M-VAVE 25 Key USB MIDI Keyboard Controller with 8 Backlit Drum Pads, Piano Keyboard Wireless Semi Weighted Professional Dynamic Keybed, 8 Knobs, Software Included

Really a good solid synthesizer that works well with Garage Band and probably most plug and play music programs! Absolutely excellent.

Nawce!

I'm a very serious amateur musician who has been writing and recording for...well, forever. I've been using MIDI extensively for nearly 40 years. And having recently retired, I'm able to spend 40-50 hours a week just writing and recording music. Recently, I started working on an Ableton-based live solo set, which is why I got this little two octave keyboard. I have three Roland Boutique mini synths I wanted to use, but only got two of the "dock keyboards" for them. This one is hooked up to the third one. Of course, it's not that simple, because this budget mini-key keyboard does NOT have a DIN MIDI out for a direct connection to the Boutique. But with some MIDI routing through Ableton, I was able to get it to work the way I wanted easily enough. I'm used to mini keys, and, while I don't prefer them, they're no problem to me. For the money, this is a solid enough keyboard, though of course I wouldn't use it as a MAIN keyboard. I have not tried the Bluetooth connectivity because for my purposes, why would you want to use that and introduce additional levels of latency? But it's there if you need it. It DOES have a sustain pedal jack and USB host jack, which I'm using and which work great. The on-board controls are easily to map in Ableton, and for what I'm using it for, it's working out well. I can't vouch for the pads because I have that covered with an 8x8 "pro" pad and an SP-404 Mk II for hand drumming. But for the money, this definitely does the job. Works great with my M1 MacBook-based studio.

I really like that it has bluetooth.

I was looking for a simple MIDI keyboard to lay down some simple drum tracks and this little unit has filled that need very well. In Garage Band it just self configured… plug-n-play; set the digital instrument you want, ie. drum, flute, strings… start recording. You can use the built in drum pads, or the keys on the piano keyboard; just use the octave buttons to find the percussion range you need. These are digitally recorded, you can easily adjust the drum pad or timing by click and drag the note as needed. This is very good value at this price for the small studio, the drum pads have a nice feel to them they don’t travel much and they are touch sensitive, the harder you hit the key the louder the drum. The keyboard works the same but these are a lite even pressure key press, a real keyboard player would need to adjust to that lite feel.