I've been using this keyboard at home for two years, recording basic chords, melodies and midi drums.
Now that I'm used to it, the velocity sensitivity is great and the feel of the keys is very nice to my fingers (quite stiff, but that works well with my hands).
Two years in, the pitch and mod wheels still hold up nice, and the volume encoder has no issues (I use it as an expression "pedal" for libraries that use it). I haven't used the macro/CC buttons, but the octave buttons have been used extensively and besides surface wear have no issues.
The one sign of wear after two years is that the keybed is no longer perfectly flat. I'd say there's a 1-2 mm variance pretty much across the board at this stage. Not an issue for me, but I'm not a technical player.
Things to know:
- It does not have a connector for external expression.
- It has integration with many DAWs if you want to use it for transport control.
- There's no software for configuration, which I always enjoyed with the NI hardware, but since there's only so much you can do with the controller part of it, the hardware/onboard configuration is not cumbersome.
- If you don't use the transpose buttons, you can assign them to step through midi channels.
- It has MIDI in as well, so you can send messages to the keyboard if you want to keep it in the loop.
Except for a slight wish for better keybed quality, the only other thing I'm on the fence about (since the controller has MIDI in), would be an infinite encoder for the volume, and possibly a touch strip for expression control.
The keyboard is a great value and holds up well over time. It's possible the cheaper alternatives have similar quality, and there are probably better synth action keyboards out there, but I have no desire to switch up. Totally satisfied with the keyboard and strongly recommend it for anyone getting into software music.