Swissonic EasyKey 49

I received the keyboard March 12th. However, one key was not working properly, as it had no touch sensitivity. Not much I could do about it, Thomann handled the situation and sent me a return ticket.

On April 8th i receive the replacement product, which was to my bad luck broken as well. This time one key was not giving any signal/sound at all. A hole was noticed on the transportation box.

April 28th I receive the second replacement product. This one was faultless.

The product itself is made from an aluminum housing together with (what feels like) plastic edges. Very pleased. The keys are not really synth-action. Somewhere between synth and semi-weighted. Also very pleased. The fader (which also has a numerical LED) and knob is asignable to whichever CC of choosing. Pitch and modwheel feels good, octave buttons are responsive and indicate which octave you are playing in.

The big astreix for me would be whether the build quality or packaging was the reason for this product being DOA 2 times. Therefor 1 stars off in quality (otherwise, the quality of this keyboard is very good for such a low price).

If you need more knobs or a more detailed screen, do look elsewhere. Otherwise I would gladly recommend this one for anyone who simply needs to play / record.

For months I was researching various MIDI keyboards with 49 keys, which I could use just to play piano plugins from my iPad. I didn't need any fancy features like an array of knobs, sliders and pad, but rather a solid keyboard with full size keys that is iOS compatible. The EasyKey 49 was exactly what I was looking for.

It has a solid aluminum housing, the side panel are plastic that look and feel good. I am very happy with the keys, they feel great, though they are not fully weighted but that was not something that I was looking for anyway.

I particularly like the sheet holder which nicely fits my iPad in there too. The MIDI out connection is also a big plus for me, just in case if I get a desktop synth which I could then control with the EasyKey.

The keyboard comes with a CD that includes some software. I don't have a computer in my household that has a CD drive and I do not have an external CD drive either, so I wasn't able to test the contents. It's not really important for me, so no biggie. However, maybe Thomann could explore an option to offer a download version of the software. I might not be the only customer without a CD drive. Or maybe they could just offer a download link and skip the whole CD thing (maybe saving even some costs).

In case you wonder why I'm addressing Thomann above, it's because the Swissonic brand is their house brand, and I have to say that it is an excellent product on par with all my experiences with Thomann so far.

All in all, if you are looking for a simple but a solid keyboard to play your virtual synths or pianos, without the need to tweak any parameters, then I can only highly recommend the Easykey 49.

Over the years i have purchased most of the low price midi keyboards (nektar gx61, novation launchkey 61, maudio keystation, etc) and i can say that in this price range here is nothing competing with the Easykey series as far as the key-action is the main consideration. The keybed is simply more accurate and dynamic than all the competition in the price range. I also has a classic midi port, while most of the keyboards in the price range do not. The pitch bend and the modulation wheel have a good feel and are sturdy. The usb connection does not feel flimsy and looks more sturdy than the competition. Integration with windows 10 is plug and play. The whole keyboard is rather heavy but the build quality is the same with keyboards 2-3 times the price. So overall, i would say this is a very honest product. The Price/Performance ratio is unbeatable, if your main concern is the keyboard action and built quality.

I am an amateur keyboardist. I was struggling to find the right mobile keyboard to bring along to business trips. I bought a Yamaha Reface DX some time ago, but I regretted - although the instrument's quality is impeccable, 3 octaves are not enough for me and I also wanted to have piano sounds. Therefore, I used it with my iPad most of the time when spending my time in hotel rooms.

So I was looking for a 4 octave, normal size keyed instrument that's as small as it can be, and that can be used with the iPad sound banks.
I found this instrument that is incredibly well priced and small enough, it even holds the iPad and is sturdy to travel with.

The keyboards does not have it's own power, when I connected it with the iPad via the USB cable it powered up and was ready to play. This is also a bonus compared to the Reface setup.

I'm very satisfied with the instrument, I found only two negatives:
- quite heavy at 5,6 kilograms (a 61 key Nord Electro comes in at 9,7 kg!) - but light weight alternatives are 3-4 times more expensive
- keybed is not very sensitive - it's very hard to play in a wide dynamic range, however I tweak the key sensitivity.

All in all, a very worthy purchase.
Beware that the Thomann 49-key minikeyboard softcase that comes up as recommended for this instrument, is not a good fit, it's much larger then the instrument.