For years I had a 61-key midi controller sitting on my desktop (PC keyboard was underneath on a slideout tray). Kinda bulky and space consuming. The clip below shows something that’s now on my wish list: a PC/MIDI USB keyboard from Creative. OK, so the sounds are the typical rather low-quality Creative midi patches (I particularly dislike the strings patch), but it’s still a cool product, and used with better patches (Roland, say :-)), it’d be a nice addition. I like it, too, that when not in use, a cover for the MIDI keyboard converts it into a palm rest.
Yeh, I know the thing’s been around in earlier versions for a while, but I kinda need a new desktop-capable controller, and this one’s the best fit for my computer use I’ve seen. At $50 or so, the price is about right, too… if I can find it in stock for that. *sigh* Oh, well, $75 would be OK (and I’ve seen it marked up to that from Creative’s suggested retail in some places). Heck, my previous 61-key controller was about $250 (and I may find a use for that in the future, still).
No, the thing wouldn’t be useful for actually playing music (for one thing, it lacks the sustain pedal my old controller has, and for another, the keys are off-size), but it’d sure be useful for sketching out pieces in transcription software, which is all I really used the other one for, anyway.