the 90s the entry point for home studios is now almost zero. Just an interface and a Mac or pc and your have all the hardware required More on reddit.com