A little too basic for super serious composers, but it should be just right for everyone else.

GarageBand brought low-cost home recording to the average household Mac, giving weekend rock stars the opportunity to create musical masterpieces. But pecking out notes with a mouse cursor on an onscreen keyboard is no way make music. To really harness the power of GarageBand, you need a MIDI keyboard controller.

M-Audio’s KeyRig 49 is just the kind of affordable, easy-to-use MIDI keyboard bedroom musicians need to unlock their digital audio workstation’s phalanx of virtual instruments. Small enough to fit unobtrusively on a computer desk, the KeyRig 49 installs hassle-free. Just plug the unit into an available USB port, switch it on, and you’re ready to start your recording session. You don’t need a Juilliard degree or even to have endured childhood piano lessons to get around this keyboard—each of the unit’s white keys is labeled with its musical note and octave number.

Purists may squawk at anything with fewer than 88 keys, but the KeyRig 49 also features two octave-shift buttons, which can transpose the keys up four octaves and down three, giving you the flexibility of a full-size keyboard. A pitch-bend wheel to the left of the keyboard lets you apply guitar-style note bending to any instrument, and a modulation wheel adds vibrato. Above these is the volume slider. With the exception of the pitch-bend wheel, each of these controllers can be assigned other functions such as pan, attack time, and reverb, but that requires a deeper understanding of MIDI than a guy throwing together a soundtrack for his home-movie DVD probably has time for.

Though the KeyRig 49 is a solid keyboard controller, hardcore home-recording artists would do better to seek out something more full-featured. But if you’re looking for a MIDI keyboard borne of the same egalitarian spirit as GarageBand, the KeyRig 49 is it.

The bottom line. The KeyRig 49 is ideal for the weekend warrior, or when space or money is at a premium.

COMPANY: M-Audio

CONTACT: www.m-audio.com

PRICE: $129.95

REQUIREMENTS: G3 or later, Mac OS 10.3.9 or later, 256MB RAM, USB

Hassle-free installation. Easy integration with GarageBand.

Features too basic for hardcore musicians