Novation Impulse 61

I've got my hands on this after trying out Novation LaunchKey and this one definitely feels better. Half-weighted keys make a huge difference and the rotary encoders feel great.

The keyboard comes with AutoMap software that's supposed to improve the way you control your DAW and plugins but in my experience it causes lots of annoyance and useless fidgeting.

I've tested this keyboard with Ableton (my DAW of choice), Logic and iPhone running GarageBand. Unlike LaunchKey you can't power this one from an iPhone and you'll need a power-passing Apple USB to lightning connector. With it it works just fine.

The keyboard has some annoying design decisions in regards to Ableton, and I've found myself fighting with it more than playing it on some days ? multi-channel setups with kontakt were a huge pain.

Pros:
- great look & feel for the money
- one-button-switch between DAW and plugin encoder modes

Cons:
- issues with Ableton and multi-channel use
- automap (but you can use it without one; with few features missing)
- arpeggiator settings are really cumbersome to tune

This is a great controller keyboard with some nice features, but I'll try and keep this concise. There are manuals around if you want to know the full extent of this thing's ability!

To start with this kit's only real downfall, it's physically a bit cheap feeling. The lightness may well come to an advantage to many, but personally I would appreciate a bit more weight behind a thicker body.

That aside the various controls are certainly usable and the keys themselves sturdy. As a classically trained pianist I prefer weighted keys, but that's not what this is for. It's actually very reasonably comfortable to play and the controls and touch pads are well positioned for easy use.

Getting a hang of the config for this isn't perfectly intuitive, but with a lot of the sound config going on at the PC that's nothing a bit of playing around won't solve. And that's where it shines, because it linked in with ease to a couple of DAW programs at my disposal-easily enough that half way through configuring it I realised I'd already spent an hour playing with sounds/controls and made arguable little progress on actually setting it up (that said there's not too much setup needed-it interfaces with the DAW software pretty efficiently).

There's a few of these things out there but this one's certainly up there with the better.

If I were buying for looks, I'd have got something else. I'm not a fan of the redand grey ribbed end cheek things. But, in terms of playing, it's lovely. All the controls feel solid but smooth and responsive. I gather ther internal processing of controllers is at a higher resolution than MIDI, and they do feel smoother than most controls on master keyboards in this range. The pads are good and the pressure is very controllable; the faders are easy to use for fine parameter control, and the weighting of the keyboard is, for me, nicely balanced between having enough weight to make it possible to control the velocity properly and being light enough to play fast parts without too much physical effort.

I bought it specifically because of the two pedal inputs and the 5-pin DIN MIDI input, which a lot of master keyboards in this range don't seem to have. It means I can use my old stage piano as a second keyboard without having to plug in a separate MIDI-USB box.

Assigning controls is very easy, and the workflow in general seems pretty straightforward. The features do seem a bit limited, and the LCD display is a bit cheap-looking, but if, like me, all you need to do is assign all the controls to whatever note, controller and channel you want and get on with playing it, it's great.

I haven't used the DAW controls yet, because I'm happy using my laptop for that stuff, but, as a performance keyboard, I'm very happy with it.

This is a great keyboard for general DAW use and the action makes it great to play musically. The only downside is that my DAW is not currently supported by the latest Automap software. I am using Sonar Platinum but can only configure Automap as Sonar X2. It will work for most of the things like the Transport and transposing etc. But the 9th master slider thinks it is operating the first channel and therefore duplicates it's self as slider 1. If you go to learn mode then you can teach it to behave as the Master, but this has to be done every time I start up Sonar Platinum. Also the pads seem to be up an octave from the mapping of Addictive Drums. So do not play the kick etc. I will try to make my own template and see if I can get around these problems. I will post again if I am successful.

I bought this keyboard to play with my mac on stage. the keyboard itself has very many features and they all work pretty well. Only with the automap function for audio software I am not that happy. The faders are working good and one can move them pretty exactly. Also the weight of the keyboard is really good, one is very mobile with that keyboard. Drumspad are doing a good job so far, too. Only one point was a little bit disappointing: The keys themself aren't that good. Of course this is not a highend product but this keys don't react so good, one can play everything one this keyboard. For exapmle piano sounds don't work so good, or glissandi with organ sounds don't work that nice, because of the sharp edges of the keyboard (sometimes it gets painful :) ). over all it is a good keyboard to work with a DAW, but for live gig it is not the best one.

- the building quality is not the best. You have to protect very well the unit if you travel a lot with it but for studio purposes it' more than fine.
- If you play piano this keyboard is not the best but if you want to play decent different instruments it's OK.
- Decent quality of the keys and all the buttons except faders who seem to be not very sensitive (for fine mixing adjustments wouldn't be the best).
- Automap is the software which you have to install in order to control the unit in a DAW and it duplicate all you plugins - it's a little bit annoying.
- having transport buttons and the possibility to add an expression pedal is a plus

Overall is a good choice for a beginner home studio.