KVR Audio

DrApostropheX · Post by **DrApostropheX** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 5:39 pm

After watching prices on Amazon for a few days, I figured what the heck and at $33 (plus shipping), took the plunge:

http://www.ionaudio.com/products/detail ... apprentice

It just arrived a few moments ago and I have to say that for $33, I'm really impressed. It's got built in (battery-powered) speakers (it is self-powered, but won't charge the iDevice), holds the iPad 3 securely (even in my Spark case) and the keyboard action (which I was the most concerned about) is actually really nice (definitely a cut above the M-Audio minikeys).

So far I've tried it with SampleTank and Alchemy and it makes those two apps a LOT more fun to play. The keys light up whenever you play them (I don't know if this can be turned off or not) which is a little distracting, but really kind of cool.

Anyway, it's compact, got built-in speakers (which sound decent as long as you don't push them), and a nice keybed. Not bad for $33. I'd probably even pay $50 or $60 for it.

Grain Bastard · Post by **Grain Bastard** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 6:40 pm

Lol, looks pretty funny but I'd also take a punt if I saw one cheap. One question tho, can you still feed audio out into a mixer/daw or does it route the audio thru the speakers permanently???

It would seriously limit its usefulness to me if I couldn't send it to a mixer.

Still a bargain to just jam with tho. I got a little portable speaker from my local supermarket recently - It's an Altec Lansing one, really tiny round thing which they were selling off for £7 ($10) instead of £25 and I thought why not. Its crazy loud for its size and seems to have far more bass than could be possible for a tiny speaker!! Plenty of people have heard and asked if I could get them one and for drum programing its brilliant as you can judge the bottom end way better than with the in-built iPad speaker. When I'm just playing around with apps, I sometimes bounce stuff out to find it sounding bad when its imported later into my daw and its down to monitoring mostly - much less often since I've been using the speaker

Anyway, have fun with your new keys

DrApostropheX · Post by **DrApostropheX** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 7:22 pm

Ooh! Good point... I did try this out just now, and you can still use the iPad's headphones out while you're playing the Ion's keyboard (at least with SampleTank and Sunrizer, the two apps I just tried). So if you have your mixer connected to the iPad's headphone jack, you'll still get your audio from there (and not from the ion's speakers).

I have to say I'm really impressed with the keyboard itself. It's got probably the best feel (most "piano-like" if that makes any sense with a mini-keyboard) of any mini-keyboard I've played (and I own a Korg Microstation). The velocity response seems pretty good too. The build quality seems pretty good. I wouldn't pay $150 for it, but for $30-50 you can't go wrong.

Anyway, this is a LOT of fun with SampleTank.

DrApostropheX · Post by **DrApostropheX** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 8:28 pm

Okay, there is one TINY issue with it: the left and right speakers appear to be wired up incorrectly: when I pan a track (in Meteor, StudioTrack, etc.) to the left, it pans to the right speaker and vice versa. Not a huge issue as I'm not going to be doing any serious mixing on the thing (too busy rocking Animoog with this thing), but it is kind of a whismical issue to have.

Grain Bastard · Post by **Grain Bastard** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 4:48 pm

DrApostropheX wrote:Ooh! Good point... I did try this out just now, and you can still use the iPad's headphones out while you're playing the Ion's keyboard (at least with SampleTank and Sunrizer, the two apps I just tried). So if you have your mixer connected to the iPad's headphone jack, you'll still get your audio from there (and not from the ion's speakers).

I have to say I'm really impressed with the keyboard itself. It's got probably the best feel (most "piano-like" if that makes any sense with a mini-keyboard) of any mini-keyboard I've played (and I own a Korg Microstation). The velocity response seems pretty good too. The build quality seems pretty good. I wouldn't pay $150 for it, but for $30-50 you can't go wrong.

Anyway, this is a LOT of fun with SampleTank.

Cool, a useful, fun bargain - can't moan about that!!!

Thanks for answering.

jjmcjj · Post by **jjmcjj** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 5:05 pm

I'd pay $35, but no more, for this thing. The one I recently saw at a Best Buy (not sure but think it was the same model) as an "open return" was in a shocking state--admittedly probably through abuse.

DrApostropheX · Post by **DrApostropheX** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 7:37 pm

jjmcjj wrote:I'd pay $35, but no more, for this thing. The one I recently saw at a Best Buy (not sure but think it was the same model) as an "open return" was in a shocking state--admittedly probably through abuse.

It's pretty solidly built, but it is just plastic afterall. A good tumble down the stairs and there'd probably be nothing left of it.

My $33 iPad controller keyboard