Novation Impulse 61

If you're looking for a midi controller that can do pretty much everything but you don't want to go bankrupt this is your choice. I'm a beginner and i haven't had any troubles using it and if you're more interested in electronic music or any music that requires wacky sounds, synths or just a simple piano then you'll love it.
There are however some pros and cons
PROS:
So many features - There are so many features in this keyboard that I've had it for almost year and i haven't scratched the surface when it comes to the things it can do.
Build - It has an amazing build. Keys are semi-weighted, 8 knobs that are very intuitive and easy to use, faders, modulation and pitch wheel, 8 drum pads for all your drum needs (also weight sensitive)
Arpeggiator and beat Roll - at first i was sceptical about these because i had never used them before and they seemed complicated but they turned out to be the exact opposite. Fun to use and can create some real cool sounds.
Sound design - This kinda goes hand to hand with the build section but the keyboard interface makes it really easy to control whatever plug-in you might be using and Automap makes that even easier.

CONS:
Learning curve - It can be quite hard to learn all about the keyboard and it can be quite overwhelming, but with time you can get there.
DAW - It comes with Ableton Lite. If you have never used a DAW before this can be really tough to get into. It does have nice tutorials and there are plenty of YouTube videos on the matter but in the beginning you wont be able to take the most out of it. Of course when you do, it will be your most powerful tool. This means that the sounds and the potential of this controller is super dependant on your DAW using skills which can be both a con and a pro (one that comes with most MIDI controllers if not all)
Sound - It is dependent on your set up. If you have nice speakers or nice headphones you're fine but if you don't you might have to sink a bit more money to make it work for you. This can be said about most MIDI controllers if not all but still a con.

Overall if you're looking for a good, creative, music filled time this is an amazing and powerful instrument. If you can dream it it can probably do it (in partnership with your DAW).

I've got my hands on this after trying out Novation LaunchKey and this one definitely feels better. Half-weighted keys make a huge difference and the rotary encoders feel great.

The keyboard comes with AutoMap software that's supposed to improve the way you control your DAW and plugins but in my experience it causes lots of annoyance and useless fidgeting.

I've tested this keyboard with Ableton (my DAW of choice), Logic and iPhone running GarageBand. Unlike LaunchKey you can't power this one from an iPhone and you'll need a power-passing Apple USB to lightning connector. With it it works just fine.

The keyboard has some annoying design decisions in regards to Ableton, and I've found myself fighting with it more than playing it on some days ? multi-channel setups with kontakt were a huge pain.

Pros:
- great look & feel for the money
- one-button-switch between DAW and plugin encoder modes

Cons:
- issues with Ableton and multi-channel use
- automap (but you can use it without one; with few features missing)
- arpeggiator settings are really cumbersome to tune

This is a great controller keyboard with some nice features, but I'll try and keep this concise. There are manuals around if you want to know the full extent of this thing's ability!

To start with this kit's only real downfall, it's physically a bit cheap feeling. The lightness may well come to an advantage to many, but personally I would appreciate a bit more weight behind a thicker body.

That aside the various controls are certainly usable and the keys themselves sturdy. As a classically trained pianist I prefer weighted keys, but that's not what this is for. It's actually very reasonably comfortable to play and the controls and touch pads are well positioned for easy use.

Getting a hang of the config for this isn't perfectly intuitive, but with a lot of the sound config going on at the PC that's nothing a bit of playing around won't solve. And that's where it shines, because it linked in with ease to a couple of DAW programs at my disposal-easily enough that half way through configuring it I realised I'd already spent an hour playing with sounds/controls and made arguable little progress on actually setting it up (that said there's not too much setup needed-it interfaces with the DAW software pretty efficiently).

There's a few of these things out there but this one's certainly up there with the better.

I recently bought an Impulse 61 and after less than a week it started acting really weird. The keyboard is constantly sending random data to my Daw. I can not assign many controls. The led screen glitches with some random numbers. I do have the newest firmware and together with the customer support we tried to sort it out, but they assured me that I experience an hardware problem. I was impressed with features that Impulse 61 offers and that would have contributed a lot to my workflow but unfortunately I am not lucky and I have a bad unit. Now I have to send it back to the service and wait more than 3 weeks. This is little disaster for me.

A few months ago, I was looking for a controller keyboard for my bedroom studio, mainly for recording MIDI parts for the plugins I use in my DAW (mostly NI Komplete 9).
Since I intended to use the controller for a variety of sounds including synths, drums, strings, woodwind, organs and pianos, the most challenging part was finding a keyboard that allows dynamic playing (for the classical stuff) as well as fast, undynamic solos (organs, synths).
After trying out the Novation Launchkey, I was slightly disappointed, so I switched to it's big brother, the Novation Impulse.
Setting it was pretty much plug and play, I was using it with Logic after only a few minutes. Controlling the mixer or effects is very intuitive, but the fact that the software for that, Automap duplicates ALL of your plugins is pretty annoying. My already long list of plugins is now twice as long…that's why I'm only giving it four stars for the features.
Apart from that, it's exactly the keyboard I was looking for. Although the keys are "only" semi-weighted, you can play some really nice and expressive pianos with it, just as much as you can play undynamic organ/synth sounds. I really love the versatility.
The drum pads are great for jamming with drum machine sounds (although playing them in a dynamic way is a bit challenging) and the build-in arpeggiator and roll feature allows for some nice experiments, especially in combination with rather conventional sounds.
Splits, program changes and MIDI commands are really easy to program, so it also works great with other keyboards, I'm using it with my Novation Ultranova and I'm really happy with it.

All in all, I can highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a versatile controller keyboard.

If I were buying for looks, I'd have got something else. I'm not a fan of the redand grey ribbed end cheek things. But, in terms of playing, it's lovely. All the controls feel solid but smooth and responsive. I gather ther internal processing of controllers is at a higher resolution than MIDI, and they do feel smoother than most controls on master keyboards in this range. The pads are good and the pressure is very controllable; the faders are easy to use for fine parameter control, and the weighting of the keyboard is, for me, nicely balanced between having enough weight to make it possible to control the velocity properly and being light enough to play fast parts without too much physical effort.

I bought it specifically because of the two pedal inputs and the 5-pin DIN MIDI input, which a lot of master keyboards in this range don't seem to have. It means I can use my old stage piano as a second keyboard without having to plug in a separate MIDI-USB box.

Assigning controls is very easy, and the workflow in general seems pretty straightforward. The features do seem a bit limited, and the LCD display is a bit cheap-looking, but if, like me, all you need to do is assign all the controls to whatever note, controller and channel you want and get on with playing it, it's great.

I haven't used the DAW controls yet, because I'm happy using my laptop for that stuff, but, as a performance keyboard, I'm very happy with it.

This is a great keyboard for general DAW use and the action makes it great to play musically. The only downside is that my DAW is not currently supported by the latest Automap software. I am using Sonar Platinum but can only configure Automap as Sonar X2. It will work for most of the things like the Transport and transposing etc. But the 9th master slider thinks it is operating the first channel and therefore duplicates it's self as slider 1. If you go to learn mode then you can teach it to behave as the Master, but this has to be done every time I start up Sonar Platinum. Also the pads seem to be up an octave from the mapping of Addictive Drums. So do not play the kick etc. I will try to make my own template and see if I can get around these problems. I will post again if I am successful.