Edirol PCR-30

I found everything easy to use, the manual explains very well.

Features are generous for a budget keyboard, meaning lots of control knobs and faders. More than enough for hobby users like me.

Key started playing up after half a year, now 60% don't work at all, 20% on low velocity. Fader start playing up now, jumping in 2s.

What's the point in having a keyboard that's perfect for 8 months?! Great disappointment, will go on wall as decoration...
Do yourself a faver, NEVER BUY THIS THING!!!!

Takes some getting into to make use of the configurable buttons, but that had more to do with how my JV1010 changes patches and the poor way it was described in the JV1010 manual.

Just can't get enough of these controllers! A great concept, but in the end, I just ended up editing from the computer; because no matter how many controllers there are, there will always be that one extra parameter and you have only an odd slider left or simply none at all anymore.

Master keyboard, no sounds

Black keys are louder (higher velocity response) than the white keys. Very wierd. I normally use a Yamaha DX7 with grey matter E! expansion.
Cannot get used to this.

Reliability problems with keys in general, too.

One key would work only intermittently. Sent it for repair, came back but didn't work at all, then! Got a fully repaired version now, hope it lasts...

Reliability a problem, now out of guarantee. Really only good for scrapping. M-Audio and ESI also seem to be poor quality. Glad I made my experience with bad Chinese build quality with a cheap-(ish) keyboard. Will take extra care with next purchase. No wonder Roland hides their Chinese stuff under the Edirol label...

Pretty easy to use, comes with a bunch of presets, and is now supported by most of the spftware i use

great controllers, nice midi bank features, keyboard ok, but has been a bit intermittent from day one

n/a

Totally unreliable. Had it for 2 years, i noticed that a couple of the keys were much louder or softer tan others fairly early on. Now, two years of occasional use down the line, over 50% of keys produce so quiet a signal as to be inaudible.

just about to try based on comments on this site. watch this space...

If it were stolen, i would definitely check something else out. It has by far the best feature set of any keyboard in its price range, but what's the point when the keyboard section stops working after so little use? would go for something more solid and accept fewer controllers as a compromise

No complaints about ease of use, except that *all* MIDI equipment is annoyingly difficult to use.

Lots of sliders, buttons, and knobs. I bought this controller for the features. However, the action is really clunky and uncomfortable, and I found my wrists straining every time I played it.

N/A

I'm one of those guys who buys a keyboard hoping to "get back into music" and then plays it twice a year. I've owned the PCR-30 for two years, played it a just a few times. Amazingly enough, it now has several dead keys. This machine has hardly been *used*, much less abused. This is ridiculous!

We shall soon find out.

I was hoping to have this controller around for use when the mood for music struck me, only to have it let me down when the mood finally did strike me.

I was new to MIDI and desktop recording when I bought this controller, so it took me a while to figure things out. The manual wasn't written especially well for someone new to MIDI, but maybe that's normal I don't know. I will say, though, that I was able to control some general functions right out of the box (after driver installation), so for that I'll give it a decent score.

32 keys, 8 sliders, 8 rotary knobs, buttons, velocity sensitive keys

No sounds, this is a controller. I'm a guitar player, so I don't know how to compare the feel of the keys to a higher end controller or synth. But, I know they don't feel like piano keys, nor were they advertised as such.

Here was my biggest issue. I bought this controller 2.5 years ago, and when I recently pulled it out for the first time in 6 months, I could not get many of the keys to work. Aside from the fact that I wasted hours trying to figure out what was wrong, it really pissed me off me when I realized that indeed the keys were broken....

So here's the main reason I wanted to write this review. I noticed many other users have had failed keys on their PCR series of keyboards, and some have complained about Edirol customer cupport. For whatever reason, when I contacted customer support last week, informing them upfront that my keyboard was 2.5 years old, they told me to ship it to them and they'd replace the whole key assembly for free. I paid $9 in shipping, and less than a week later it's on its way back to me. Although I do feel that the reliability of this product is really bad, I will say that from a customer support perspective, they have been great to me, because my keyboard is way out of warranty. If you've had similar issues, I suggest you write them a friendly email (i.e. don't blast them) explaining what is wrong and that you would really appreciate it if they could fix the problem, and most likely they will.

I would consider upgrading to the newer M version of these keyboards, but I would certainly do a lot more research as to which other keyboards are out there beforehand.

After owning this MIDI controller for just two years, some of the keyboard keys play too quietly, some too loudly, and some not at all. I would think twice next time before I bought an Edirol product for this reason.

If Edirol can help me fix the malfunctioning keys, it gets a higher rating. Frankly, I wish they'd send me a replacement, because i have keyboards much, much older that do not have this problem of unresponsive keys. If you know a way to fix this problem, please contact me. I've tried taking the thing apart... didn't help much, if at all.