I use a midi keyboard rather simply. I want to be able to program it in Ableton, I want the keys to feel good, and, most importantly, I was looking for decent faders, instead of knobs, which up to now were hard to find on a controller in this price range. (The latest Arturia 25 key keyboard has four, here we've got nine.) This gives it a bit of a built-in mixer function for live performance. The other features, the display, DAW-controlling, and pad functionality seem to be very good for this price range. I decided I didn't need black keys...so the look is pretty cool.