The E-Mu 1x1 USB is a simple MIDI interface that is to be used with your computer.  It allows you to hook up any keyboard or MIDI device that has standard MIDI connections to your computer to control virtual synths.  The device is simple in make up as it only has a MIDI input and output connection and on the other end is a USB cable.  That is all there is to this - depending on what system you are running it on you will probably have to install a driver for this in terms of software.

UTILIZATION

Setting up and using the E-Mu 1x1 USB MIDI interface isn't hard at all as I was able to have it up and running within a few minutes.  While I no longer need to use this as I have a USB based MIDI keyboard, when I did use it I never had any problems running it on my Mac Book Pro.  The only real problem I can envision people having is latency, but as long as you have an adequate system to run your virtual synths on you should be okay.


OVERALL OPINION

All in all, the E-Mu 1x1 USB is a nice little MIDI interface.  Obviously you can't do anything crazy with it, but if you are simply looking to hook up a MIDI keyboard to your computer so you can use virtual synths, this will do the job fine.  If you are looking to get into using virtual synths, this is a great option because it is cheap and will introduce you into the world of computer based virtual synths without having to spend much money at all.  You can use this with any keyboard that has MIDI connections and most that are made today have them so just about any digital keyboard will work with this.  This is pretty much the cheapest way you can have access to virtual synths on your computer via a MIDI interface.