Jesse Bond

Ok, so since being excited about the Rock Band 3 instruments, I’ve purchased the 2-octave keytar—thoughts:

• pretty legit in a lot of ways… it has a contour-cut belly scoop, which is exactly like what you would find on a Fender Stratocaster guitar (very impressive)
• but the keys are a bit strange (the plastic feels odd under your fingers)
• and the velocity sensitivity is good but is easily overpowered (maxes out quickly, seems to assume a softer playing style)
• octave up/down and sustain via plugging in a rock band kick pedal work great, and most MIDI features seem well thought out… however…
• the touch strip/ribbon controller is pretty much useless. First off, it’s installed backwards of what it should be (up is AWAY from you, down is TOWARD you—for keytar this should be reversed), and the axis you move your finger along is not long enough to accurately control anything… It also sucks to only be able to choose modulation OR pitch, and having to hold down the overdrive button the whole time you’re trying to pitch bend is difficult and unpleasant

…so, not the most stellar thing ever, but potentially still useful for certain things. I’m also considering a couple of mods (replacing the touch strip with a wheel and replacing the overdrive momentary button with a toggle button/switch so you can just select pitch vs. mod instead of having to hold it constantly)—so we’ll see!