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Let’s start right up front admitting that I am not a musician. In fact I am barely musically inclined outside of my voice, which went severely downhill after puberty. That being said, I can still observe when instruments and musically accoutrements are made well by how quickly I can pick them up. Being a strong fan of techno, house and the EDM genre, I’ve always been fascinated with sound boards. Most of the time I stare at the person operating it with such finesse and think, “How the hell do they remember what each button does? They all look the damn same!”
Keith McMillen Instruments just released a new product from its lineup that gave an opportunity to try to answer that very question.
The K-Board USB MIDI Keyboard is a slim, sturdy product that is powerful enough to give any musician a huge range of opportunity, while not taking up their entire travel kit. The buttons are soft, illuminated and easy to adapt to the flavor of the moment.
It is nearly plug-and-play (for those with slightly older systems you may have to grab the newest driver). Within three minutes from getting the box in the mail, I was plugged in, launched Garage Band and playing a grand piano with the large auditorium filter giving my little diddy an epic sound.
It runs on all the biggest formats: Apple, iOS, Android and Windows. You can jam with your laptop at the DJ stand or use your smart phone or tablet on the run for a pick-up party. The K-Board has a handful of audio tweaks available to give your sound the perfect edge. You can shift the pressure, tilt value, velocity value, sustain, and lastly you can toggle the illumination so the buttons can stay on after you’ve activated each one.
For those more technically musicians, which is basically everyone when compared to me, there is the K-Board Editor. This is an incredibly user friendly way to dive into the internal mechanics of the controller even more.
Currently at $99, the K-Board is a powerful controller without the powerful price tag. It’s not going to make you the Amadeus of EDM, but he died from a crazy fever, so who really really wants to copy that?
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