Comments on: CME Releases $99, Ultra-Thin MIDI Keyboard

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:18:06 +0000

Yep, it should be fine with FL8 + Vista. :)

By: Xovan

Xovan — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:10:03 +0000

Looks great for the price, but is it compatible with Windows Vista???

Or FL Studio 8?

By: Wannabe

Wannabe — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:58:35 +0000

Peter - dumb question from a rank amateur - will this be compatible with mac ‘garage band’?

By: genmce

genmce — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:52:31 +0000

BTW - New version of GenMce 1.6 http://shoshin.110mb.com/genmce/
How do it get this listed on here?
It is still free and will remain so.
Thanks.

By: David Battino

David Battino — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:27:10 +0000

That joystick is just begging to be snapped off, but according to the manual, it does have an interesting function: To get the keyboard to work with Windows Vista, you have to power it up while pressing down on the joystick.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:13:19 +0000

Right, except the whole MI industry is basically centered in China. You see very little manufactured elsewhere. So, ultimately, to me it comes down to whether they engineer the product right.

I love cheap, but personally I wish build quality were more consistent across our whole industry. It’s tough — they’re selling to a small market, and if you think about the number and importance of moving parts in these products, there’s a lot on the line as far as build quality. Everyone screws up, some do nail it with at least some products.

In other words — keep sending us your experience, everybody!

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:10:14 +0000

Yea, keep it away from small children though, it probably has friggin lead in the paint.

By: runagate

runagate — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 23:34:22 +0000

I bought a CME VX5 (just under $700) this summer, far and away the biggest midi controller investment I’ve ever made, and judging from the forums and support this very new company has some great ideas but is a little confused.

The build-quality over the entire keyboard is goes from amazing and rugged to poorly-put-together and ill-conceived. In just on keyboard! But overall it’s an awe-inspiring amount of midi control for the price. Motorized faders, the U-Ctrl key which allows it to go from instrument-controller to DAW control surface with the touch of a single button, instantly, using the Mackie Universal template thing.

[side note: GenMce: Generic midi controller to Mackie control e mulator, which is freeware made by Kip Chatterson that allows you to use this technology and customize/edit presets for it is just genius: http://home.earthlink.net/~flipotto/ ]

More recently CME has released firmware upgrades that fix some pretty awful bugs (and I’ve had no problems since, but the thing is so deep it’s hard to say) and the “VXBrain” program which enables the firmware and .mid files to be zapped through the USB, as well as velocity curve editing. So far there’s no way to edit midi assignments and such via software/USB a la the Enigma librarian, which is a damned shame.

The unit also has some non-standard, microtonal temperament presets, and the ability to constrain all keys to chosen scales which is really cool for a number of uses. It’s drum trigger pads sadly don’t have aftertouch like the keyboard section does. It hsa audio A/D/A, too, which I haven’t bothered with yet, a built-in breath controller jack and sustain and expression pedal jacks, and some weird USB in/out stuff for use with expansion cards, which thus far have not interested me but may in the future as offloading DSP processing into your controller which has audio in/out isn’t such a bad thing.

Just adding my 2 cents on my experience with CME, such as it is. I’d be more opinionated but as far as I can tell they broke the ability to log-in or register on their forums and few speak any English ;-)

By: cdr

cdr — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:28:49 +0000

for a bit more you can get this with pads, knobs, and a synth. better deal as it consolidates more clutter

By: sef

sef — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:14:58 +0000

you’ve got a slight HTML issue involving italics here. Don’t know if i’ll check that keyboard out. Kinda weird about Chinese construction practices since all the controversies the American Mass Media have been reporting. And i’m quite pleased with my casio privia for weighted action and my korg k25 for mobility….