Acorn Masterkey 25 review: specs and price

The device has an electronic display to present information to the user.

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The octave buttons are used to shift the keyboard up or down in one octave increments. This extends the range of the keyboard in either direction, which lets you play notes that lie outside the number of keys available.

Transpose buttons are used for moving a collection of notes (pitches or pitch classes) up or down in pitch by a constant interval, usually in semitone increments.

The more buttons the device has, the more complex the input can be.

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More knobs (rotating controls) can give the user more dedicated control over the device, eg. volume, effects, EQs etc. Types of knobs may differ: endless type or step type.

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Faders can be either channel volume faders, pitch sliders, crossfaders or even EQs.

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The pitch wheel alters the pitch and timbre of a sound in real-time. It can give fine tuning control from fractions of a semitone to huge multioctave pitch swings.

Velocity sensitive keys are just spring loaded keys that sound out louder the harder you hit them. If you "lightly" press a key, the sound will be quiet; the harder you press, the louder it gets.

The amount of keys the controller has on the keyboard.

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The pads section is ideal to trigger loops and samples, using your finger drum skills.

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A synth-action keyboard feels more like an electronic organ. The spring-loaded keys are light and capable of being moved very quickly. They also tend to return to their resting position much more quickly. Synth-action keys are perfect for musicians who aren’t pianists by nature, such as guitarists wanting to add MIDI functionality to their setup.

When pressed, the sustain pedal allows all notes to sound and “vibrate” freely. All notes played will continue to sound until the pedal is released. This is perfect when you need a sturdy and responsive control over sustain.

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Devices can communicate in both directions with each other without any additional MIDI interface. The biggest advantage is that the USB connection can be used for everything; power supply, MIDI-in and MIDI-out. This means you need less cables.

Users can map, set and regulate the entire midi controller giving different functionalities to all different buttons, knobs and faders. The device could be also set up with different softwares.

It is compatible with PCs and laptops running the Windows operating system.

The device is set up and ready to be used with the included software.

It is compatible with Mac OS X devices such as MacBooks and iMacs.