Evolution 149

Windows XP, Cubase VST 5, The Logic Hit Kit. The actual software which came with it was okay until I installed "Piano Coach Deluxe" and it hasn't worked since. I installed the setup on a different computer with no problems so there is onviously a conflict between Evolution and Piano Coach.
The Cubase and Logic software work with no problem although there is a slight latency delay with "Hit Kit" which can make playing the "Piano Coach" lessons a bit tricky.
The manual is thin, covers most of what you need and apart from the above conflict is enough to get you going.
The original presets in the Evolution software were better than the "Hit Kit" but not as good as Cubase, although Cubase is obviously limited to the vst instruments you add.
Editing patches must be done in software and is therefore as easy or hard as the software is to use.

It was my first midi keyboard, I bought it second hand about six months ago and still like playing it. I like the feel of the keys as I don't have to hammer them to play.
The polyphony and effects depend upon your music software but it will play at least ten notes simultaneously if the software allows it.
It has midi out only. When I tried to play my Microkorg with it it did not work unless I wasn't doing something I should have.
There is no sequencer. The keyboard has no onboard sound capability and is a midi controller only.
It is limited but does what I bought it for (and was cheap).

The instrument sound and effects depend entirely upon the software.
I found it works well enough for any playing style although my novice playing wouldn't tax a Stylophone.
I found the latancey problem disappeared with Cubase.

I have had no problems with it. It is at least five years old and still works properly. The pitchbend is very easy to control.
I am a dabbler so there is little chance of me gigging but if I was to gig I would use my Korg ix-300. It has a pressed steel shell and built like a tank. Trent reznor could probably wreck it but it would be okay for normal gigging.
The Evolution MK149 would probably fall to bits if threatened with a mic stand.

There is no software support. The software ia compatible with 95,98 and XP but not necessarily with other software you may use (Piano Coach Deluxe). Please not that Charanga (Piano software people) did everything they could to help with the problem mentioned above so Brownie points to them for their help.
The Evolution web site is defunct. The people who have taken over marketting their products did not bother to return my emails.

If lost or stoled I would use something else now I have more experience in what to buy.
I have been playing for only six months.
I have a Korg ix-300 and a Korg Microkorg, both of which I'm very pleased with, especially the build quality of the ix-300. The Microkorg keys are a bit small and it has only three octaves to the ix-300's five. The good thing is that I can trigger the Microkorg using the ix-300 therefore having the Microkorg sounds and the ix-300 very playable keyboard (and a five octave range).
Having said that the MK149 was a good low price entry to keyboard playing and it is helping me to learn via interactive piano tutor software.
Having no software upgrade is a pain as the Evolution software does not recognise usb input. If I had paid the full price five years ago (and nearly did) I would still have been happy with what it can do.

Damn easy to use, but it is just a basic MIDI controller.

Keyboard action is pretty bad - velocity sensitive but not a weighted action so it can be tricky to play piano parts well. Synth/organ style playing is OK though.

Should work well for rock/etc., just don't try and play a Mozart piano concerto on it! Solid feeling pitch and mod wheels.

Although the mechanism looks as though it would break in a strong breeze it's actually quite solid. Once I dropped it on one end and twisted the right hand C right out of it's slot, but I twisted it back and it still works fine. A couple of keys occasionally don't sense velocity correctly, but other than that it's been OK for five years. I wouldn't gig with it as a main controller, but I'd probably use it as a backup.

I've not contacted Evolution.

If it were stolen I'd probably get the equivelent current Evolution model or if I was feeling rich the 88 key weighted M-Audio. The 149 is worth what I paid for it - can't really miss with 100 UKP for a four octave MIDI controller. I've been playing synths since 1978 and own/have owned a wide range of stuff. I chose this because I needed a MIDI controller in a hurry, and in the UK the 149 is/was widely available. I wish it has a slightly more solid action, but that would probably have made it much more expensive. Definately helps me make music - plasticy build quality but it works. I saw somewhere on the web that someone was making replacement keys to turn the 149 into a Janko style keyboard - when I get another controller I might try that.

put simply, it's no rocket science. seriously easy to use.

considering it is just a midi keyboard it has some useful features, but i can't say i played about with them too much. i took it out the box, plugged it in and played it.

It's a midi controller keyboard, no sounds onboard.

baring in mind i have had this keyboard for a fairly infant amount of time (3years), all the 'C' keys have broken at least one (fixed a couple of times with superglue and plastic from a cola bottle), the pitch bend wheel is twitchy (sometimes gives fluctuating random midi values), and the midi plug on the back of the thing broke of the board, i think '2' is a generous rating. I'm now seeking something a more sturdy and reliable. do yourself a favour and pay a little bit more for something alot better.

unless you can pick one up for 50p at a jumble sale or something, then you'd have a bargain.

never contacted them, although perhaps should have. would rather take a superglue, a cola bottle and soldering iron to it myself, it breaks up the writers block.

I have a roland juno 6 but because of the non-midi capability i guess this Evo is my midi buddy, until i get my fatar studiologic!

This keyboard was fine through perhaps the 1st year, but it rapidly fell apart after that. I tend to put alot of energy into my playing, so maybe my heavy handedness was to blame for the keys breaking, i don't really think so though, the keys are held on by flimsy plastic and would probably break under the weight of the keys if you left it long enough.

final note: If someone stole it, i'd shrug and sigh and chase up delivery of my fatar studioline.

This midi keyboard is as easy to use as any. I lost the manual years ago, and it really doesn't matter. It doesn't have any sounds or anything, so the number of things you can do on it is actually pretty limited. Any midi software will work just fine with it.

The keyboard action on this instrument is ghastly. The plastic keys feel tacky, and the silicone rubber contacts underneath don't make it any better. It does have velocity, and you can set a couple of different velocity curves, which is really handy for synth modules like my Kawai K3m, which seems to react oddly to most velocity settings. There's no aftertouch though, but considering the cheap design of this keyboard, i wouldn't expect it. You can also shift the octaves up and down a bit, which is really useful.

There is velocity, which works reasonably well, but the sponginess of the keyboard makes it a bit hard to play with precision. No sounds in the keyboard, of course..

I would never trust this keyboard for a number of reasons. First, the quality of the keys is cheap. The keys themselves don't look very reliable and the plastic is flimsy. Second, the silicone rubber contacs beneath each key won't age with dignity, especially if exposed to a lot of heat. Third, the circuitry is very poorly assembled, and this was the cause for it failing on me.

One reviewer mentioned glitching circuit board, and that was exactly what happened to mine. After opening up the instrument i decided to more or less resolder the whole thing. It was that poorly made. This is my experience of other chinese-made low price products as well, and i hate to imagine what sort of working conditions the people had been working under. It turned out that the reason for my glitch was a combination of a cold solder, and circuit traces broken from excessive heating (due to inadequate factory equipment no doubt). Don't get one of these keyboards second hand, unless you know how to solder.

I never dealt with Evolution.

At the time, the MK-149 was great value for money, and there weren't a lot of low price midi controllers on the market back then. I don't regret purchasing it. Now the market is riddled with midi controllers, so i would probably look elsewhere if i lost this one and needed a dedicated controller. I mostly use a Casio VZ-1 for a midi controller now, so i basically have no use for the MK-149 anymore. I love the size of this thing, and the fact that you can also shift the range a couple of octaves up and down. I would have loved if it had some sort of keyboard splitting for playing different midi channels simultaniously. The MK-149 could be a bit primitive compared to modern midi controllers, but if you manage to get a working one in good condition for a low price, you can probably do worse. Just beware of some of the potential reliability problems, and don't expect this controller to live forever.

the previous reviewer is spot-on. what a deal.

using with jazz 32 midi sequencer and with audiocompositor sampling software. works flawlessly. plugged it in with no problems ... both to an opcode USB interface and a nasty proprietary joystick port. off and running right out of the gate.

manual is clear. like the previous reviewer, I'm disappointed only because the hardware itself is more flexible than the manual implies.

it comes with a midi-joystick cable that will power the controller off of your port! nice if you have a laptop ... but the manual has an ominous warning not to use the cable to connect any other midi devices to the joystick port.

keyboard action is nice - I don't like weighted keys or pianos, and it's admittedly like neither of these. it's useful for most synth sounds, however, and it feels nice either with the velocity curve turned on OR off (e.g. for organ patches).

built in are pitch, modulation, and volume ... I wish it had more sliders but eh ... modwheel is assignable to any controller. velocity response is selectable from numerous curves, linear, and flat.

it doesn't make sounds, so this category mostly doesn't apply.

key velocity response is best in the middle velocities (MIDI 40-100)... on the low velocity end it's hard to control, and seems compressed on the high velocity end. velocity curve C2 eliminates the control issues for me though.

the pitch wheel is nice, but it sends a LOT of MIDI messages. it tends to overwhelm my slow computers & synth software, but with hardware boxes and fast machines it will bring a welcome smoothness to pitch bends. it bends "linearly" across the range (linear to my ear at least).

the mod wheel has a bit of buffer space at the bottom and top of its physical range, but it's smooth. the volume slider seems to have a bit of a cheapish pot in it but I usually leave it cranked or at zero anyway so it's no issue to me.

dependable. do use it without a backup, but I don't play a ton of keyboard lines. my software gives me problems, but the Evo has never abdicated on me.

never dealt with them. don't even know who they are, or how to find them really. never had to find out.

I do a little bit of everything, and playing keyboard is merely a requirement of what I write... certainly the thing is more flexible than my playing skills can make use of.

as a synthesist & programmer however I find it an invaluable too. I'd like to add a pocket controller with a bunch of knobs though, because I find myself reassigning the mod wheel very often.

I compared it to the kaysound (same internal hardware) and the Evo just offered more features.

Manual is misinforming in spots.The Evolution has more capabilities than the Kaysound MK4902 its conjoined twin.

This unit appears to be the same as the Kaysound MK4902 but with improved updates which Evolution hasn't even bothered to point out. Evolution seems to have used the mini owner's manual booklet of the Kaysound 4902. First the action. How can a keyboard cost $119 and bundled with software and a midi to parallel port cable when a four octave Roland controller goes for more than double the cost? It is disconcerting knowing how the action leverage is designed. Each key is a mini plastic diving board. There are no hinged or pivot points just a "flex" point.Yikes! Maybe the plastic can flex without warping, snapping or losing its inherent recovery tension for one million times -maybe ten billion. BUT whatever that number is it has to be FINITE! Yet I've never had trouble with the action "heating up" warping or"going soft" and I've purchased numerous Kaysound 4902s and now Evolution 149s for two school music programs. The Kaysound MK4902s still in use go back to 1996 and in all that time I've had only one unit develope an incurable circuit board glitch. The Evolution enables you to access the FULL NINE MIDI OCTAVES! The specs say it can octave shift UP two and DOWN one but it can shift up THREE octaves and shift TWO octaves down. It also has three fixed velocity curves which are not mentioned in the owners sheets. The Evolution 149 comes packaged as Music Creator 49. Forget the learning/sequencing software and use your own preferred system. The software packaged with Evolution's DANCE STATION is VERY useful and students are smitten with the samples and recording process.

The undocumented fixed velocity curves might be helpful when entering drum patterns for later dynamic tweaking. The sustain switch socket is set for normally closed. Controller 130 is set to adjust coarse pressure. I wonder if they mean coarse tuning? The pitch bend sensitivity controller number 128 has been very handy for me working with early budget GM modules such as the MidiMan GMan (I never did get that LSB MSB procedure down). Of course the sensitivity can only adjust within the module's range. Sound Canvas units have two octaves each way.which is very handy when "scratching" on some drum samples. My Casio VZ I believe has a three octaves pitch bend range which can make for some nice "dive bombs" on a decent distortion guitar patch.

The action design of flexing plastic instead of springs and a pivot seems a real compromise but I've had no problems with the action on five units for over five years.

Woudln't count on it and if you take it in for repair the service guy will probably suggest you buy a new one.

I give the Evolution 149 a perfect ten mainly because it is so affordable. If it failed after three years so what?? I also give the DANCE STATION (Evolution MK125) a ten plus. If the MK125 had a midi merge it might sell more units than the Yamaha P80 and Fatar SL990 combined since those owners will eventually develope "wheel envy" and want one sitting on top to add controller features. My personal Evolution 149 has been customized by me for left handed bass synth strap on playing. I relocated the two wheels to a handle on the RIGHT SIDE and shortened the chassis. It is driving a Yamaha TX81z with my own programmed bass patches which are all in mono with varying portamento times (according to tempo and bass emulation type). I would never use batteries and instead have a longer DC cable leading to the DC jack. I was using a Fatar ST 37 recently but needed one more octave for those intense acoustic bass "off the fingerboard" moments when emulating the jazz player's preference for high tessitura showboating. I have owned a Yamaha KX5, a Novation MM10 and an early mini KORG all converted for left handed bass playing. All my bass parts and lines are entered into a sequencer with the strap on and no quantizing.