It’s a beautiful November day, with quite a bit of sunshine for this time of year, but the good news comes with the addition to Soundcreation's stock of products from ICON, a relatively new global player in the digital-audio field, but certainly not an amateur, as evidenced by the "Best in Show" award received at the prestigious NAMM show in 2008.
The product that immediately caught my eye and I was extremely curious to try was the Icon Logicon 5 Air MIDI keyboard.
As the owner of an Akai Mpk49, which is an excellent MIDI keyboard, there are very few others that still impress me. To my surprise, the Icon Logicon 5 Air managed to do just that; I was pleasantly surprised. First of all, the color, a superb white, is a main factor that simply attracts your gaze, inspiring an air of "PREMIUM/LIMITED EDITION", and as I got closer, I noticed a solid construction, like a tank if you will, with a metal casing.
Before I got to the keys, my fingers were drawn to the pads of this instrument, which amazed me from the first press, having an excellent response time, an extremely pleasant sensation, and their quality reminded me of devices that cost several times more than this one. The keys are quite good as well, with semi-weighted action and the appearance of piano keys, plus the aftertouch function.
The control faders are very good, as you would see on some digital mixing consoles, with excellent action, and the rotary knobs have the property of turning 360 degrees, meaning infinitely, unlike others that only function at 180 or 270 degrees, being limited in this way. The rotary knobs also have an interesting click function for precise parameter setting.
Other features include a wheel, jog-wheel, which allows easy navigation among parameters or settings, transport buttons (stop, play, forward, rewind, record, loop) for enhanced control, plus many other features that I’ll leave for you to discover.
The keyboard has a MIDI connection via USB to the computer, but it can also connect via standard MIDI to other devices. The Logicon series includes, besides 5Air, the larger 6Air and 8Air variants. The keyboard is compatible with Windows and Mac, comes with a suite of lite and demo software, and the price makes you happy, considering the magnificent features it offers.
It is said that first impressions are the most important. With the help of the Logicon 5 Air, I was able to see how true this statement is. If I didn’t already have an excellent MIDI controller, the one from Icon would definitely be my choice.
Bravo ICON!
Alex Muntean - Soundcreation
