December 28, 2012 at 00:25ION Piano Apprentice - Controller for Garage Band
Soon the New Year, everyone is thinking about gifts for relatives. I want to give my daughter a toy that will be useful and interesting for her, and my wife and I will entertain. Daughters 5 years old, she is interested in music and instruments, so I decided to give her a simple synthesizer. There will be a deliberate interest - he will receive a full-fledged piano for many octaves and with a reaction to the reverse move, and if not, he should not take up too much space in the pantry and make too serious holes in the budget.
A quick market analysis showed that, in principle, something like CASIO SA-46 corresponds to my desires , but acquaintances who play real instruments said that the quality of the sampler in such synthesizers is very low. Literally: a drum and a whistle are better than a cutting ear synthesizer. vaara, who knows how to play real instruments, he advised to pay attention to the controllers for the iOS version of the Garage Band: the sampler is there at the level of high-quality instruments and a good selection of pianos, organs, guitars and drums. I ordered the ION Piano Apprentice, which looks something like this:
What we have:
The price of the device is about 4000r, for which I got exactly what I wanted: a high-quality and useful synthesizer toy that will help you learn some simple tunes and has a good sound.
A quick market analysis showed that, in principle, something like CASIO SA-46 corresponds to my desires , but acquaintances who play real instruments said that the quality of the sampler in such synthesizers is very low. Literally: a drum and a whistle are better than a cutting ear synthesizer. vaara, who knows how to play real instruments, he advised to pay attention to the controllers for the iOS version of the Garage Band: the sampler is there at the level of high-quality instruments and a good selection of pianos, organs, guitars and drums. I ordered the ION Piano Apprentice, which looks something like this:
What we have:
- 25 keys that work independently and are touch sensitive. Naturally, it’s not a hammer system, the keys are smaller than the real ones (plus for the child and the wife, minus for me) and there is no after-sound, the device class is not the same;
- backlight keys for tutorials;
- normal audio path: the built-in speakers sound good, the device allows you to use the iPad's output;
- lack of lags when playing and displaying in the interface;
- Piano Apprentice’s own program with 25 lessons of simple melodies: Jingle Balls is quite possible to learn over the evening;
- Garage Band compatible
- powered by 4 AA batteries or an adapter (not included);
- octave shift keys.
The price of the device is about 4000r, for which I got exactly what I wanted: a high-quality and useful synthesizer toy that will help you learn some simple tunes and has a good sound.
