I've been waiting for a product like this to appear for two decades. Most keyboards on the market are 4- or 2-octave models. 4 octaves take up a bit too much space on the desk, and 2 octaves is too little to play with two hands. Of the few 3-octave keyboards that were available so far, each had some significant design flaw.
The breakthrough was the Keystep model by Arturia, except that in reality it is not something designed as a controller keyboard, but rather as a sequencer with a keyboard - not what I was looking for.
I had not known any Midiplus devices before, so I was afraid that the design and quality of workmanship would be poor. Fortunately, it turned out to be quite the opposite - the X3 mini is designed very rationally, ergonomically and aesthetically, and is very solidly made. I am really very pleased (and I must admit that I have owned a dozen or so different MIDI keyboards from various companies, so I have something to compare it to).
Pros:
- extremely compact housing (some models from competing companies save space by reducing the number of keys, but at the same time waste it through an unnecessarily large housing)
- keyboard from C, not from F (like e.g. in Keystep and other 32-key models)
- very decent keys (e.g. no problems with velocity - which happens to some other manufacturers)
- LED markers next to the mod strip (Arturia has this only in their larger and more expensive model, i.e. in Keystep Pro, but not in the regular Keystep 37)
- convenient location of the USB port (the cable does not interfere, for example, with pushing the keyboard to the laptop)
Cons:
- you have to get used to the touch strips, especially the one responsible for modulation (if you don't use it carefully, it sometimes doesn't return to the minimum position on the first attempt and you have to do it again)
- the transport buttons are programmable, but unfortunately they cannot work in "Toggle" mode (they only work in "Same Message With Every Press" mode) - i.e. I can assign e.g. jump to the left locator in the DAW, but I cannot assign the metronome on/off
I've seen lots of YouTube videos where people use Arturia Keystep (32 or 37) solely as a MIDI keyboard. Midiplus X3 mini is a much better choice in such scenario.
