Creative Prodikeys PC-MIDI - keyboard > Reviews (1)

This is actually my brothers Prodikeys, however he is letting me use it for now.

Just using it as a normal keyboard, this is a good keyboard, with nice keys, and fairly flat keys like a laptop, which I prefer. It has many hotkeys, you can program to what you want which is useful, and has all the multimedia keys.

On the top of the keyboard, from the left, is the key to open the prodikeys software, and then 3 keys next to that on the right, Sustain, Octave up and down, which when you are not using the prodikeys software, these keys are to open a web browser, open email, and open instant messenager. Futher to the right, there is a calculator key, calender, address book, My Documents, My Pictures, Music, Lock, stand by, then the multimedia keys, play/pause, stop, skip left/right, and then open media player software. There is also a volume control on the far left, which you can scroll up/down to turn the volume up/down, and you can press this button in to mute.

There are also images on the 'F' keys to show what they usually will do inside software, such as help, open, save etc, and they can also function outside of programs by using the 'Fn' button above the numpad.

There is a casing onto of the musical keys for when your not using them, so it is more of a arm rest. This, however, unfortunatly has broken a bit of this one, the clip snapped so I had to Blue Tack it on, and it still comes off after a few hours use.

The keys themselves are pretty cool, they are touch sensitive, but that doesn't work all that well, as some of the keys you have to slam, and some you can get away with lightly tapping.

With the software, when you launch it, you can select between Mini Keyboard, FunMix, EasyNotes, HotKey Manager, and Product Tutorial.

The Mini Keyboard is the main point of using this keyboard, you can select to play anything from a Grand Piano, and Sound Effects.
Here is the list of all available (more specific options are then available, such as Grand Piano, Bright Accoustic, Honky-Tonk etc.):
- Piano; - Chromatic Percussion; - Organ; - Guitar; - Bass; - Strings; - Ensemble; - Brass; - Reed; - Pipe; - Synth Lead; - Synth Pad; - Synth Effects; - Ethnic; - Percussive; - Sound Effects; - Drums.

The FunMix you can basicly play prerecorded tunes, and play a few different tunes over each other. This is good for little kids, or just messing around, nothing much else.

EasyNotes teaches you how to play keyboard - it tells you to play certain things and what is what etc.

HotKeys Manager enables you to program the keys to what you want, open a certain directory or a program.

Product Tutorial teaches you how to use the software, althought it is pretty easy to learn to use.

To use this, you really need to use a different synth, if you use microsofts built in one, you get a lot of delay, if you use a sound cards synth, you will not. Unfortunately, my sound card only supports microsofts built in one : (

The keyboard looks aren't bad, they aren't bad at all. Not fantastic, but pretty nice.

Overall, it is a pretty good keyboard, nice to have.