Behringer UMX49

pretty much plug and play with the USB - im not much of an expert in therse areas and havent compared it to other product but i was impressed with how easy it was to setup in Sonar using my Digitech GNX3000 as the soundcard - or using my PC soundcard with the bunled ASIOLX drivers and a chainer.
There arent any presets because its a MIDI controller keyboard - you get a CD with 50 virtual instruments wich are all pretty much freeware and trialware and you could find yourself if you spent enough time on Google - but they are all very good quality and sound pretty smashing - everything from Spacey atmospheric pads - to hard dance synth leads to piano and organ sounds.

The Manual is like most Behringer manuals - im sure it was excellent in German - but once translated you can see there's lots of good information but there isnt a bit that says "ok - this is how you make it work" - it kind of assumes you already know about these types of devices.

the polyphony would depend on the virtual instrument you have selected, the action is good - im a guitar player not a keyboard player, ive owned CASIO type keyboards before, and ive spent a lot of time inputting MIDI notes for softsynths on the piano roll but i thought it was time to get a controller - but bear that in mind in this review as i probably dont know what im talking about. I like the KBD action firm and springy and touch sensitive to velocity. The modulation and picth bending weel work very well - the octave up and down buttons are easy to use, the control knobs are finite knobs - they work but ive only tried them when presets have already set them to a parameter - i havent tried editing my own yet (im a guitarist - these things are a bit technical for me!) it has MIDI out for Sound Modules. It cam bundled with a little USB powered audio input device - like an external soundcard, similair to the u-control device = its very small and tasty - i plugged it in and it showed up in Sonar as having 1.1ms of latency!! very cool = my Line 6 toneport can get down to 2.9ms and if i drop the GNX3000 any lower than 10ms it just drops out all the time.

You also get a version of Ableton Live Lite 4 in the bundle (so i'll add that to my collection of Live Lite 4 discs then!) very cool software if a little rtestricted in its demo mode - 4 tracks of Audio only and a limited number of plug ins - but if you are using it with this keayboard you'll be mainly MIDI so not so bad.

well the expression is there i think - and the sounds are down to the virtual instruments you use - but i must say im impressed with the selection of VST synths bundled with the keyboard - some excellent stock presets and can get some very cool sound mixing them with plug in effects in your DAW.

well its light weight plastic so home use only - some of the keys move from side to side when paying so its not very robust but its works really well and is cheap as chips

I would definately buy this again - i was looking at 25 key controllers by Alesis or M-audio but they were like 50# more than this - i like this controller it does what i want it to.
ive been getting my studio together and learning how to play for about 3 years now - im primarily guitar based but i like to have synth sounds in my tracks like hawkwind or pinkfloyd.
This keyboaqrd really is a lot of fun - and very easy and quick to setup and use (apart from the instument disc - no splash screen or anything you have to go into each instrumetn and unzip it into your vst folder - dop that 50 times!!)

Behringer come through again!! respect to Behringer!!:)