I will try to add a little more to the explanation of my take on the Lionstracs Mediastation. Let me describe the physical case. The build of this keyboard is extremely solid and very road worthy. I believe the housing is constructed of aluminum with nicely carved wooden end caps. The finish is silver in color and has a nice modern look. The labeling of all the controls is in large easy to read dark blue printing that contrasts very well and makes finding all the controls easy during live performance. The buttons are large and brightly lit dual color led silicon buttons. This is a big plus to me as I have tried keyboards with small gray buttons that simply blended into the background and were not appropriate at all for live performance.

To the left of the display are the arranger controls. No need for two button combinations when using the arranger because each style part has its own dedicated button: four intro’s, four fills, four endings, and four variations. It also has all of the usual functions that you would expect any good arranger to have plus a few extra that I have not even learned about yet. Remember these are preliminary observations as I am still a novice on this keyboard.

The “User Keys Pads” are a nice touch. You have eight buttons to which you can assign the audio wave of your choice such as a vocal phrase or a special effect. These are available for instant play at anytime.

The quality of the components in this keyboard seems very high. I was amazed to see how nice the sliders used for mixing volumes were. As anyone who has done audio engineer type work, mixing sound on a professional sound desk, knows that the larger the faders are the easier it is to mix sound on and when they have a good smooth feel it makes using them a lot more enjoyable. Well you won’t be disappointed with these faders! They have a high quality smooth action with just the right amount of resistance for accuracy. And they are very large over 3 inches from top to bottom; my Gem SK880 sliders measure only about 1 and ¾ inches long. My X-88 Pro has ten of these faders used for keyboard sounds and outputs as well as two more dedicated to XLR microphone inputs each with its own gain, mute, eq and effects control. Thank you Lionstracs I may even leave my Allen & Heath mixer at home. Lol. There is also one more fader beside the data entry wheel this fader operates different parameters based on the keyboard mode or the current contents of the screen.

Ok, I’ll stop there for now. I welcome your comments. Please let me know if this is useful or informative to anyone. I know that when I was researching the Mediastation I found that 3rd party information or comments were few and hard to come by. I would like to make the process easier for the next person.