midiplus AK490 MIDI Keyboard Controller

I don't really write reviews very often, but I wanted to let more people know about this keyboard.The short answer is: it kind of sucks. But that's kind of the point.If you're just starting out looking to making music, you've probably realized by now that everything in music making is EXPENSIVE. And it's very difficult to find a good entry point in that cost.This keyboard is cheap, which is both good and bad. You aren't going to hurt your wallet getting this, and you get a crazy amount of features for the cost. Other keyboards at this price are just a keyboard, that's it.Don't know how to play piano, don't know any scales? That's ok, just use the transposing functions of the keyboard to automatically play any scale, major or minor. I personally love just switching to the "minor" mode and playing the white keys, makes you sound way more skilled than you actually are. The built-in arpeggiator, chord playing, programmable knobs, pitch and mode wheel! You get so many amazing features that are normally reserved for a more expensive keyboard.This keyboard knows exactly what it is, and who it's for, and it does it very, very well. The keys themselves are rubbery and annoying, and the velocity is hard to get without hitting the keys as hard as you can, so I usually always play with the "VEL" light on, which sets it to always play max velocity, but in the end I love it because it offers a low bar of entry in a hobby that usually gets extremely conflated when it comes to cost.This keyboard is crap, cheap, and beautiful, and serves as an amazing tool for entry-level music making, even if you just want to play around with some free VSTs for fun. Highly recommend for those trying to find a place to start.

I've tried and own many midi controller keyboards, mostly lower budget ones, but some name brands over the years too. I decided to try this one while on sale and I have to say, its pretty good considering the price. Its not the worlds best quality, most feature rich, but it's got a lot that works well, can be customized for parameters in plugins and daws, has a decent keyboard feel and response (on Heavy setting imo). The Arp, chord, tap tempo, and controls are all very useful and easy to figure out without manual...or even without the editor program it comes with. Most modern music programs and plugins offer easy controls to assign such things, and this keyboard responds well in my experience so far.I have others, name brands, and plain controllers, but this is a great fit in my humble small desk space home studio with its compact but decent range of 32 keys! Way better than the typical mini 25's, not as long as the 37's if tight on space like I am. for under $50, I don't see how you can go wrong with this compared to other more expensive ones for twice as much. I also own an Akai LPD8 with pads and knobs, so I didn't need that in a mini keyboard necessarily. I think you can buy both for under $100 usually. Not bad setup by any means, and easy portable! Hope this helps someone on a tight budget out! Cheers!

Got this midi keyboard in today. I'm not in any way a musician, just a hobbyist looking for an inexpensive keyboard to use with a new installation of MAGIX Music Maker 2016 Live. So far I'm happy with the new keyboard. It's small and compact, around 18" x 5". Which fits on my desk perfectly. It has about the same footprint as my computer's keyboard (actually a bit smaller). Setting the midi keyboard up was as easy as plugging in the cable (which comes in the box) and connecting that to one of my computer's USB ports. Firing up Music Maker and opening one of the VST instruments, the keyboard worked great with the software. I could play pretty much everything. Testing out the controls - everything seems to work. I'm just going to have figure out what some of the buttons / knobs actually do (like I mentioned, I'm not a musician and this is my first midi keyboard). The quality seems to be about what you would expect for the price - somewhere in-between that of a high-end device and some kind of toy. The keys are responsive and the buttons and knobs seem to be well made and functional. It actually looks good sitting on my desk.One thing to maybe note. I went out to the midiPlus website and downloaded the software for this keyboard, and it turned out to be a RAR compressed file. I didn't have the software needed to open that, so I went and got the 7-Zip utility and used that. The program you get - AKM322 MIDI Editor v0.01 - allows you to change the setting of the keyboard. I haven't messed with it yet, so I can't say how useful it is. The date on the file is 10/2015, so at least it appears to be fairly up-to-date. I'll come back and update my review when get more experienced with this keyboard. But so far, I'm happy with my purchase.