Emu Xboard 49 49-Key MIDI Controller

Feature:
For the price I don't think you can beat the features. Someone elsewhere complained that program change is slow and tedious. Agreed - that function is not usable in a live environment. Dedicated octave up/down buttons are provided (crucial with only 49 keys), and I find I actually use the velocity curves. The 16 knobs are the real reason I chose this model over others, and I've been pleased with them. (To be honest, I think I could get by with eight.) Overall I thought Emu did an excellent job balancing features and cost.

Quality:
I've had the unit about 4 months and nothing has broken. It gets played quite a bit, but doesn't go outside in the UV, or get dropped or spilled on or put in the bottom of a stack. The case itself is lightweight plastic. I shudder to think what would happen if it were dropped. But I'm puzzled at the negative comments about the knobs and buttons. I'd rate their feel as good or very good. I wonder - could Emu have changed them since the earlier reviews? Seems unlikely at this price point... I'm still not really sure what semi-weighted keys are. There certainly is not much weight to these keys. But the springs and the overall feel is superb. With default settings, you really have to beat on the keys just to get to velocity of 127. In fact, for a while I had re-calibrated for full velocity at less pressure because I was not getting the full range of sound out of some of the Proteus "samples." (Later on I decided I liked really whacking on the keys and changed the setting back to default.) The pitch and mod wheels feel solid.

Value:
Excellent value

Desirability:
I can't say this unit has a tremendous amount of sex appeal. The area where the extra buttons would be on an X-board 61 has an unfinished look to it somehow. Kudos to Emu for using blue LEDs rather than red behind the buttons, though.

Sound:
This is a midi controller and makes no sound. But I was completely blown away by the sounds on the 8 included Proteus-X CDs. For my purposes, substantially better than Cakewalk Dimension Pro, for which I paid $250 or $300. (The only downside to this is that it gives me yet another excuse to delay the process of weaning myself from windows.)

Ease of Use:
Your view on this will be day or night depending on how you use it. I use it for home recording, sitting right next to a PC. I can play a melody or bass line with one hand, twiddling knobs with the other and hearing the effects in real time. Then I switch tracks or whatever on the PC and am ready to record another segment. Very easy! But for gigs, I'd think you would have to have a dedicated knob (with detents) to change patches.

Support:
Have not dealt with support

Overall:
This unit is an excellent value but it _is_ definitely a compromise. It would be nice to have more dedicated displays (or even a graphical one), more dedicated buttons and knobs, detents for the knobs, heavier construction... The unit does absolutely everything I bought it for, and I won't be outgrowing it for at least a year - probably longer. If it were stolen tomorrow, most likely I'd replace it with the same thing. When selecting rating numbers, I considered the competition to be "compact midi controllers at any price". Had I considered the competition be be "midi controllers below xx dollars", the numbers would have been higher.

Feature:
Has the same features as any other midi controller I guess (more knobs and such then the M-Audio), and for the price you just can NOT beat it.

Quality:
I'm pretty new to midi controllers and keyboards in general, but the build seems pretty stable. The keys have a much better feel to them than the crappy Casio that I practiced on before. Not grand piano, but I still love it. I did have some beef with this though. When I got it, there were some slight discoloration spots on it, especially under the Xboard logo. You cant really tell from far away but it still bugs me that it was like it when I bought it.

Value:
I really dont know what makes a keyboard good, but my ~170 dollars when a long way this time, I can tell that already. This deal is just too freakin good to pass up. If you're looking for a midi keyboard for around 100-200 dollars, look no further.

Desirability:
Putting the discoloration spots aside, it looks pretty cool. If you're sitting in a crowd and watching someone play one of these, you wont really think it's "sexy" haha cuz all you'll see is those open sockets.

Sound:
Gave a 9 rather than a ten because of the annoying latency. I dont have ASIO or anything so it's probably just my computer. This is the only keyboard I've owned so I have nothing to compare it to, but the feel of everything - knobs, wheels, slider, keys - only one word: incredible.

Ease of Use:
I haven't used the bundled software yet. I've been using my other VSTs and it works perfectly fine with them (other than the latency issues I mentioned earlier but that's probably my computer hardware). Knowing nothing of midi controllers, I was able to get this thing working in around 5 minutes effortlessly.

Support:
Dunno, haven't had to call them yet, but that booklet that it came with has a lot of general information in there. It'd probably help you before any call to tech support.

Overall:
I really hope I dont have to replace this board any time soon, mainly because I dont have much money. But also because it's an amazing board. The others have said that it's made CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP but maybe they're spoiled by $1000+ boards? Cuz I cant tell. I was first going to buy one of the M-Audio boards because I was low on money but then I realized that I wont be able to make any cool Mars Volta-ish effects without some knobs and stuff, so I got this (what I consider to definately be an upgrade). Looking back, I would've deeply regretted buying the M-Audio.