Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)There are two kinds of uses for this controller. One is for someone who wants an inexpensive, portable piano to practise or teach with. The other is someone who is an amateur and wants to "fool around" making recordings or compositions.
Both are likely to be disappointed.
This works as a stand-alone digital piano. If you plug in a 9v power supply (not included) and a pair of headphones, you can use this without connecting it to a computer at all. In fact, there are TWO headphone jacks, so a teacher (for example) could listen to a student play without making any noise at all. While the keys are velocity-sensitive (hit the keys harder, and the sound is louder), they are not weighted. You can easily switch the keyboard two octaves up or down, and the quality of the Steinway sampling is quite good. What is disappointing, however, is that the volume from the headphone jacks is low - too low to use in a room that is not quiet. It is relatively easy to connect the outputs on the rear to a stereo for more volume, but that is added complexity and eliminates the dual-headphone feature. Unless you have a stereo with two headphone jacks, of course.
There are 2 RCA inputs, so it's fairly easy to connect a CD or mp3 player. This allows you play along with recordings, as the sound is mixed with whatever you are playing on the keyboard. Since the piano itself isn't very loud, the volume of the music you play along with must be kept accordingly low, unless you use some kind of external amplification.
What you really getting here is not just a piano, but an "audio interface". There are very generous audio input and output options: stereo RCA inputs AND outputs, 1/4" mono input, stereo 1/4" outputs, and a mono XLR input. If you don't know what "RCA" means, it is the jack that you find on the back of your stereo - not a 1/8" jack like you would find on an iPod. What this all means is that you can use your home stereo to provide the amplification by connecting standard cables (not included) to the input and output of your home system. This interface is flexible to allow you to play piano along with a recording, while others simultaneously play a guitar/bass AND sing through an attached microphone. And none of this would involve using a computer. The 1/4" stereo outputs are kind of useless, but you could use them to connect the keyboard to an instrument amp or to M-audio's powered monitor speakers.
This is where the potential for an amateur studio comes in. Don't get excited yet, though. The sample rate of the interface's output is only 16-bit, which is adequate for an amateur but not a professional. And, in order to do digital recording, you will have to connect the Keystudio 49i to your computer. The included recording software is Ableton Live Lite, which is not easy to use. You will probably have to spend a few hours with it before you can do even basic recording. Unless you just want to use the included Steinway grand piano, you will also have to install the included General MIDI (GM) software. GM, if you don't know, consists of 127 "voices" (various instruments) of the sort that you usually find on cheap Casio keyboards. If you want to do something more complex, like synthesizer, Wurlitzer, Hammond organ, etc. then you will have buy additional software. And you will have to configure that software to work with Live Lite, which is an ordeal in itself. The GM module is, I must say, high quality. It has somewhat steep system requirements, though.
Remember, this is an audio interface. All of the sound will go through your keyboard, even if you are connected to a computer. This also means that the system requirements are considerable, including the bus. Add to that the nightmare that M-audio PC drivers have become. If you have a Mac, then you will probably experience no trouble using this interface and keyboard with GarageBand, for example. If you are using Windows, however, expect difficulties. M-audio support has become essentially worthless over the past few years, and you will be expected to spend hours reading through the "Knowledge Base" before anyone will even talk to you - and the phone support is only available during weekday business hours. M-audio will not help you with the Live Lite software, either.
You can have a lot of fun with this, but trying to do anything moderately serious will probably lead to frustration and disappointment.
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