I was initially psyched about this keyboard since it's one of very few in this size (49 keys)and price range, with better-than-average action.

First one had one nearly completely stuck key- it took effort to compress and took about a second to spring back up- unplayable. The awesome folks at Sweetwater (thanks Richard and Nathaniel!) zipped a replacement out to me before I even returned the first one, but alas, same issue.... This time it was two different white keys that were gummed up.

This seems like one of those "gamble" type items, it's really just a tossup as to whether you'll get one that's put together with care- the odds are you 'll end up with something that probably works, but after getting two in a row, there is no way I would ever buy anything from Samson ever again.

looks like a perfect controller on paper, and has aftertouch for a great price, but the rotary encoders are "clicky" or "zippery", so you can't do smooth filter sweeps or anything like that with them, making it useless for me. I sold mine to someone else immediately.

I bought this a couple years ago. It has lots of DAW presets, except no preset for Cockos Reaper. I've tried very hard to set this controller up with no success. Yes, the keys, the mod wheel, and pitch bend work, but not the transport controls nor any of the controls for anything I want to do. I too, would like to use this to play around with my softsynths, and nothing. I really wish I hadn't bought this controller. I figured I could manually set up the controls to work with Reaper. No such luck.

I guess it is fine for the producer that is just finger poking the keys to get notes into his daw but the playability on this keyboard just isn't there. Although the action of the white keys is pretty good, the black keys are quite a different story. The velocity curves are all over the place and the after touch is pretty useless. It is nearly impossible to get any expression out of this keyboard.

As for the pads, they are so stiff that using them for any length of time will result in repetitive strain injuries.

If you're looking for a key-bed you can actually play, go with the Novation Impulse or the Panorama P4. Both are very expressive and play like an instrument.

Excellent choice for someone who needs a general all-around use USB MIDI keyboard controller. The semi-weighted keys make it more playable than many "synth" type keys (although keep in mind it is not fully weighted so there's not a massive difference); however for the price you'll be hard-pressed to find anything even comparable.

Sweetwater has always provided me with nothing short of exemplary service and support. Aaron Rom has taken care of my needs, even though I survey what I want and then think about it for a while before I buy. The Graphite 49 fits my needs well for a smaller controller with a variety of functions - in this case, programming MainStage with some added VSTIs. The keyboard controller works extremely well, has a great feel, and more features at it's price point than most other controllers. The sliders and buttons are solid. The velocity response on the keys is a little shaky, but manageable and the after-touch is a welcome bonus. Overall, a very satisfying controller. Thanks again guys for continued great service.

wish it has some lighted button to see it in the studio and the black keys do not respond as the white keys making it VERY AWKWARD to be creative,.., it's just ok ,, Im now looking into some thing else, buying on line is cool and the three pay helps alot but it is better for me to go to a local store and try it and pay in full,,, just being real

Great little controller for my church work. Especially like the two banks of faders per preset--use 1 for instrument level control (via Ableton) and the other to control the drawbars on my VB3.

Still haven't had time to explore all of the possibilities.

The keyboard is not too "spongy" and have found a velocity curve with which I can live.

Only a 4.5 as it does occasionally produce what I call "midi fart velocities" while playing--usually when or right after using another controller on the board. ("midi fart velocity" = extra loud note) I've had this same problem on other small boards (I've even run "midi compression" on especially offending instruments, but to no avail. Somehow a few always seem to sneak through. If anyone has successfully overcome this dilemma, I'd appreciate your secret.

But overall, great bang for your buck.

First midi controller I've purchased to control ableton tracks and mainstage 3 on a macbook pro. Was a tad difficult learning because the manual is terrible. BUT, if you play around with it, it all starts to make sense. Quality is excellent. Key action is very good. I use it mostly to play pads, trigger arpeggios and control volumes in a live setting. Very affordable and does the job. No complaints except it could use more pads. All in all, I would buy from Sampson again based on this product. It has served our worship team very well. If you're looking for an affordable yet capable, well built midi controller, I think you'll be happy with this.

The Graphite 49 looks pretty classy and has some useful features. For the recording musician on a tight budget who just needs something to record MIDI with, this product works well.
It is, however, prone to a few issues in my experience. It will randomly 'disconnect' while remaining powered on. It's an inconvenience but not a critical one, assuming you're not on stage or something similar.
I've also noticed two of the keys making an odd sort of squishing sound when pressed down. It doesn't interfere with the signal but makes the velocity less than it actually is. Again, tedious but not a huge problem.
The action of the keys themselves is also a bit high for my taste, making quicker, lighter playing a bit trickier, but not impossible.

If it were stolen or blew up or something, I would probably go for a different unit. In my opinion, the value of this keyboard is probably closer to $110-$120 for the level of craftsmanship.

Seems like a good keyboard my only gripe is that it is very difficult to understand how to set it up for a first time user like me. The owner's manual is rubbish, it tells you very little.

I want to love this keyboard but I have a couple gripes.
1) I'm not really a fan of the keys, which some have raved about, because the action is a bit high. The key has to go down a ways before it sends any data at all, and this makes quick, light, lines a bit uncomfortable. It's not unbearable and I've gotten used to it, but I still sometimes miss notes from passing over the key too lightly.
2) I also wish there were 8, smaller pads instead of the 4 big ones, since I don't always have a free hand to switch pad banks on the fly.
3) The rotary encoders are lethargic. If you set one to be a panner, for example, it will take three entire twists to get to hard left or right from center. You can give it a quick flick and it will jump ahead a bunch but this behavior is unusable for quickly controlling say, a lowpass filter. I use one of them as a tempo knob, which is fine because it only ever requires small adjustments. This is, by the way, from the perspective of using this in live performance. In the studio I don't think the slower performance matters as much. If you were using these as track panners and just setting them and leaving them, it wouldnt matter. If you want to use them to increase the cutoff of a filter over the course of a few beats, however, you'd have issues.

Anyway, I love the faders, which I use live to switch instruments, control filters, crossfade tracks, add reverb/delay, mix my line in, and I have 3 mapped to the three bands of a mixer EQ.
I also love the customizable buttons. I use a group of 8 as (non-velocity sensitive) trigger pads, a group of 6 to arm different tracks, and the last 2 to move up and down through a list of backtracks in my set. It's easy to set a button to send Note or CC data and you are really unlimited in how you want to use them.
I also very much appreciate the MIDI out and the DC input so that I don't have to go through all the jibber jabber of interfacing this with my DAW via USB. I just run it into my old US-122L midi/audio interface. The polarity on the DC jack is reversed, so if you have a 1spot 9v supply, for example, you have to spend a couple bucks on the polarity reversing tip.
The transport controls are awesome too. All things considered, this keyboard is awesome for performance, and has everything you need to remove your computer mouse and keyboard from the equation. Like I said, there are things I don't love about this, but I really am a fan of the rest, and the sheer amount of mappable hardware makes it invaluable for my live act. If I didn't have the 16 buttons, for example, I'd be screwed, and for that I'm really glad I didn't go for the Alesis QX49 which I considered. Not to mention the build quality of this is vastly superior to the Alesis, which feels like a plastic piece of garbage. This doesn't look or feel like a cheap keyboard, and especially in light of the fact that it's only 20 bucks more expensive then the Alesis QX49 which was a bumbling wreck, I have to give it a solid 4.

I bought this keyboard controller just for the semi-weighted keys which cannot be found in other keyboard controllers twice the price of this keyboard controller. I cannot emphasize how great these keys feel. Having additional sliders and rotary encoders only ads to the value of this keyboard.

This thing looks great on paper... I just read some of the other comments and I could not agree more. The pads are not ok, the bottoms are too gummy and they leave a lot to with for. I wish I didn't take it home. I am returning it though. I really wanted to love this machine and gave it a good three days. I HATE IT!

pretty Good, need more mapping settings for buttons and faders for Studio one , and reason

This is the best affordable midi controller out there period. I have tried and owned numerous makes and models and the Samson Graphite 49 is the best so far. The build quality is good but, could be stronger in a few areas. I had to send my first one back due to damage incurred during shipping but, the replacement has been great. My only issues as with everything to today that is computer/IPAD oriented is the lack of useful info in the User Manuals. I took a good amount of research to get it working with my home studio PC recording setup using Studio One V2 Pro. Fortunately, the internet provided some great reading on setting up the Graphite 49 on various platforms including IPAD. I control my Laptop DAW, and VST's from the USB out and my IPAD Docking Station/Synths from the MIDI Out at the same time. Everything works once you figure out the proper configurations as the Preset's are spot on. Note to Samson, please make a 61 note version and include a sustain pedal and power supply as finding a power supply that works can be difficult. If a 61 note version becomes available, I would definitely purchase and keep the 49 along for just controlling the IPAD and synth sound modules like my Korg Triton. Finnally and most importantly, the keyboard action is professional and is excellent. All sliders, wheels, pots, and pads are excellent also. This is the best so far when it come to midi controllers. The only ones that would be better would be the much more expensive Roland, Fatar models. I don't know how the Graphite 49 will hold up on the road as my band days are over and I only work at home from my home recording studio now as a hobbies.. However, with a good flight case, I think the Graphite 49 will last for years of great music making. Also, it's a good looking piece of gear, something a lot of manufacturers of today have seem to forgotten how to do.

Upon first glance this is a feature-packed controller for an un-beatable price. Aftertouch not only on the keys, but the 4 pads as well? Wow.

But upon trying it out, I was very dissapointed.

The knobs are those godawful clicky "zippery" knobs, which make it impossible to do smooth filter sweeps, which is a deal-breaker for someone like me who likes to program analog synths.

I then tried to assign the sliders or mod wheel to the filter instead, but while these were okay if you moved them slowly, upon fast movement the input would "block up" and wasn't smooth. It seems like the firmware updates at too low or a resolution or something and the input pixelates and degrades if you move them too fast.

I really, really wanted to love this controller, but not being able to do fast fluid movements with the control elements is unacceptable.