Mobile music-making company IK Multimedia announced today the availability of a Lightning cable for their iRig KEYS — the company’s slim, portable keyboard for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch (as well as the Mac or PC).
Use of the Lightning cable with iRig Keys will enable consumers to use the compact keyboard with the recent iterations of the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
Up until now, the iRig KEYS was bundled with the older 30-pin dock-connection cable for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, and a USB cable for hooking up to a Mac/PC. We detailed the keyboard’s features when the product was released last summer.
As before, iRig KEYS is comes with the iGrand Piano FREE piano app; SampleTank FREE, a sound and groove module app; and SampleTank L for Mac/PC. iRig KEYS works with all Core MIDI-compatible apps (like GarageBand), and MIDI applications and DAWs on Mac/PC. When connected to an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, iRig KEYS is powered by the device. For longer playing sessions, iRig KEYS can be powered through its USB port, like when it’s connected to a Mac/PC.
The Lightning cable is available for purchase from the IK website for $19.99 €17.99 (plus tax where applicable).
The nice thing about this is that it works with the iPhone. With a lightning cable the whole thing is pretty slick and becomes a poor man’s OP-1. 😀
I like my m-audio keystation mini 32, which was dirt cheap, but it a) only has 32 keys and b) doesn’t connect directly to the iPhone (right now I use a Raspberry Pi with a cheap MIDI cable connected to the iRig MIDI connected to a 32-pin to Lightning adapter, a setup which is a bit clunky but it does work, is compact, and allows the iPhone to charge while you play.)
I actually really miss my SynthStation25, which stopped working unfortunately. This could be its successor although it doesn’t actually dock the iPhone inside the keyboard, which made the SynthStation feel like a real hardware synth.