Creative Prodikeys DM

You haven’t seen Prodikeys in action until you’ve experienced it in use by its enthusiastic creator, Paul Seow, perhaps one of the funkiest guys Creative has in its arsenal of personnel. Suffice to say, after watching him demo it for us, we couldn’t wait to get our hands on it.

The Prodikeys unit is a combination of a standard PS/2 keyboard and a 37-key MIDI keyboard – with the addition of a few shortcut buttons, including one that automatically loads the bundled software. Basically, Prodikeys is an intelligent music creation application, aimed at both the novice and the professional. In reality, it caters a lot more for the former audience, and while not necessarily bad, this does lower its value somewhat.

It’s easy to get started – just hook the unit up to your computer (replacing whatever you already have in terms of a keyboard), install the software and start jamming. What you’ll quickly learn is that unless you have some sort of musical finesse, you’re not going to get much out of Prodikeys.

The initial fun comes from using the hit-and-play PentaTunes and FunTunes. These allow anybody to create something recognisable as music, despite the fact that you’re not really doing much at all. PentaTunes provides a bunch of pre-generated chords, effects and sounds that you can play around with, while FunTunes gives you a selection of instruments to play, their melodies pre-defined. The only control you really have with these modes is the type of music (Jazz, Ballard, etc) and the sequence in which you bash the keys -- the end sound is almost always the same.

IntelligentChord, FixedChord and Perform mode are available for the serious muso, despite the fact that they’re not that configurable. Each mode (especially Perform) presents the user with a bunch of keyboard-like buttons on-screen, which you can use to configure chords -- in the first two modes -- and melody types, pacing and instruments in Perform mode. The visuals are provided so users can match each command to their appropriate keyboard-based shortcut. IntelligentChord and FixedChord are not for the faint of heart -- you should have a solid musical grounding to make the most of (or even just to use) these modes.

The last mode, and perhaps the least appealing after you realise its long-term effects, is Learn mode. Designed to teach the musically-challenged how to play the keyboard, the mode suffers from a flaw that has to do with the 37-key unit. Obviously, 37 keys doesn’t cover the full range of a piano (88 keys is standard), and required the user to shift up and down octaves using either the mouse or the left/right arrow keys. This is a disastrous situation for the fledging musician as it’s going to completely throw out your ability to play a full-sized piano on which middle C is a foreboding piece of non-moving ivory. The Learn mode also encouraged the user to look at graphical representations of the keys they should hit, rather than the provided sheet music.

Other noteworthy features of the software included its ability to import a MIDI and turn it into sheet music, and to record what you played as a WAV, MIDI or MP3. Being able to save in MIDI format was great, as you could then load the file back into the Prodikeys software and have the sheet music right there, instead of having to write it out -- a time consuming activity you’d normally do when composing.

As a normal keyboard, Prodikeys was uncomfortable. A slide-on cover, which went over the MIDI keys, emulated a wrist-rest; but it’s hard, rough feel wasn’t welcome while typing and by reflex we’d arch our hands slightly to avoid it. This placed strain on the arms and shoulders and you’d quickly be swapping Prodikeys for your normal keyboard for serious typing. Functionally though, the keyboard was fine and included a couple of programmable buttons. There’s also a volume control and a pitch bender, so you could warble your notes like the best.

Creative’s Prodikeys DM requires dedication and a good musical mind. Unfortunately the hardcore musician will want a professional setup, and the novice will be baffled by the variety of modes that, on the surface, don’t seem to do much. The combined functionality and features make it appealing at $199, but in the end, it just felt a little gimmicky, and the novelty wore out quickly.