M-Audio ProKeys 88-SX

If you want to use it as a stage piano or as a simple controller to play an expander it's ok; but if you need a controller for complex application in live situation (for example, controlling differents parameters on a plug in) it's not very good.

Fine keys action, with an excellent polyphony. Built - in effects (3 stages rever and chorus, tremolo for the EPs, vibrato only for organ) are nice; great sounding the Fender Rhodes (EP1) (and also the Wurlitzer EP2!!!) with chorus(1st o 2nd level) and a bit of tremolo.
Useful the three velocity curves!!!

Piano 1 (Yamaha C7 concert grand): good, but it's not as real as a Yamaha Clavinova or Roland RD series piano sound; you can play nicely, with a real dinamic using the 1st velocity curve.

Piano 2 (Bright Grand): it's good for rhytm part, with a little bit of chorus you can use to remind CP70.

Electric Piano 1 (Fender Rhodes Mark II): also if it's a very difficult instruments to reproduce, the Prokeys does it very well; you can fatten its sound with chorus and tremolo. But a nice surprise is the 2 layers sample: clean sound if you play gently, sparkling overdrive if you play hardly!!

Electric Piano 2 (Wurlitzer): amazing sound!!! Add little bit of chorus, switch the velocity curve on the 3rd level and start playin' "The Logical Song"...

Electric Piano 3 (DX7II): a realistic '80s digital piano sound

Clav (Honer D6): there's not a wha wha effect... What a shame!! Good bright clavinet sound, play it trhough a wha effect and you'll see

PercOrgan (B3 888 + 3rd fast percussion): jazzy, but not very real... If you have a Leslie sim I think it'll sound more realistic

I don't know, i bought it only two weeks ago

I don't now

Good performances and low price... What do you want more?

Extremely easy to navigate. Sampled voices (48KHz). Manual is not needed unless using as a MIDI controller.

Semi-weighted keys take a bit to get used to, but are very responsive and I prefer over many "spongy" fully-weighted keyboards. Built in chorus and reverb with and you can change the amount of each. Easily transposable by half step, which is great for changing keys and being lazy. Two headphone jacks as well as line outs are very useful.

The pianos are okay, not as good as any Yamaha or Roland, but acceptable, particularly for live. Rhodes is acceptable as that is a VERY hard instrument to mimic. Wurlitzer is amazing. I still use it even though I have some better boards. Don't like clav, but that's personal opinion as I don't use clav. Organ is good.

Very dependable. No problems here.

M-audio is very helpful. I've had experience with other products and they are very quick to respond with helpful information.

If I had to replace this board, I'd buy another one. I use this as a controller for my Yamaha S03 and sometimes my Alesis Micron, and it works GREAT for controlling another keyboard. My only complaint is that it has no wonderful strings or pad like the full Prokeys88. But I suppose you pay for it. Great stage piano, perfect for a church or gigging musician if voicings are applicable.

Very easy to use out of the box. You will need speakers or an amp, or a PA system to amplify the sound, however, if you just want to listen through headphones, then there are two 1/4" headphone jacks. For live gig situations, I run the outputs of the 88SX through a Roland RT-20 Rotary speaker simulator (to simulate a Leslie rotary cabinet) and the results are absolutely fantastic for the B3 organ patch! This keyboard handles the bread and butter sounds of a standard genre gig (rock, jazz, blues, 70s) very very well. To hear what the 88SX sounds like at a real gig, go to: bajabluesband.com, click on the Gigs link, scroll down, click on the Listen link for Fri., July 13, 2007 - Bonefish Grill. The Prokeys 88SX was also used at the July 14, 2007 gig. You should be able to hear the acoustic piano, electric piano (both Rhodes and Wurly) and especially the B3 organ (running through the Roland RT-20 Rotary simulator).

Its keyboard action is perfectly between a true weighted hammer action, and a lightly weighted synth type action. As gigging musicians get older, they (okay, me) actually don't necessarily want a true, heavy, weighted hammer action because they need to play this beast for 3-4 hours solid. On the other hand, the lighter action keyboards allow the keyboardist to get sloppy as the fingers spill over the keys a tad. The 88SX suffers from none of this, yet allows the keyboardist to fly over the keys with minimal strain.

Built-in effects are Reverb and Chorus and they are very nice, however, most of the time I use the Reverb on the Phonic Helix 18 Firewire mixer so that all of our inputs are using the same overall reverb space.

No expansion that I know of, but then it doesn't need any.

Both USB MIDI and standard MIDI OUT port. Both of them work as advertised. You can also send MIDI information from a computer to the 88SX via the USB MIDI cable and then THROUGH the 88SX via the standard MIDI Out jack. This acts as a passthrough routing. All MIDI stuff worked fine (including some advanced stuff where I was changing MIDI channel on the 88SX to trigger different instrument libraries in my laptop). The 88SX simply as a keyboard controller for studio work (having it trigger a very nice software acoustic grand piano library for example) is out of this world. VERY nice feel and playability.

All instruments are perfect for the gigging musician. As long as it is anchored well to your keyboard stand, this thing is very sexy and comfortable under your hands. The Wurly sample is so danged spot on that I have been working up several Supertramp songs (Poor Boy, From Now On, Logical Song, Downstream) just to make use of the Wurly epiano sound. Coupled with a good external outboard Rotary simulator (Roland makes one, Line6 makes one) the B3 is simply KILLER. Listen to the gig recordings referenced in this review and decide yourself. I will say, though, that the sounds aren't quite to the level of most available software sound libraries. But then again, this is a hardware solution that allows you to leave the laptop at home and take the keyboard to the gig. Plus, for live sound situations, the bread and butter sounds (acoustic piano, electric piano, B3 organ, Clavinet) don't have to be as high quality as software libraries. The sounds on the 88SX are plenty high quality enough for live gigging (again, go to the recorded gig referenced in this review and decide for yourself). Or email me and I'll get you the recordings and give you a little more information about exactly which 88SX patch I was using, etc.

It tends to feel so light that you mistrust its quality, however, my first one (lasted 2 months before it was stolen) seemed rugged enough. I hammer pretty hard on it and it never complained. The keys definitely do not feel cheap to my fingers, however, as already stated, nor do they wear out my hands after 2-3 hours. Just a perfect balance between too hard and too soft/sloppy.

Never dealt with M-Audio.

It WAS stolen after 2 months of use. 2 weeks later, I now have another one. It's that good. I compared it to similar keyboards (price and features) from Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Casio, and Kurzweil, and as of the date of this review, nothing can touch it for the price and features. Go find one at a local music store and pound on it awhile...you'll see.

It has a small internal patch libary, few in number and poor in tone quality. Internal patches are sufficient for sound checks but not much else. Plan on using this as a MIDI controller to an external device.

Bare bones, by design. Super light weight for a semi-weighted board with 88 keys.

This board fails to deliver on piano-like action and tone, either stand-alone or as a controller. The action does not have sufficient feel and sensitivity to allow you to play in an expressive, pianistic manner. It works fine however in other applications, comparable to a 61 key synth for example.

No reason to suspect quality problems.

Good website with lots of information and nice product documentation. Have never been able to reach anyone by phone, no longer try.

Neither the action nor the internal patches are good enough for serious piano practice, rehearsal or performance. In comparison, the action on the 27 lb Yamaha P70 has an expressive grand piano feel, but likewise it needs an external tone module. The M-Audio action is good enough for use as an 88 key synth controller. It's light weight, but that said, 61 key synths of the same weight have pro quality sounds and less bulk. I'm a conservatory trained pianist, performing classical, jazz and Latin for four decades. My other boards are a Roland RD700sx with SRX-11 piano module, and a Roland Juno D.

It could not get more simple than this. All dedicated buttons with nice blue leds. Just the midi functions are accessed with "hold this button and press this key".

I've read that polyphony is 128, but not from Maudio. So who knows? It has built in reverb and chorus, adjustable key velocity and transpose buttons. It is not expandable in any way.

7 sounds is it! But these are nice sounds. I do wish it had the same 14 sounds as i'ts big brother the prokeys88. Which includes some pads and strings. The piano does have an abrupt velocity switch that sometimes is awkward.

I've only had it for 3 days. I bought it for rehearsals and lite pickup gigs. Only 17 lbs!

Never delt with maudio

I wanted a light piano with decent sounds that did'nt cost a lot. I found it.

Very easy to use, this is an 88 note piano/master keyboard with just 7 sounds, pitch bend & mod wheels plus buttons for reverb, chorus and variable key velocity. Presets sound fine although velocity switching on piano is very abrupt. 3 electric pianos are good with a "Rhodes", "Whirly" and "DX7" provided plus a clav and a fair approximation of a B3 organ.

Poly is quoted as 128 and certainly seems adequate, effects are very clean and clear. The unit is un-expandable ( no memory slots etc.) but may be upgradeable via the USB port. One MIDI out is provided plus a USB port, the MIDI controls are fairly comprehensive and operation is assisted by engraved legends above the notes on the keyboard sting the dual function. Keyboard has a light, pleasing action - certainly good for the price.

Sounds are comparable to lower priced Yamaha and Casio portable keyboards but with an added clarity and depth - the stereo line outputs are very clean with almost no aliasing or other digital nasties. As stated before, the sounds are very usable but certainly not in the same class as the higher end Kawai and Yamaha pianos. Onboard effects are fine and the keybord response is good. I bought the unit to use with my Roland XV2020 and these work perfectly together.

Absolutely fine, PSU is still cool after 6 hours operation and no glitches or oddities have been experienced.

No contact with M-Audio but website looks fine with manuals, drivers etc. available for download.

I Bought the unit as a lightweight gigging keyboard to use with the Roland XV2020( my Kawai ES1 is fantastic but too heavy for regular gigs ). The sounds combine very well with the Roland and no problems have been experienced with the set-up. A string sound would be useful as would the ability to layer sounds but the keyboard is good value as it stands and I would certainly recommend it as a budget master keyboard. Plus points are the sound quality, negatives are the abrupt velocity switching of the grand piano sound.

I will use a Windows system (for which the product includes a CD-ROM) to communicate with the keyboard via USB. The keyboard also one MIDI Out connection. I haven't tried that part of the system yet. This review is restricted to the presets.

The keyboard comes with separate buttons/controllers for pitch-bend, modulation, transpose, reverb, chorus, touch, and the 7 preset tones. It is easy to navigate among tones (which have separate keys and labels) and fairly easy to navigate among levels of reverb, chorus and touch. For the latter three, each press of the button increases the effect, cycling through. There is no indication of which level you are at, but with just a few options, this is not a big problem.

The keyboard also combines a function key with the music keys to send and assign MIDI functions. The key assignments are screened above each music key, which is a lot of help when trying to figure out what MIDI function you are trying to send. Since there is no screen on this system, the screened keys are very helpful.

The preset sounds are great, especially for an instrument at this price level. They certainly are good enough to play a job. Perhaps the piano sounds may not fool discerning listeners in a piano lounge, but all the sounds will work just fine for a band. The manual is brief but seems to cover the major issues.

The keyboard is much better than the one I tried in the soundless 88 model. Seems like M-Audio replaced the keyboard from that one. This is similar to the keyboard on the Roland A-33 controller, but has heavier action. The keys are a little short (similar to those on the A-33) and the black keys are a little narrower than normal; but the key surfaces of the black keys are a non-skid matte finish that feels a lot better than typical synth keys.

The key travel and pressure are much better than almost any instrument I can think of at this price level. It isn't as good a hammer action as a $1,000+ Roland or Korg piano, but I was very surprised how good it is. The action feels a little different from some of the $700 pianos, but is at least as playable. It is better than a lot of them.

I described effeects and MIDI above. There is no expansion of sounds and no on-board sequencer. I guess that the USB link to a computer is supposed to take care of that.

If you want a light electric piano with very good playability, seriously consider this one. If you also want one at this price, this may be the only one out there. I paid $300 for it new. I was floored by how good it is at that price. You may have only 7 built-in tones, but they are good ones. Tweaking the tones with the effects can vary their sound quite a bit. Also, by adjusting the touch settings and mod wheel, you can get each tone to sound brassier or softer, etc.

Hey, I have had it out of the box less than an hour. I am enthusiastic about the keyboard, but haven't tested it on the road. I am tempted to leave my more expensive keyboard at home and try this one on the next gig. It would sound as good and play as well.

Bought it from PowerMax. They were very helpful in dealing with the order and shipping. I also got an excellent price from them. I would order from them again. I have not dealt with the manufacturer.

I defnitely would buy one again. It is a steal at this price, so it wouldn't be necessary to steal someone else's. ;-)

In the electric piano category I have owned a Korg SG1D and Kurzweil SP76 (which I play on jobs). This keyboard has a larger number of sounds than the SG1D and quality of sounds at least comparable to both of those units. I have owned a bunch of other keyboards as well and this one is better than all of those.

That sounds and action are a little different in style from the Casio Privia series, but the M-Audio 88sx costs considerably less and is a little lighter.