• Decent keyboard in an AWFUL controller

  
  As reviewed by Danny Mulford on 10/11/2010

  As a disclaimer, I went through TWO of these keyboards, thinking the first one was a bad unit, and both of them functioned identically. I'll tell you right off the bat that the controller features of this keyboard are so flaky that they're almost completely worthless, which are the only reason you'd want a MIDI controller instead of just using the MIDI output of digital piano. The pitch-bend and modulation stick is, I assume, included for looks only -- first of all, half the time the spring doesn't even pull it back to neutral position, so if you're bending downward, and you let go of the bend, the note will hang slightly flat. Even if that WEREN'T an issue, the pitch bend and modulation stick sends MIDI updates in absurdly large increments (rather than moving through all 127 possible values), so unless you're doing really quick little flicks of the joystick, you hear an obnoxious stair-stepping effect. The knobs and sliders seem to manage to send consecutive MIDI CC values, but sometimes when moving them all the way up, they'll stop at 126 instead of 127, or conversely, they'll bottom out at 1 instead of 0. Then, as if that weren't enough of an insult, I found out that it was sending all of these nonexistant MIDI sustain pedal updates. When the sustain pedal was up, it'd constantly send "pedal up" data, which didn't harm its performance, but just gave my computer unnecessary info to process. Oh, and the keyboard really isn't that great. Yeah, it feels good to play for the most part, but the velocity response is noticeably uneven across the board (some keys easily hit velocity level 127, some can barely hit 115). And the keys feel like they're meeting this weird frictional resistance as they're going down, when you push them down slowly to play a soft chord. As opposed to a good piano touch, which is just smooth sailing. You can even hear them creak ever so slightly, sometimes.

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• VMK188 plus for the pro

  
  As reviewed by benjamin smith on 12/30/2011

  I was looking for a keyboard controller for my production software because I didn't like the electronic button sound it produced. I wanted to actually play something and sound like it was played by a musician. So I went searching for cheap keyboards that had midi controls. My first one I bought was a cheap Casio WK-3800 that said it was general midi through USB. But it had a 32 bit software didn't work on my 64bit machine so that didn't work. So I decided to take the plunge and get a real keyboard workstation. The price on the top of the line studio workstations from KORG that I wanted were way too much for me at the time, so I started looking for a pro 88key midi controller with semi weighting. I didn't like any of the m audio controllers. This is the one I finally bought... I have a project studio I use this for, and it works as advertised- sometimes. I am extremely competent with studio electronics and computers, although I may be inexperienced when it comes to the software interfaces, but I couldn't get this controller to control the whole software packages like Reason 4 even though it has a preset for it. It had a big delay between the hit of the key and the playing of it, and even when I adjusted the latency it still did not work that well. It is a bit cumbersome to deal with, feels like it weighs 50+ lbs, so this isn't something you want to move around a lot. It has adjustability for days. It plays very well. One or two keys makes a hollow sound, but it feels no different. This is for the pro producer that needs a serious piece of gear for scores and music, which I am working into- hopefully I can learn enough about these software interfaces to become a pro, no doubt this would result in stellar material just on the sheer capability and features of this controller with competent software. (and player) If you are a novice or get lost in software, do not buy this board. It will only frustrate you. I have a degree in Electronic Engineering and it is difficult for me to get this to work perfectly how I am needing it to work... I bought this so I can produce music quickly, and that is something I cannot do with this board. I have to fiddle with it every time I turn it on, to get it to play the way I want, so right now I am just using the Casio for quick start up and record, because it's cheap, sounds decent and 2 buttons and 2 sec from turning it on I can be recording some music for that late night music idea just to get it down. Some days I don't even want to look at the studiologic, just because it is a pain to use. When it's calibrated perfect, its great. Good luck getting it there every time to perform in a crunch.

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• Pretty good hammer action

  
  As reviewed by PJL on 4/27/2011

  I've owned the VMK-188 plus for about a year now. It's been a very reliable board, with a great feel. Has a steep learning curve for setting up parameters compared to a Novation automap. I use it live with Reason 4.0, (and at home with Logic Pro 9). It works best with Combinator, which unfortunately has only four knobs and four button switches, (no fault of the VMK, however). Usually plenty of control for live performance, even though it is only at 50% capacity. Other negatives: switches are a bit noisy; takes a few seconds to change set-ups, and if you start playing while it is in process of switching, the midi will lock up and you will have to reboot your software synth. The panic button doesn't seem to do what it should, as far as killing the midi. I have yet to get the transport control to work with Reason or Logic 9.

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