Hi, I'm new here, I'm looking for some advice as to keyboard playing. I don't know if this is the right forum or not, feel free to move it!

A friend of mine from the TBWNN website and I are starting a Christian heavy metal band. We met on the website and it turns out he goes to my college! The band is going to be heavy, not sort of Encryptor/Sorrowfall heavy (Christian grind metal bands), more sort of progressive metal bands, similar style to Nightwish/Epica/Lacuna Coil, which aren't Christian but they are bands which I like and want to start a band like that but Christian!

I'll just give a bit of my background first of all.

I started playing piano at the age of four, was grade five by the time I was 10...Only there was another guy at my school who was also the same grade, and he started pulling away from me and started grading faster than I could. This destroyed my confidence in piano so against my mothers wishes I gave it up.

Only, now I wish I hadn't. My music reading ability has gone, and I am relearning, its coming back fast-ish. I still have the technical ability but its rusty.

The thing is, I am playing synthesisers in this band, strictly speaking I am a guitarist now, but we can't find a synth player and I play piano. The next problem is I don't own a synth!

I was going to buy one anyway, but I don't know where to start!

I want a synth, I have a £100 budget, could go higher if need be but definately no higher than £150. I have looked around, the Yamaha ones all have this education thing, which I don't want. I want good quality samples and lots of them! Pressure sensitive keys would be a bonus too! It must be up to standards for gigging. I saw a Behringer one on GAK, which looked cool for £99. I was just wondering if any of you had any advice as to which keyboard would be suitable for me! Any advice would be really well accepted!

Second thing is actually playing them. I have heard that they are different to playing piano. I should hope technically it wouldn't be a problem but there are two major concerns:

Changing the voice mid song? How do I do that? I am a bloke, multi-tasking isn't one of my strong points! I can sing and play guitar at the same time but thats my limit! How do I do it without a break?

Second of all, how do I go about using two different voices at the same time? If I want to do a solo or something and I want to use maybe a piano/organ or whatever sample in the bass with a string sample or whatever in the treble...How do I do that? I certainly don't have enough money to buy two keyboards!

Sorry about the essay!

Any help would be appreciated!