This weekend, my oldest daughter and I went to a Guitar Center in Raleigh and checked out the M-Audio Keystation Pro 88 they had on display. I wanted to try it before spending over $500USD on it, and boy am I glad I did!
This keyboard’s action is horrible. I sat down at the thing and started to play something in C major. So far so good. All the keys felt good and the hammer-action weight was nice. Then I switched to an F# key and was caught by surprise. The white keys felt fine, but the black keys were unacceptible. The black keys on every piano, vintage electric piano, organ, and midi controller that I’ve played NEVER depress to where the top of the black key is level with the white keys!
However, the top of the black keys on the M-Audio were level with the white keys when they were depresses. This was a deal killer. It was so very different from what I was used to that I couldn’t force myself to buy the thing. I play guitar and bass too and wanted to describe what this felt like for guitar and bass players. The closest thing I could think of was that it felt like when pushing down a string on a guitar, you were always directly above a fret. It felt unbalanced and out-of-place, clumsy and inarticulate…much like me trying to describe this feeling!
If there are any piano players out there, who grew up playing your mom’s “real” piano, I think you would be very dissatisfied with the M-Audio Keystation Pro 88.