M-Audio Pro Tools Keystudio

An affordable music keyboard-and-software package

M-Audio is well known in the music business for its music keyboards and other recording devices used in studios around the world.

Its new Pro Tools Keystudio is an attempt to make a more affordable music product for home users and less-experienced musicians.

The Keystudio package is good value. For just £79 it includes a music keyboard that plugs into a USB port on your computer (PC or Mac) and a powerful piece of recording software called Pro Tools Essential.

The keyboard is excellent. It has 49 keys covering four octaves (groups of eight notes), and it has an Octave button that raises or lowers notes by an octave at a time to cover a much wider range.

It’s also pressure-sensitive, which means that, like a piano, the keyboard produces notes more loudly or quietly depending on how hard the keys are hit (cheaper keyboards play at the same volume regardless).

If you don’t want a keyboard there is a Vocal Studio version for the same price that includes a high-quality microphone instead, or the Recording Studio package that provides a gadget for recording guitars and other instruments.

Unfortunately the software is not as attractive. The Pro Tools Essential program is very powerful but it’s also complicated.

When the program opens you are presented with two overlapping windows that contain an intimidating selection of controls and menu commands.

Matters are not helped by the half-a-dozen different manuals included on the disk in PDF format and people who have not used recording software before may struggle.

You also need to attach a special adaptor into a USB port to use the Pro Tools Essential Software. If you lose or damage this you will not be able to use the software.

We like the idea of combining music hardware and software into an affordable package, but the complexity of the Pro Tools Essential software and the need to plug in the adaptor before running it means that Keystudio is not user-friendly enough for newcomers to digital music.