SeriesM-Audio Keystation

M Audio KeyStation Mini, is a great midi keyboard. M Audio always brings some of the best midi keyboards on the Market. After using the Axiom 61, I didn’t think that the mini would have much for me. But I gave it a chance and its great, this midi keyboard is very small and portable. I packed it right in my laptop bag with my laptop and had my production studio go anywhere that I went. On the Keystation Mini, there aren’t knobs and sliders that you can use to sync with your software to automate certain things. That is really the only thing that is missing from the mini that is on most other models that M Audio Creates. UTILIZATION Even though this is a small midi controller its still very sturdy and holds up great. Its all plastic but still holds its own weight. I didn’t even have to load the drivers. I just plugged it in via usb and it automaticly was recognized by my windows computer and was ready to use in Cubase and Fl Studio. But if you need to load the disk up to get your drivers in you can and will have no problem doing so. Even if you need to update your drivers M Audio makes it extremely easy to do so on their website you can go on there and update the drivers for free anytime you wish for any of the products that they create. OVERALL OPINION Overall this is worth it, the price is affordable and all producers need a midi keyboard that can be hooked up with usb or with midi cables. You can take this with you anywhere and have your studio on hand no matter where you are so when inspiration hits you are prepared to start creating on the spot.

I chose this product because of its color black grey and white it matched the color theme of my Macbookpro and my audio interface Steinberg UR44. This unit is very simple. It has 88 semi-weighted keys, which will give you more like playing an acoustic piano and it has a midi ins/out similar to other controller but i use the USB connection because the cable is much more cheaper I use the m-audio sustain (sp1) and its compatible UTILIZATION Setting this up was very simple, just plug in play. i use macbook pro ( mid 2012) 4 gig ram 2.66 quad-core running at osx 10.9.4 and it works very smoothly. my audio recording software that I use is Cubase 7 and theres no compatibility issues I didnt have time to read the manual because of its thickness. but the unit itself is a plug and play so everything will just work fine OVERALL OPINION The Cheap plastic feel of its casing irritates me. sometimes i hear crackles when i move it to one place to another. this unit might crack if you fell it accidentally. you must place it to a flat and solid flat-form for the plastic not to squick I tried Casio keyboard before but my heart is in the m-audio because of its simplicity and support and integration Pros - Natural feel of keys -cheap - for home studio use Cons - cheap plastic feel - it doesn't feel sturdy -some keys squeaks

The M Audio KeyStation Pro 88 is a full midi keyboard with midi out and midi in with all of the octaves of a real piano. But don’t be fooled, this Midi keyboard does not have the feel of a real piano. The keys are weighted and it gives them a good feel, but the feel of it isn’t like a synth and its not like a real full piano. Its kind of like an in between of the two different types of keys. You can also ad sustain pedals to this board as well. UTILIZATION The keys feel great and it is a very sturdy keyboard, but I feel like if it left me with the urge of wanting to sit at a real piano. Its not built cheap, but it doesn’t leave you satisfied, so if you are a keyboard/piano player and you are looking for something with a real feel too it don’t go with the M Audio Keystation Pro 88. OVERALL OPINION I used mine for about a month and then took it back and go a different one. You mine as well go with one of the M Audio Axiom midi Keyboards. Their are midi keyboards and are not intended to feel like a real piano. M Audio fell short with this board with trying to make it have a real piano feel to it. So if you are looking for a real piano feeling midi keyboard this will leave you unsatisfied, plus the keys are too heavy to use it for your production if you are into hip hop. You wont be able to do those quick sliding melodies and synth lines with this board because the keys are too heavy. Plus the price is a little high for a midi keyboard like this when there are a ton of others on the market that will suite you better.

This is a really cheap 49 key board. Features? What features? It has a mod wheel and that's about it. This is truly a product geared toward budget studios. That's exactly the application I bought it for way back when. I was starting up a studio and needed a good USB keyboard to play instruments. I didn't need any frills or crazy controls. This one has none. The price was right so I got one. UTILIZATION Setup is easy enough. Just install the driver and plug it in. M-audio generally has pretty good drivers. Any issues I've had with them have always been my own error. No need for a manual since this thing is literally a piano and nothing more. I guess it would be nice if there was a velocity selection. It's not like it matters though. This is truthfully a beginners unit. The price and features reflect that. OVERALL OPINION My big gripe with this keyboard, has to be the keys themselves. Yes I understand that this is a very cheap and budget unit, but you would think that for what we lose in features, we could get some good keys. Or some decent keys. They are advertised as semi weighted I believe but they don't feel like it. This keyboard is comparable in feel to those $50 Wal mart keyboards you buy for your daughter at Christmas. I have used a few other M-audio keyboards like the Axiom series and I must say the key quality and feel on those is much much better. The difference in price makes it worth it imo. I suppose though if you are a beginner and you don't care about the feel, this is a fine studio unit. I mean it gets the job done. Never junked out on me. I wish M-audio would make a no-feature keyboard with good keys though. I don't need all the crazy knobs that the axioms have and would like one of those with good keys alone. I guess a good way to sum up my thoughts is that I am upset with the quality but for the price I really don't feel right complaining. You get what you pay for.

This is a review of the M-Audio Keystation 61es. I was watching a video on YouTube of a young producer using a MIDI keyboard. When I started producing 2 years ago, I needed something like that, because, I as well am a young producer. I wanted my first keyboard to be easy. I was ignorant, but out of luck, I picked a great MIDI keyboard, the M-Audio Keystation 61es. The USB port influenced my choice because I didn't know a thing about MIDI, or any type of connection. I was only familiar with USB, so I took the first big leap when it came to producing and purchased this keyboard for $150 off of eBay. I was extremely excited for it to come because it was a promising piece of equipment. There are a couple options, but keeping it simple. One of them was the ability for a sustain pedal, like a real piano. This is one of the couple essential features on this board. UTILIZATION When it arrived, I was happy because I had gotten just the correct amount of keys. It's no studio piano with 76 or 88 keys, but it's not a compact board with 25 or 49 keys. This was nice because it was a happy medium between the two. I was happy that it fit nicely on my desk. The keys itself are pretty solid. They don't seem thin, and they're semi-weighted, giving the action of a real piano. The setup itself was a breeze. In retrospect, I don't even think I had to install anything. I think that the simple USB connectivity made drivers unnecessary. There isn't much of "channel selection" because it's such a simple keyboard, but the octave up and down buttons were useful, as well as the solid pitch bend and modulation wheels. In terms of the manual, I never had to look at it. OVERALL OPINION I have been using it for around a year and a half. The thing I like most was the ease of connectivity and compatibility. It was a breeze to install, and works in almost every DAW. I didn't try any other models before I bought it because really, I didn't need to. A con of this board was the lack of faders or knobs. However, if you are just doing some simple keyboard/melody work into your DAW, faders and knobs are just a luxury, not something that is essential. The price was fantastic, as I had gotten it $50 off. I recommend this MIDI Controller to anybody who really needs to get started with a simple, efficient, and easy-to-use MIDI keyboard.