IK Multimedia iRig Keys I/O MIDI 25 - MIDI Keyboard, Portable Piano Keyboard, for Mac, iPhone and iPad, 25 Keys, 8 Pads, Music Production Station, Software and Applications

If you use Apple Products and want some seriously easy plug and play, this is the device for you. I am an IK Multimedia convert - well built products and considered software with actual usability... you can even plug it into your iPhone with the cable supplied.No lag, on a 2012 MacBook Pro 2.6ghz with 16GB RAM - integrates perfectly for my uses with Logic Pro X - with some further investigation I will figure out the midi mapping...In short, I love it - it was between this and the AKAI for me and in the end, value won as you also have inputs so it negates the need for an additional soundcard - and all for under £200

I Purchased this mini keyboard towards the end of last year just to take advantage of the amazing offer of Sampletank 4 Max sounds included free via download. My intention was to sell just the keyboard afterwards as I already have a midi keyboard. I did install the keyboard just to play around with it and was not really impressed with the installation. There was a lot of latency and various freezes when trying to select different drivers – I didn’t make much progress with the IK website forum or Google, I didn’t realise at the time there was an ASIO driver available via download from the IK website ( which gives basic in / out for the Neutrik combi jack microphone input and speaker out). I visit the IK site frequently and recently noticed a featured update for their custom Asio driver. Once installed things improved greatly. The audio quality is noticeably better than my new laptop and the keyboard was more responsive. Rather than splash out on a new USB audio/ midi interface I decided to keep it just for sound and use my bigger dumb keyboard for midi. The only hassle is having to switch audio drivers between my laptop and the I rig when I want to compose music and then back again. This keyboard is really for travel purposes.. it is ok for sequencing bass etc but is not big enough for some extended piano chords without transposing. It can be used to trigger loops via the velocity sensitive pads but I haven’t explored that yet. On reflection and with the benefit of hindsight may be I should have thought harder and bought the larger but more expensive I rig keyboard. Build quality seems good and the key action is ok.

On paper this is your dream come true. I wanted a compact travel friendly setup to pair with my iPad Pro for recording whilst travelling. This gives me an audio interface with phantom power and a midi keyboard all wrapped up in one travel friendly unit. Unfortunately that's the end of the good news. Where to start?!?!?!?Fitted the batteries, plugged it in and turned it on. Everything powered up ok. Opened up Garageband ready for the "seamless integration" promised on the box. Picked a synth and tried the keyboard. NOTHING! Hmmmmm...ok, lets try IGrand app from the same people that make the keyboard. NOTHING!!!!! All I got was a warning message relating to microphone and privacy settings. After a lot of trial and error and dark muttering, found that if you unplug and re insert the proprietary din cable from the back of the keyboard and wait a few seconds then re insert, it did intermittently start working, only to randomly cut out again for no apparent reason regulary. Managed maybe 20mins at one point and thought maybe it just needed to settle down, but no, it must have heard me and proceeded to cut out again and refused to come back on. Obviously, it was trying to tell me to take a break and write this review! Updated the firmware (had to do it on PC as the mac download wouldn't install) to the latest version which has made no difference. Even the link to the product manual on the you've registered your product email is a dead link. DO IK Multimedia actually check/test anything before release?????? Bitterly disappointed as I was really hoping that I had a cracking little travel rig. Ended up keeping the secondhand irig Pro I bought and buying a secondhand Alesis q25 midi keyboard and it works flawlessly. Will return this and bank myself £145 in savings.

This worked great for 2 hours when I plugged it to my iPad. Then for some strange reason, the screen of my iPad went dark and wouldn't turn on again.what actually happened was the keyboard had shorted my very expensive iPad pro. Amazon were happy to give me a refund for the price of the keyboard but didn't really feel that compensation of equipment bought from them should be paid in cash only vouchers, really ask yourself who wants £350 worth of vouchers for Amazon which effectively means they are paying nothing. After emails back and forth and bad customer service and then having to write to the legal department, they paid the £350 in cashthat was 4 weeks later. So what's the keyboard like to honest i started making a track and i found it really easy to use and the software that came with it was great I like making my own soundtracks so having a nice string section although I had to pay for it was a blast cant moan easy to use but I am a little scared about plugging it to my new Mac or even buying another from Amazon.