I can't understand why 30-40 years ago toy music instruments were made with such a respect to children and why they are so so-so nowadays... Seems like modern technologies allows to put amazing top quality sounds in cheap toy synths and drums. The memory-chips are not so expensive anymore as it was in 80-s. But mostly all I've tried at store shelfs sounds horrible and sometimes even out of tune.
I have become a collector of old home keyboards and synthesizers (from the 80s and 90s) lately, and honestly I believe that there are so many gems out there. It’s wild to me that a lot of them are regarded as junk and just sitting in peoples’ closets these days.
I completely agree with you. Technology has advanced dramatically, but quality has declined in the opposite direction. I still find the old Casiotone and PortaSound attractive (high quality, durability, and the spirit of manufacturing) after all these years.
Yes the only reason a kids keyboard in 2021 isn’t at least 75% of a Korg Triton , Motif , Fantom , M1 , XP80 , etc. is gatekeeping . I don’t even understand this from a greed perspective either , wouldn’t it be effective brand loyalty and awareness to grow your customers ? I mean the ip already exists , the tech is considerably cheaper , so r&d is cut down to minimal .
@@Death_By_Media I understand what you’re saying, but I think the comparison is a bit off. When I think of home keyboards these days being compared to quality home keyboards of the past, I think of comparing them to the Casio Tone Banks of the early 90s. I have a CT-670, and I love it. When I compare it to things like the various modern Yamaha PSR keyboards that I’ve owned/tried, the CT-670 beats them all in terms of good and useable sounds. I think there was a level of pride and quality put out into the home keyboards of previous decades that is simply gone these days. Maybe it has to do with us living in the digital age. I think maybe it has to also do with the fact that there are so many means of entertainment, toys, music gear in general these days that these manufactures are not looking to impress as much with their modern home keyboards. I also think that a lot of the home keyboards of the 80s and 90s were made with the intention of being “toys” and beginner keyboards, but they were also made with the intention that professionals could potentially get some good use out of them as well. I think that since we’ve seen the music gear market open up drastically in the sense that there are almost unlimited buying options for customers (ranging in both price and quality; i.e. great instruments for cheaper prices than previously seen), it has cemented the concept to these companies that a home keyboard does not need to deliver much on quality, but rather just be something for beginner use only. Idk, these are all just my thoughts and ramblings though.
This was a great segment. The way you arrange your reviews makes it really fun to watch. It would be fun to see you regularly take on these keyboards that nobody has any hope for.
Yes! I'd like to see this become a regular feature ... scouring the depths for keyboards designed without love or care. I feel like there as still a good few tones, rhythms, and uses for this budget machine.
Alesis had to file bancruptcy in 2001 and got a new owner. After that, they still made cheap music equipment as before, but most of the earlier innovation potential and ingenuity was gone and never came back. Luckily, the early Alesis gear still kicks ass! The MMT-8 sequencer and Midiverb III get a lot of use in my studio
Yeah. I have 3 Yamaha keyboards. I have an original DX7, a DX7s, and an EX5. But you're absolutely right. The Montage series is such a cool synthesizer. Yamaha has always been a great name. I also have some Behringer synths. I have the DeepMind 12 (Totally bad ass) Model D, and K2. Then a product from Ensoniq and Novation as follows :Ensoniq SQ1+ and a Novation MiniNova. My last Alesis was an Alesis QS 8.1 and that thing toured everywhere with me. It was a great keyboard. It had been dropped 3 times and just kept right on going.
@@kostependrhs its great for my 19 month old grandson whom has taken great interest in my Korg Kross 2 workstation. i bought this for him to work on basics and he can use it on our DAWs....Stay tuned for Beanie on tha Beat
The sounds are ripped straight from older Yamaha synths from the late 80s and early 90s. (the Choir at 7:50 originates from the Yamaha SY77, as well as the tambourine sound and the "Bass" at 7:10 (Sync Bass) ) It's not uncommon that Yamaha provides sample-roms for noname keyboards.
The Yamaha PSS-480 (1988) was a toy that was not a toy.. It really had some pro-like features. 12 note poly, use as sound module.. And a nice digital synth to create your own patch sounds.. Full 16 MIDI channel send and receive... I loved it!
I hear many perfectly useable tones in this plus connect a few guitar pedals to this bad boy and you can definitely expand the capabilities! This thing is like $50. I'm definitely going to grab one soon
the patch at 8:58 sounds amazing. Alesis Harmony 32 has really nice pads, synth voices, synth bells and bell-pad-voice layered sounds that exist in expensive VST instruments like Omnisphere and hardware keyboards like Nord Stage
I could 70% confirm that the piano sounds are low-quality sampled from Yamaha's. You could find the original sound on S03, PSR-1500/PSR-640/KB-200(Mainland China Exclusive Model, I'm a Chinese myself). The marimba sounds are ripped off as well. Also, some of the sounds seems to be ripped off from sounds in Roland SC Series (SC-55 to be exactly?).
2:38 -- There's a clue on the label as to the quality: inMusic. They own brands such as Ion (those really cheap USB cassette decks from a few years ago that now litter thrift stores), Marantz Professional (not to be confused with just plain old Marantz -- more really cheap cassette decks), etc.
For a mini keyboard it has some impressive synth sounds. I agree with your opinion about demo songs, I also prefer one original demo song than a bank of public domain song arrangements. Even when I was only 4 I loved the demo song on my Casio CT-700 ( I still love it and think that's one of the best keyboard demo songs ever composed ). I think Alesis have gone downhill since InMusic bought them in 2013 so this keyboard is basically a generic brand probably made by Yongmei and they just put the Alesis name on it for marketing.
Kind of a tall ask, but Alesis came out with a new(ish) model called the Harmony 61 pro that seems to have a ton of bells and whistles for an insanely low price (~220 USD). You should review it! I know that’ll likely never happen but thank you for the all the content! You’ve helped me understand keyboards so much!
I grew up playing keyboards. Started playing at the age of 3. Up until recently I had an Alesis QS8.1. That was a true workhorse. It went on tour with me over the years spanning 3 continents. It was a tough synthesizer. Now these days, I have a small studio in my home and pretty much everything I do utilizes virtual instruments. However I do have some amazing hardware synthesizers also.
This has Yamaha vibes written all over it. The choir patch sounds very much like Yamaha PSR-500 (also SY-77 IIRC?) choir and if you look at the little drum icons under/above each key of the Harmony 54 and 61 keyboards they look exactly the same as those that Yamaha would use.
What is worse is that the 54 and 61 key versions do have transpose, but do not have USB support to be used as midi. I learned this the hard way after buying the 54 and couldn't return it.
The only review of this little thing that makes any sense on the whole internet! I have this instrument and I also noticed that the higher models 54, 61 have the same processor (I think Holtek). Is it possible that the software in them is the same? Automatic accompaniment could then be unlocked :)
The ‘home’ keyboard I use is from the 80s. The Yamaha PSS680 which blows these into the weeds. Ok it was high end for home keyboards but having midi in and out and manual synth controls it’s still pretty good now especially when used with effects. Tbh though some of the sounds of the Harmony 32 are pretty good.
Excellent review as always. Bog standard keyboard Like most others. It needs a 'dirty pitch' button to spice things up a bit and some sort of harmonizer and rhythm scrambler (don't think there is such a thing yet).
Hi, I picked up a A-50 after seeing your video last year. Love to see you do a video on the Yamaha PSS F30, I have one also. It's a completely different animal than the A-50, both are excellent keys. No midi but you can jam on it for hours with the flexibility of the accompaniment sounds. I think you'll like it.
The reason why the display is very weak is because it’s made by a Chinese factory that usually used to make lights for toys with light and music. so the display is meant to be used in the dark. (Kind regards, Christopher.)
I like some of those lo-fi sampled sounds that machine has. Some of those tones reminded me of the sounds generated with older sound cards from Tracker music. It's actually an interesting little keyboard. I could use a lot of those tones in some lo-fi synth wave tracks. Good review!
I think that the worst thing is, there are no mini sampling keyboards today. The last one came out 26 years ago as the SK-60. I wasn't alive in the late 80s when they were all the rage but I still have a whole lot of fun with my Casio SK-8 today. When I'll hit university, hopefully I'll know enough about programing to contribute on the revival of these keyboards.
I’m at least 98.75% certain that the Conga/Bongo drums are directly ripped off from Yamaha keyboards circa 1991. Compare to older XG sounds, and for example, the PSR SQ16, PSR-520 etc, which I personally owned. When you were playing the music during your opening of the keyboard, I thought for a while you were using sounds from an old Yamaha instead of this board, but later, when you got to the percussion portion, at approximately 9:25, I realised that those are onboard. Actually, listening back, more than just the conga/bongo drums are direct rip-offs. The timbales, cymbals and even toms are from Yamaha. The more I listen, the more I’m certain. The snares however, don’t trigger my stupid music brain, so they might be the only originals in the drums at all.
This could be possible. And the question is, why didn't they use some of their own drum sounds? I almost believe that Alesis had nothing to do with the development of this keyboard. They just had their name written on it.
@@KeenOnKeys At 3:54 you can see "SunnyWay" written on the CPU module. Probably that's the real manufacturer of this keyboard. The ending tune is really cool by the way :-D
@@sonictv2373 Oh damn, yes. Just noticed that. I hear SC-55 snares in there. This is enough to get a company sued sideways. Why would anyone do this? It’s obvious for people that know what to listen for. Yes, let’s rebadge and resell other people’s sounds and think nobody will notice… Not quite…
I really love your licks and riffs you coming up with. Especially this one on 8:03. I'm wondering where their coming from? Speaking of lessons (2:17), which would you recommend? What is your musical background? Do you have written own books or lessons? I learned from Rock Piano by Jürgen Moser but after all years I realized that his books have huge drawbacks when it comes to free play and improvisation.
Funny that you mention Jürgen Moser. I also had his first book. I can still remember a lot of exercises, but actually I'm rather lazy and don't practice much. There are many far better keyboard players than me here on RUclips that you can learn from.
Don’t be fooled, all that is left from Alesis is the brand name, a meaningless badge. Since the bankruptcy and takeover by Numark in 2000 things went downhill and since the takeover by inMusic Brands in 2012 it lost all connection to Keith Barr and his company that once provided us with the groundbreaking ADAT-technology. This is just a rebranded Chinese toy. The sound chip was very likely designed for a 61 key keyboard (or maybe even 88 keys, hence the ARK-88 on the main board), which would not need a transpose function. They just chopped off the bottom and top keys. It looks like the Harmony is also being sold as “Alesis Melody 32”.
This Keyboard doesn't represent what i am used to by Alesis. When i think of the great products they made in the 90's i owned and some of them still own. Adat, Quadraverb, 3630, Midiverb, Monitor 1 and Monitor 2, RA 100, SR 16, Nanoverb. They were essential at my recording studio in the middle 90's. Today i have the DM 8 Pro drum set and it is great.
The display is likely so dark to save batteries (no bad idea); in a normal lighted room it works well. The floppy keys buzz during percussion, which should not happen in a name brand keyboard (adhesive felt would prevent this). Some strings and choir pads sound ridiculous and the waveforms are harsh (Casio could do that better). Likely they don't put classic Alesis samples in, because they bought the chip elsewhere, which contains unchangeable mask rom samples and perhaps lacks the envelope hardware of actual Alesis synths. In the video at 3:54 the sound chip is labelled "SunnyWay, ARK-88, 20201105". This may be actually a Holtek product (a company known for button cell operated cheap LCD gadgets); at least in early 2000 Yongmei and many Chinese toy keyboards used them. Some of those Yongmei make every sound (even organs) slowly decay when holding notes.
@@KeenOnKeys To fool the grannies. Alesis once was a name brand (much like Bontempi) and now likely not so much (or at least they rebrand cheap foreign novice trash without caring about good quality). The thing functions, but that's it.
@@KeenOnKeys But you *could* bypass the computer right? IE, run both through a USB MIDI host? I'm running a Casio CTK-3500 into a Novation Circuit by connecting both to a USB hub into my phone via OTG, then a free MIDI host app for comms. I could swap the Casio for this Alesis and do the same, yes?
The Alesis Harmony 32 (also seen as "Melody 32") may made by Medeli or even the Chinese brand Yongmei. But Yongmei tend to be even worse; they were infamous for selling under a zillion of trade names absolutely terrible trash keyboards those often were even unplayable. E.g. it was impossible to play polyphonic notes (e.g. fingered chords) because the key matrix diodes were omitted to save some cents, which produced cluster mess like pushing your flat hand down on adjacent keys when more than 2 keys were pressed. Early models even contained Stylophone hardware despite they looked like a digital polyphonic keyboard. In 1980th Alesis made well known reverb devices, but nowadays they seem to be only a label to rebrand other stuff that has nothing to do with the original company.
Don't forget that some of the sounds were taken from Yamaha and Roland like the Yamaha XG Sample Engine and the Roland Sound Canvas. It's really sad actually.
My first keyboard - the Casio VL-1 - had more innovation and character than this and that was about 40 years ago. We should have amazing sounding keyboards with synthesis, sampling and multitrack recording for under £100 these days. (if a company combined low end/average smart pad/tablet technology with a keyboard that had built in speakers they could include a full recording studio and playing lessons AND auto accompaniment - or keep it simple) My mind boggles as to why this type of keyboard has gotten so bad.
The thing that made me sad is that it has some potential. Hardware is obviously capable as demonstrated in part where you feed in MIDI from DAW. And some of those layered tones actually sounds great. But there are so many mistakes - bass with missing low octaves, no transpose, sequencer obviously designed by someone who never used sequencer.
Looks like a case of "label-slapping" . I have a feeling Alesis had little to nothing to do with this product other than sticking their name on an open-source Chinese-made toy. I guess the days of my much loved Microverb and Monitor Ones are gone :(
Great review, I'd be interested to know how you rate the Casio SA-46 compared to this, I know it has no midi but it seems to have some other nice features.
My dad owns a QS8 from 98 and it’s great! Can you compare the price to a store in New York and he got two grand off the price when he was at the store. Everything was cheaper in a music store in NY And the stores policy was that if you could match the price to another store they would make that the price.
Maybe, when I find one cheap. The KP10 appears to be a Casio SA-46 clone, likely with different sounds and a few other features. I've also seen it marketed under other names. Might be interesting to compare to the SA-46, and hopefully not as frustrating as trying the Harmony 32.
Excellent video. ALL of your videos are perfect. I can't believe how crappy that display is, though... and the sounds are... meh. Compared to the PSS-A50 by Yamaha-- this is a sad alternative.
You should definitely try to circuit bend that HR-16! There are plenty of tutorials on how to safely and easilly turn it into a modular glitch machine that still works like an unmodded version if you want it to.
I feel like they could make a comeback. Any ideas with what? I heard some interesting things about the Quadraverb ( I think from a Hainbach video). I almost have picked one up several times, but I’ve been exploring programming sounds without effects processing.
for some reason RUclips makes this video buffer extremely slow even though my speed testing app tells me my download speed is running at over 340 mbps, what is going wrong? I do not have this problem with other videos today.
I wish there was an octave switch. I'm gonna return it. All I wanted it for was to learn the Charlie Brown theme song. Uh. Lol could you recommend me another keyboard that's portable?
@@KeenOnKeys I thought it was strange seeing the main board attached to the bottom case as on many keyboards the main board is usually fitted to the top part of the case.
I have this in my collection , I feel that surely there has to be a way to access all the hidden features from the full size melody 61, including the auto accompaniment for the rhythms, and also the rhythm programming function. If you're almost certainly makes sense that they're able to be accessed somehow , I would hope that since I'm not a circuit Bender I could figure out how to access them myself if someone could possibly give me an insight on it I think it would be very neat to Access all the hidden stuff from the melody 61.
if you are really interested in hidden features, I remember an mc cript keyboard having the ability to access auto accompaniment from its bigger sibling, the first demo song is mozart night music, second is twincle twincle litter star, third is red rivver vally, the larger model has drum pad at the bottom, alternatively you might be able to find a rebranded super music centre with only 3 demo songs and outsmart the store and access all 8 songs
Thanks for the review. I got from my wife a Yamaha PSS-F30 for my second universty degree about six weeks ago. In the music store it was this, the F-30 and the myharmony 54. When I tested this I immediately felt how hollow the keys are. And how poor the material of the plastic compared tho the Yamaha. I liked that so much that i bought a used pss-a50. The PSS-A50 is far better even for the higher price. Better key quality, better sounding tones, recorder and the keys are touch sensitive. It's a big shame for alesis to made this. I understand for this price they couldn't get more, but I think 90% of the people would pay a little more for better keys or better quality instruments. Even the PSS-F-30 beats out the crap from this "Instrument".
it's sad that PSS A-50 is the only small, good quality keyboard with touch sensitivity in this price range. I think Casio should made next generation SA series with touch response - and better sound quality, because it's not terrible, but also not great for 2021.
Hello, I am from Argentina.!! Your channel is great! What keyboard do you recommend to give to my daughter, she turns 6! I have a Casio Ct-X800, I am a beginner and I have had it for 2 years as a Jovi!! Thank you!!
you can use more then 16 sound as midi in .. in cubase --midi channel--program selector.. and i found that i can send the midi notes to 120 sounds of the this keyboard ::))
If I have not watched your demo review of Yamaha keyboards similar sizes, I would have say something nice here. But, you've already spoiled me with the reviews on Yamaha keyboards in which the sound quality produce by Yamaha is much more decent compared with this keyboard board
Can You Review the medeli AKX 10? I have seen many videos but they dont showcase the patches clearly,Many people say it has yamaha psr keyboards sound engine but I think it sounds cheap and thin
"If you like very high-tuned timpanis, here's something for you." Hilarious! Great review, it's a shame this little gadget seems like an almost total waste.
![Eminem - Temporary (feat. Skylar Grey) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZaK9Wi5ho0o/mqdefault.jpg)
No matter how bad or simple the keyboard is, you always make them shine with your excellent demos.
I can't understand why 30-40 years ago toy music instruments were made with such a respect to children and why they are so so-so nowadays... Seems like modern technologies allows to put amazing top quality sounds in cheap toy synths and drums. The memory-chips are not so expensive anymore as it was in 80-s. But mostly all I've tried at store shelfs sounds horrible and sometimes even out of tune.
I have become a collector of old home keyboards and synthesizers (from the 80s and 90s) lately, and honestly I believe that there are so many gems out there. It’s wild to me that a lot of them are regarded as junk and just sitting in peoples’ closets these days.
I completely agree with you. Technology has advanced dramatically, but quality has declined in the opposite direction. I still find the old Casiotone and PortaSound attractive (high quality, durability, and the spirit of manufacturing) after all these years.
Yes the only reason a kids keyboard in 2021 isn’t at least 75% of a Korg Triton , Motif , Fantom , M1 , XP80 , etc. is gatekeeping . I don’t even understand this from a greed perspective either , wouldn’t it be effective brand loyalty and awareness to grow your customers ? I mean the ip already exists , the tech is considerably cheaper , so r&d is cut down to minimal .
@@Death_By_Media I understand what you’re saying, but I think the comparison is a bit off. When I think of home keyboards these days being compared to quality home keyboards of the past, I think of comparing them to the Casio Tone Banks of the early 90s. I have a CT-670, and I love it. When I compare it to things like the various modern Yamaha PSR keyboards that I’ve owned/tried, the CT-670 beats them all in terms of good and useable sounds.
I think there was a level of pride and quality put out into the home keyboards of previous decades that is simply gone these days. Maybe it has to do with us living in the digital age. I think maybe it has to also do with the fact that there are so many means of entertainment, toys, music gear in general these days that these manufactures are not looking to impress as much with their modern home keyboards.
I also think that a lot of the home keyboards of the 80s and 90s were made with the intention of being “toys” and beginner keyboards, but they were also made with the intention that professionals could potentially get some good use out of them as well. I think that since we’ve seen the music gear market open up drastically in the sense that there are almost unlimited buying options for customers (ranging in both price and quality; i.e. great instruments for cheaper prices than previously seen), it has cemented the concept to these companies that a home keyboard does not need to deliver much on quality, but rather just be something for beginner use only. Idk, these are all just my thoughts and ramblings though.
Maybe we should do it make a lot of money!
sounds like the perfect keyboard to produce top-40 songs
This was a great segment. The way you arrange your reviews makes it really fun to watch. It would be fun to see you regularly take on these keyboards that nobody has any hope for.
Yes! I'd like to see this become a regular feature ... scouring the depths for keyboards designed without love or care. I feel like there as still a good few tones, rhythms, and uses for this budget machine.
Alesis had to file bancruptcy in 2001 and got a new owner. After that, they still made cheap music equipment as before, but most of the earlier innovation potential and ingenuity was gone and never came back. Luckily, the early Alesis gear still kicks ass! The MMT-8 sequencer and Midiverb III get a lot of use in my studio
Toy-like with toy-like sounds. Yamaha has nothing to worry about. Excellent review. Amazing production quality.
Yeah. I have 3 Yamaha keyboards. I have an original DX7, a DX7s, and an EX5. But you're absolutely right. The Montage series is such a cool synthesizer. Yamaha has always been a great name. I also have some Behringer synths. I have the DeepMind 12 (Totally bad ass) Model D, and K2. Then a product from Ensoniq and Novation as follows :Ensoniq SQ1+ and a Novation MiniNova. My last Alesis was an Alesis QS 8.1 and that thing toured everywhere with me. It was a great keyboard. It had been dropped 3 times and just kept right on going.
Seems like you have no idea how a toy keyboard sounds. This is actually quite good for the purpose it was made for. And much cheaper than yamaha.
@@kostependrhs I remember when I was a kid I had a little kawai keyboard. It sounded brilliant. It was sample based. It sounded amazing
@@kostependrhs its great for my 19 month old grandson whom has taken great interest in my Korg Kross 2 workstation. i bought this for him to work on basics and he can use it on our DAWs....Stay tuned for Beanie on tha Beat
Some of the sounds sound like they were taken from Casio keyboards.
I really don't understand why this channel hasn't at least 1.6 million subscribers!? It's an amazing channel, well-produced and very interesting.
this is awesome Keen, thank you for making this video!
You're welcome
The sounds are ripped straight from older Yamaha synths from the late 80s and early 90s. (the Choir at 7:50 originates from the Yamaha SY77, as well as the tambourine sound and the "Bass" at 7:10 (Sync Bass) ) It's not uncommon that Yamaha provides sample-roms for noname keyboards.
Orchestral hits will never go out of fashion! :-)
Excellent review as always on keen n keys
The Yamaha PSS-480 (1988) was a toy that was not a toy..
It really had some pro-like features. 12 note poly, use as sound module..
And a nice digital synth to create your own patch sounds..
Full 16 MIDI channel send and receive...
I loved it!
You can't imagine how useful this video is for me. Really thanks!👍
I hear many perfectly useable tones in this plus connect a few guitar pedals to this bad boy and you can definitely expand the capabilities! This thing is like $50. I'm definitely going to grab one soon
Criminally underrated. I sincerely hope you never stop making videos.
Thanks for your latest review that's just as fun and inspiring as the previous ones! It's really sad that this model doesn't quite deserve it.
Thanks for the useful information! A concise & well presented review.
the patch at 8:58 sounds amazing.
Alesis Harmony 32 has really nice pads, synth voices, synth bells and bell-pad-voice layered sounds that exist in expensive VST instruments like Omnisphere and hardware keyboards like Nord Stage
But the piano sample
stinks to high heaven
That patch has kind of a LA Synthesis thing, very 1989. I like it
I could 70% confirm that the piano sounds are low-quality sampled from Yamaha's. You could find the original sound on S03, PSR-1500/PSR-640/KB-200(Mainland China Exclusive Model, I'm a Chinese myself). The marimba sounds are ripped off as well.
Also, some of the sounds seems to be ripped off from sounds in Roland SC Series (SC-55 to be exactly?).
Yeap, completely agree, I can recognize those Roland SoundCanvas and Yamaha AWM tones from a mile away lol
Big love to this channel ❤
Your voice is like smooth like butter. I love it!
ayy you're back!
2:38 -- There's a clue on the label as to the quality: inMusic. They own brands such as Ion (those really cheap USB cassette decks from a few years ago that now litter thrift stores), Marantz Professional (not to be confused with just plain old Marantz -- more really cheap cassette decks), etc.
Thanks for preventing us of buying crap !
For a mini keyboard it has some impressive synth sounds. I agree with your opinion about demo songs,
I also prefer one original demo song than a bank of public domain song arrangements. Even when I
was only 4 I loved the demo song on my Casio CT-700 ( I still love it and think that's one of the best
keyboard demo songs ever composed ). I think Alesis have gone downhill since InMusic bought them
in 2013 so this keyboard is basically a generic brand probably made by Yongmei and they just put the
Alesis name on it for marketing.
I always hated demo songs because they made me feel inadequate.
Kind of a tall ask, but Alesis came out with a new(ish) model called the Harmony 61 pro that seems to have a ton of bells and whistles for an insanely low price (~220 USD). You should review it!
I know that’ll likely never happen but thank you for the all the content! You’ve helped me understand keyboards so much!
Many thanks. I just bought it. I think I will try to make Dungeon Synth music with it, I think those Lo-Fi sounds are perfect for this
I grew up playing keyboards. Started playing at the age of 3. Up until recently I had an Alesis QS8.1. That was a true workhorse. It went on tour with me over the years spanning 3 continents. It was a tough synthesizer. Now these days, I have a small studio in my home and pretty much everything I do utilizes virtual instruments. However I do have some amazing hardware synthesizers also.
Your serious humor, makes justice to the serious joke Alesis did...
Looks for me as a LIDL, ALDI, Walmart etc. toy keyboard (with the exception of the MIDI interface) marked as Alesis :-)
And the polyphony
This has Yamaha vibes written all over it. The choir patch sounds very much like Yamaha PSR-500 (also SY-77 IIRC?) choir and if you look at the little drum icons under/above each key of the Harmony 54 and 61 keyboards they look exactly the same as those that Yamaha would use.
this keyboard is using a holtek chip, which is now public domain material as yamaha gave holtek the rite to use the sounds
Really nice video as always. Looking foward to your next video.
Thanx a lot! Super review! Nice Music! Nice Voice! Great Video quality and montage! Wish you all the Best! Keep going this deal! )))
I believe that a new model of a mini keyboard should include an octave shift function.
32 keys and no transpose? If this did have transpose it might work as a cheap midi keyboard.. really odd omission
What is worse is that the 54 and 61 key versions do have transpose, but do not have USB support to be used as midi. I learned this the hard way after buying the 54 and couldn't return it.
The only review of this little thing that makes any sense on the whole internet! I have this instrument and I also noticed that the higher models 54, 61 have the same processor (I think Holtek). Is it possible that the software in them is the same? Automatic accompaniment could then be unlocked :)
The ‘home’ keyboard I use is from the 80s. The Yamaha PSS680 which blows these into the weeds. Ok it was high end for home keyboards but having midi in and out and manual synth controls it’s still pretty good now especially when used with effects. Tbh though some of the sounds of the Harmony 32 are pretty good.
Oh yeah! Those things sounded great. I had one of those and you are right they sound amazing!
I would just get something like this to practice my chords while I'm at work.
For the demo, they should put a demo that can be made on the keyboard
Excellent review as always. Bog standard keyboard Like most others. It needs a 'dirty pitch' button to spice things up a bit and some sort of harmonizer and rhythm scrambler (don't think there is such a thing yet).
Hi, I picked up a A-50 after seeing your video last year. Love to see you do a video on the Yamaha PSS F30, I have one also. It's a completely different animal than the A-50, both are excellent keys. No midi but you can jam on it for hours with the flexibility of the accompaniment sounds. I think you'll like it.
Yes, I do. I recently bought one.
It seems that any contemporary Yamaha PSS is miles better.
No doubt about that!
even and old yamaha sample based pss from the 90s!
@@keyhoarder I agree.
Yamahas cost double, the alesis is the cheapest one.
@@mexicanlucky havent seen any alesis on the used market myself
Omg I love rock organ! It's not at all like a rock organ. They should've called it UFO Landing.
The reason why the display is very weak is because it’s made by a Chinese factory that usually used to make lights for toys with light and music. so the display is meant to be used in the dark. (Kind regards, Christopher.)
I like some of those lo-fi sampled sounds that machine has. Some of those tones reminded me of the sounds generated with older sound cards from Tracker music. It's actually an interesting little keyboard. I could use a lot of those tones in some lo-fi synth wave tracks. Good review!
I think that the worst thing is, there are no mini sampling keyboards today. The last one came out 26 years ago as the SK-60. I wasn't alive in the late 80s when they were all the rage but I still have a whole lot of fun with my Casio SK-8 today. When I'll hit university, hopefully I'll know enough about programing to contribute on the revival of these keyboards.
there was that weird korg sampling keyboard, but even then that was a long time ago
I’m at least 98.75% certain that the Conga/Bongo drums are directly ripped off from Yamaha keyboards circa 1991.
Compare to older XG sounds, and for example, the PSR SQ16, PSR-520 etc, which I personally owned.
When you were playing the music during your opening of the keyboard, I thought for a while you were using sounds from an old Yamaha instead of this board, but later, when you got to the percussion portion, at approximately 9:25, I realised that those are onboard.
Actually, listening back, more than just the conga/bongo drums are direct rip-offs. The timbales, cymbals and even toms are from Yamaha. The more I listen, the more I’m certain.
The snares however, don’t trigger my stupid music brain, so they might be the only originals in the drums at all.
This could be possible. And the question is, why didn't they use some of their own drum sounds? I almost believe that Alesis had nothing to do with the development of this keyboard. They just had their name written on it.
Yes. There seems to be a few roland sounds in there as well.
@@KeenOnKeys At 3:54 you can see "SunnyWay" written on the CPU module. Probably that's the real manufacturer of this keyboard.
The ending tune is really cool by the way :-D
The snare drum sounds are both ripped off from Yamaha and Roland.
@@sonictv2373 Oh damn, yes. Just noticed that. I hear SC-55 snares in there.
This is enough to get a company sued sideways. Why would anyone do this? It’s obvious for people that know what to listen for.
Yes, let’s rebadge and resell other people’s sounds and think nobody will notice… Not quite…
I really love your licks and riffs you coming up with. Especially this one on 8:03. I'm wondering where their coming from? Speaking of lessons (2:17), which would you recommend? What is your musical background? Do you have written own books or lessons?
I learned from Rock Piano by Jürgen Moser but after all years I realized that his books have huge drawbacks when it comes to free play and improvisation.
Funny that you mention Jürgen Moser. I also had his first book. I can still remember a lot of exercises, but actually I'm rather lazy and don't practice much. There are many far better keyboard players than me here on RUclips that you can learn from.
I think this might be a re-badged cheap, Chinese keyboard, made by Hangzhou Aierke Electronic Co.,Ltd. It's their "ARK-88" epoxy blob CPU chip in it.
LOL @ Walk Like an Egyptian
Great. Thanks for sharing 😀
how to get the percussion sounds?
Don’t be fooled, all that is left from Alesis is the brand name, a meaningless badge. Since the bankruptcy and takeover by Numark in 2000 things went downhill and since the takeover by inMusic Brands in 2012 it lost all connection to Keith Barr and his company that once provided us with the groundbreaking ADAT-technology.
This is just a rebranded Chinese toy. The sound chip was very likely designed for a 61 key keyboard (or maybe even 88 keys, hence the ARK-88 on the main board), which would not need a transpose function. They just chopped off the bottom and top keys. It looks like the Harmony is also being sold as “Alesis Melody 32”.
Extraordinary video review for an ordinary toy keyboard.
The sounds remember me, same sounds of modules tracker from Amiga 😁
I was gonna say it sounds like 8-bit sampler :D
@@Blahdnb :-)
That last song arrangement sounds like a cheap take on Walter Murphy’s “A Fifth of Beethoven.” 😆 Love it.
Loved the video
Alesis is a sad shell of its former self
Today's Alesis is not the Alesis you used to know in 90s... Their product quality is on par with typical Chinese generic brand level these days.
This Keyboard doesn't represent what i am used to by Alesis. When i think of the great products they made in the 90's i owned and some of them still own.
Adat, Quadraverb, 3630, Midiverb, Monitor 1 and Monitor 2, RA 100, SR 16, Nanoverb.
They were essential at my recording studio in the middle 90's. Today i have the DM 8 Pro drum set and it is great.
The display is likely so dark to save batteries (no bad idea); in a normal lighted room it works well. The floppy keys buzz during percussion, which should not happen in a name brand keyboard (adhesive felt would prevent this). Some strings and choir pads sound ridiculous and the waveforms are harsh (Casio could do that better). Likely they don't put classic Alesis samples in, because they bought the chip elsewhere, which contains unchangeable mask rom samples and perhaps lacks the envelope hardware of actual Alesis synths.
In the video at 3:54 the sound chip is labelled "SunnyWay, ARK-88, 20201105". This may be actually a Holtek product (a company known for button cell operated cheap LCD gadgets); at least in early 2000 Yongmei and many Chinese toy keyboards used them. Some of those Yongmei make every sound (even organs) slowly decay when holding notes.
Interesting, but I still wonder why Alesis had their name written on it.
@@KeenOnKeys To fool the grannies. Alesis once was a name brand (much like Bontempi) and now likely not so much (or at least they rebrand cheap foreign novice trash without caring about good quality). The thing functions, but that's it.
Was the arturia directly controlling the Alesis? How was the midi connection made? Great demo. I hear some usable sounds. ☺☺
No, both were connected to my PC.
@@KeenOnKeys But you *could* bypass the computer right? IE, run both through a USB MIDI host? I'm running a Casio CTK-3500 into a Novation Circuit by connecting both to a USB hub into my phone via OTG, then a free MIDI host app for comms. I could swap the Casio for this Alesis and do the same, yes?
The Alesis Harmony 32 (also seen as "Melody 32") may made by Medeli or even the Chinese brand Yongmei.
But Yongmei tend to be even worse; they were infamous for selling under a zillion of trade names absolutely terrible trash keyboards those often were even unplayable. E.g. it was impossible to play polyphonic notes (e.g. fingered chords) because the key matrix diodes were omitted to save some cents, which produced cluster mess like pushing your flat hand down on adjacent keys when more than 2 keys were pressed. Early models even contained Stylophone hardware despite they looked like a digital polyphonic keyboard.
In 1980th Alesis made well known reverb devices, but nowadays they seem to be only a label to rebrand other stuff that has nothing to do with the original company.
Alesis is now an “inMusic Brands” brand.
even in the early 2000s alesis made some great virtual analog synths.
Don't forget that some of the sounds were taken from Yamaha and Roland like the Yamaha XG Sample Engine and the Roland Sound Canvas. It's really sad actually.
My first keyboard - the Casio VL-1 - had more innovation and character than this and that was about 40 years ago. We should have amazing sounding keyboards with synthesis, sampling and multitrack recording for under £100 these days. (if a company combined low end/average smart pad/tablet technology with a keyboard that had built in speakers they could include a full recording studio and playing lessons AND auto accompaniment - or keep it simple) My mind boggles as to why this type of keyboard has gotten so bad.
The thing that made me sad is that it has some potential. Hardware is obviously capable as demonstrated in part where you feed in MIDI from DAW. And some of those layered tones actually sounds great.
But there are so many mistakes - bass with missing low octaves, no transpose, sequencer obviously designed by someone who never used sequencer.
I don't understand... Can I use it this keyboard as a midi controller independently? Why are you using an Arturia to show midi controller functions?
Yes, you can use it as a Midi controller. But you can also use it as a sound source. That's what I showed with the Arturia Minilab.
Came to ask this. For a tiny, travel MIDI controller (with its own built-in tones) this would sometimes work better for me than something full-sized.
Looks like a case of "label-slapping" . I have a feeling Alesis had little to nothing to do with this product other than sticking their name on an open-source Chinese-made toy. I guess the days of my much loved Microverb and Monitor Ones are gone :(
Great review, I'd be interested to know how you rate the Casio SA-46 compared to this, I know it has no midi but it seems to have some other nice features.
The SA-46 actually doesn't sound much better, but everything works as it should and it's a lot more fun to play.
My dad owns a QS8 from 98 and it’s great! Can you compare the price to a store in New York and he got two grand off the price when he was at the store. Everything was cheaper in a music store in NY And the stores policy was that if you could match the price to another store they would make that the price.
Could you review the Kurzweil KP-10 or the KP-30? There isn't a single review on youtube.
Maybe, when I find one cheap. The KP10 appears to be a Casio SA-46 clone, likely with different sounds and a few other features. I've also seen it marketed under other names. Might be interesting to compare to the SA-46, and hopefully not as frustrating as trying the Harmony 32.
@@KeenOnKeys Thats a really good idea.
@Peacock Productions Looks like but the Kp-30 has more functions. More tones.
What another piano, maybe better, do you recommend for a smalll child?
Excellent video. ALL of your videos are perfect. I can't believe how crappy that display is, though... and the sounds are... meh. Compared to the PSS-A50 by Yamaha-- this is a sad alternative.
You should definitely try to circuit bend that HR-16! There are plenty of tutorials on how to safely and easilly turn it into a modular glitch machine that still works like an unmodded version if you want it to.
Thanks for the tip. Maybe I'll give this a try. But not before I've done a review on it.
For a company with such an important history - they have really lost their way ….
They've always been hit and miss. Their Blackface ADATs are legendary for being horrible pieces of gear.
I feel like they could make a comeback. Any ideas with what? I heard some interesting things about the Quadraverb ( I think from a Hainbach video). I almost have picked one up several times, but I’ve been exploring programming sounds without effects processing.
for some reason RUclips makes this video buffer extremely slow even though my speed testing app tells me my download speed is running at over 340 mbps, what is going wrong?
I do not have this problem with other videos today.
I really don't like is board. Yet, still listened to your demo at the end like 3 times. Well done.
Awesome outro 👍
does this has auto accompaniment styles like Yamaha do?
Is there any standalone mini keyboard with an onboard sequencer or looper/recorder currently sold on the market?
These have alot of the same tones as the Casio SA76
hate how I want one of these simply for that off-putting gameboy advance honkytonk sound
I wonder if downloading the software upgrade might have fixed some of your issues? 😀
I wish there was an octave switch. I'm gonna return it. All I wanted it for was to learn the Charlie Brown theme song. Uh. Lol could you recommend me another keyboard that's portable?
Yamaha PSS-F30 or A50
@@KeenOnKeys I just went to target and I got casiotone ct-s195
Thank you. Wish I saw that earlier.. but I have 30 days to return
Thanks for your review! I almost bought it but it doesn't have the feature to play lower octaves. Dang lol
I was hoping you will show the main PCB and IC's. Cheers! S
I showed it. It is just the small board with a single IC, attached to the bottom case. The other boards are for the buttons and the keys.
@@KeenOnKeys Yes, but I would like to see this small PCB and it's components in much more detail. Cheers! S
@@KeenOnKeys I thought it was strange seeing the main board attached to the bottom
case as on many keyboards the main board is usually fitted to the top part of the case.
@@LittleRichard1988i think it's because that's where the USB port is
Does it have drivers for MacOS Monterey?
I have this in my collection , I feel that surely there has to be a way to access all the hidden features from the full size melody 61, including the auto accompaniment for the rhythms, and also the rhythm programming function. If you're almost certainly makes sense that they're able to be accessed somehow , I would hope that since I'm not a circuit Bender I could figure out how to access them myself if someone could possibly give me an insight on it I think it would be very neat to Access all the hidden stuff from the melody 61.
if you are really interested in hidden features, I remember an mc cript keyboard having the ability to access auto accompaniment from its bigger sibling, the first demo song is mozart night music, second is twincle twincle litter star, third is red rivver vally, the larger model has drum pad at the bottom, alternatively you might be able to find a rebranded super music centre with only 3 demo songs and outsmart the store and access all 8 songs
I would love to see what you can do with a microKorg :)
Spending hours trying to come up with a synth tone is crazy, imo??? And they sounded so similar or the factory sounded better??
Thanks for the review. I got from my wife a Yamaha PSS-F30 for my second universty degree about six weeks ago. In the music store it was this, the F-30 and the myharmony 54. When I tested this I immediately felt how hollow the keys are. And how poor the material of the plastic compared tho the Yamaha. I liked that so much that i bought a used pss-a50. The PSS-A50 is far better even for the higher price. Better key quality, better sounding tones, recorder and the keys are touch sensitive. It's a big shame for alesis to made this. I understand for this price they couldn't get more, but I think 90% of the people would pay a little more for better keys or better quality instruments. Even the PSS-F-30 beats out the crap from this "Instrument".
it's sad that PSS A-50 is the only small, good quality keyboard with touch sensitivity in this price range. I think Casio should made next generation SA series with touch response - and better sound quality, because it's not terrible, but also not great for 2021.
Hello, I am from Argentina.!!
Your channel is great!
What keyboard do you recommend to give to my daughter, she turns 6!
I have a Casio Ct-X800, I am a beginner and I have had it for 2 years as a Jovi!!
Thank you!!
Does the keyboard make a weird sound when you turn it on?
I have the MELODY54 and that sounds like something is breaking.
No it doesn't. I would have mentioned that in the video.
Finally a successor to the Reface CP 😂 The Yamaha Killer! Seriously tho the PSS F30 kills this thing.
i like this one i want to get one asap !
you can use more then 16 sound as midi in .. in cubase --midi channel--program selector.. and i found that i can send the midi notes to 120 sounds of the this keyboard ::))
If I have not watched your demo review of Yamaha keyboards similar sizes, I would have say something nice here. But, you've already spoiled me with the reviews on Yamaha keyboards in which the sound quality produce by Yamaha is much more decent compared with this keyboard board
Good music, likes❤💯👍🙋♂
Can You Review the medeli AKX 10? I have seen many videos but they dont showcase the patches clearly,Many people say it has yamaha psr keyboards sound engine but I think it sounds cheap and thin
ชาร์ท กับ พาวเวอร์ แบงค์ ไม่ได้ แต่ ชาร์ทด้วยที่ชาร์ทมือถือ ต่อ ไฟบ้าน ใช้งานได้
"If you like very high-tuned timpanis, here's something for you." Hilarious! Great review, it's a shame this little gadget seems like an almost total waste.
Where did you get that MG-1 plugin? I had an MG-1 as a kid.
It's from Cherry Audio and it's for free.
@@KeenOnKeys Nice! I am going to look in to it. Thank you sir