Studiologic SL88 Studio

I'm a classical pianist and got this keyboard mainly as a midi controller for orchestral vsti with an option to sketch piano parts without needing to use my main piano controller. And I'm very happy with the purchase.

It's a quality construction and the action is more than adequate for any use. I'm using it now exclusively and haven't felt the need to switch to my stage piano to improve piano part performances.

The control options offered are fantastic, allowing up to 4 channels to be controlled at a time, fully programmable, layered, split or any combination, with different key response and joystick/pedal assignments per channel. You can connect up to 2 switches and another 2 expression pedals, full midi in/out interface with an option to merge the input and send it either to the midi out or usb, all very useful features.

The action itself is a bit sluggish but not in a way that would prohibit fast playing as some reviews claim. I've yet to find something that I can't play on this instrument and I've tried some of the most demanding classical pieces on it. Noise wise, I find it relatively quiet. There is some noise of course, but it's soft and low pitched and not as unpleasant as in most mid-low tier digital piano actions.

A big part of how the action feels comes down to audio feedback and the default tuning is pretty slow for most vsti. Switching to the soft preset or making your own through the accompanying editor reveals a very enjoyable instrument. This is the exact same action used in Keylab 88 and KK S88 after all.

Finally the joysticks. It's like having 3 mod wheels and 3 pitch bends, all programmable. I like that a lot. The springy ones for pitch bend type control are perfectly fine. The free ones for mod control will require some brain adjustment but they're serviceable. Once you adapt to the small movements and minimal force required, they get the job done. It's down to you if you'll end up liking them more than a traditional wheel though; I suspect most people won't.

All in all for the money this is a fantastic piece of kit. 88 hammer action keys with aftertouch, 3 dual axis programmable joysticks, 4 pedal inputs, midi i/o, 4 simultaneously active fully programmable zones per preset, virtually infinite presets and editor software that allows customizing every aspect of the action. So much to like in this instrument. Highly recommended.

I was looking for an 88 keys midi masterkeyboard with a piano feel, that wouldn't make too much noise. I use it for my DAW (Reaper), to compose music with VST's. I'm not a well trained pianist, but took lessons for 3 years and I know how a piano feels. And if I could choose again, I would have made a different choise.

The SL88 is sort of OK.
I own a piano, and the SL doesn't play like a piano at all, but other keyboards that I tried felt the same or worse. I didn't try the most expensive ones though, such as a Doepfer or Kawai.

The keys are a bit hard and muddy to press at first, just like the Arturia Keylab 88 (still MKi back then). Same Fatar TP/100 LR keybed. But after even a few days of playing the resistance is going down considerally. Alas, the noise becomes much bigger as well. After a year of playing, I can hear and feel where my hand is, in the dark and without switching the power on: the lowest keys still have a bit of resistance, and they're much more quiet. None are as noisey as my old M-audio Code49 though.

I doubted a lot back then between the Arturia, which had a few problems with Dead On Arrivals according to the reviews, and the SL88. I've got a bit of regret. I really miss having a pitch and modulation wheel. The tiny joysticks on the SL88 are quite useless: you can never give any nuance to for instance the vibrato of a violin with such a small travel.

I bought a second hand BCF2000 with 100 mm faders to do that now, and a Native Instruments Maschine MK3 for the pads. So with the Arturia, twice the price of the SL88, I would have spend much less money, and also I'm still not sure where to park all this equipment.

My old footswitch doesn't work on the SL, as Studiologic wants you to buy theirs for extra $$. I hate that. Oh, if you want faders, you can get Studiologics SL Mixface, but don't do that. You can't assign any new CC number to those faders, which in my mind is the only reason why you would buy such a thing. They don't seem to have any idea of what their users want, apart from having okayish keys for a low price.

Still, not everything is bad. You can set sensitivity of the keys, there's aftertouch, it's cheap, the build is not bad apart from being a bit noisey, and nothing broke so far. Or did it? I've got a problem with double midi notes being sent, that I could only solve by switching off one of the triple sensortechnology...

It's such a pity I can't control my DAW with my 120 year old piano. The SL keys are much slower than my standing piano's, they feel plastic, you really need to hammer to get more then just a low volume, and they make much more noise when playing softly then the old piano, that has much and much more dynamic.

But at least you don't have to tune this one, and my old piano, well, sadly it's too old to tune, and my piano tuner gave up on it.

End verdict: this is not worth more than its price. It's quite OK for the cost, but don't expect too much.