Swissonic EasyKey 49

This is perhaps the most regretful purchase I have made, not because of the keyboard itself - but because of a limitation that came with it. I had to do a recording when I received this, and to my disappointment it came with a ridicilously short usb power cable. This is fine when you use small and portable stuff, but here we are talking an almost 5 kg heavy aluminium 49 key keboard with the usb port on the very left end - it will not reach your power unit unless you place it beside the left side of the keyboard. When I tried to arrange a way to get this to work, this heavy keyboard was dragged down by the cable and falls down on my old Casio CZ-5000 and breaks its Keys. A synth that I have had since I was 11 years old. All this because the company cut short on package quality by not including a longer cable to a big controller keyboard.

So my experience with this keyboard was indeed not the greatest, but after having used it two times I can say it is decent. Keys are ok but with limited key velocity - it will not be the most touch responsible keys you've played. Other features are ok and as expected. So for the price you will have a decent 49 key controller, I have had better and worse. It bothers me that I had to buy a separate 1,5 m cable to be able to use it properly and that it resulted in damaging my dearest synth since childhood. A 49 key big controller should not come with a short cable like this one did.

I like this keyboard, it has none of the extra features I'd never use anyway that just takes up space, it feels solid and sturdy and most important of all, it has full size keys with a nice feel to them. However, I've tried for hours getting my sustain pedal to work with it and it just won't. The manual doesn't make sense of the issue, changing the numbers in the edit window doesn't change anything. No combination of unplugging, depressing, plugging back in etc helps.

Either the pedal is working inversed or it's not working at all. Kinda sad, I should have checked this out thoroughly when I still could return it and not just assume I could solve it later on. Oh well, it works for stuff that doesn't need sustaining I guess...

I bought this keyboard because I needed a cheap solution to enter midi-data into Cubase when writing songs. I have had lots of keyboards, and I also have a full digital piano in my studio, but I wanted something quick and easy to just grab, put on my table and enter a few chord progressions. I didn't expect much. But let me tell you, the quality was much better than expected. The keyboard is much heavier than you would think, and the frame is sturdy. It sits firmly on my desk and doesn't move when I play it. The keys are good enough, and the mod and pitch wheel have a nice feel to them. I also love that it's USB powered so I don't need another wall wart. Just plug it in with a cable when you need it, and unplug and put it away when you don't. For the price, which is about the lowest of all keyboards, this is a solid choice and you could not reasonably ask for more. I am very happy with my purchase. No complaints.

I bought this keyboard so I could continue to practise while my regular DP was in the piano repair shop. In the beginning I just used it as a "typewriter", learning to hit the correct keys at the right time, but when I got more familiar with it, I noticed I was quite able to even focus on technique and dynamics, and it sounded much better than I had expected.
However, when I play on my regular DP, I very rarely create unintentional ghost notes, and on this keyboard, even once I had played it for a couple of weeks, there were still quite a few. Without the ghost notes, I would have given it five starts.