If you’ve read my work long enough you’ll probably know my past days of making noise on both an amateur and professional level. While my skills falls mostly in the percussion portion of the spectrum, I still know my way around a set of keys, at least at a very basic level. Like most people I grew up playing piano for a number of years, but stopped because lessons were, and are still pretty boring and tedious (I had too many Nintendo games to get to). Now as an adult my time is even more limited, especially to learn something new, no matter how much I’ve dreamed about playing the piano at a decent level. Not only that, but the idea of starting from scratch with lessons just doesn’t appeal to me as thoughts of boring lessons from childhood still dance in my head. What I want is just to be able to learn some popular songs and have fun in the process. From this, of course, I would build up the basic skills needed to my okay at the piano. The problem is that this sort of learning environment just hasn’t really existed before -until now.
The One Light Keyboard is a jack of all trades when it comes to learning to play piano. From the first time player, the rank amateur, or even the professional looking to have a little bit of fun, The One Light carves out a new market in the crowded field of entry/mid level pianos. On paper the One Light is a strange beast indeed. Aside from a power button, the unit only has two other buttons no larger than a tic-tac. It also has a volume wheel and a few plug-in ports on the rear of the unit. It’s about as basic a keyboard as on can expect. The real magic lies in the integration of a tablet (provided separately) that turns a very stock keyboard into a full-fledged learning environment for all types of players.
The One Light Keyboard has an incredibly sleek styling that gives the unit a look of a piano hundreds of dollars out of its range. The built-in cover that keeps the few buttons safe from damage when closed, also serves as a music/tablet stand. Even better is that The One Light allows you to use any tablet (even a smartphone) that you may already own, as it supports both Apple and Android devices. You are going to be wanting to run the latest operating systems for whatever you are using, but odds are any tablet/phone bought in the last few years will be good to go. Even more impressive is that The One Light Piano supports the Kindle Fire line of tablets, having an app already in the Amazon App Store. This is great as most products, even android ones, tend to skip over the Amazon App Store and require a user to side-load them. While I had no issue with the 7″ Kindle Fire HD during testing, the bigger the tablet screen size the easier it will be to work with and enjoy.
Getting everything set up is about as easy as it gets. I’m serious when I say that the process of getting everything working right was one of the smoothest experiences I’ve ever had with a tech product with so many different things going on. The thing that makes everything work is the app itself, in conjunction with the included cable that is included for both Apple and Android devices. Simply plug-in The One Light, plug-in your tablet to the unit, and then boot up the app and you’ll be ready to go. The app itself is laid out in a pretty easy to navigate manner, although it may be a tad bit confusing for those not well versed in apps with a lot of features.
You can start playing right away from booting up the app, but you can also sign up for a paid account that opens up more songs and lessons for you to dive into. This works pretty well, as if you want to only learn the basics to playing you can do that, and when you are ready for more advanced fare you can then pay for an account if you really want to. Even if you just stick to the basics that are included for free there is still a lot of content to be had from the included app. Lessons can be downloaded via the app and the same can be done with popular songs via YouTube and HD Piano. HD Piano is a popular YouTube channel that teaches popular songs via a Rockband like scrolling method that I have used in the past to try to learn some songs every now and then. Lessons are easy to follow and really inviting with the included teachers keeping everything fun and relaxed so you never feel under any pressure.
What makes both lessons and the HD Piano sections special is that The One Light Keyboard pulls all that information and incorporates a light up keys functionality. When you pick a song the track will scroll down your tablet screen in time with whatever song/lesson you are learning. When the corresponding key(s) reach the play line, those keys will light up on The One Light Keyboard. This is really cool to see and helps to cut down the learning time in half in many cases. It’s one thing to have an understanding on where C, D, E and so on are in relations to what you are playing, but having visual ques really helps cement the lessons in. It’s so much fun to learn to play in a manner more like a video game while still actually learning how to play and hold your hands in the proper fashion. Even cooler is that if you pause the video the current keys playing will stay lit so you can slow things down for a better learning experience. Half an hour into playing I had already learned a song by Avicii, two songs from Coldplay, and began working on the more advanced tune from Frozen.
An issue that you may think would be a problem here would be the audio volume/quality coming from your dinky little tablet. No need to worry as that the included cable also feeds all the audio coming from your tablet and channels it through the speakers of The One Light Keyboard. Even better is that the built-in speakers on the piano are pretty solid and clean sounding. They will easily fill up a room and I had several people stopping into the office to see what was going on and wanting to learn a song for themselves. The One Light Keyboard isn’t the sort of piano that will sit in the corner taking up space, it’s the kind of piano that you and others in your home will be wanting to play on a regular basis.
The ONE Light really is a portable keyboard for beginners and experienced players alike as the description on their website states. The keys that light up with sheet music, video lessons, and games (yes even fun learning games) when connected with The ONE Smart Piano app make this keyboard so jam-packed with features that it’s hard to not justify the $299 price tag. Heck, as I’m writing this I’m itching to go learn another song. You can check out some of the specs on the keyboard below:
- 61 red backlit, touch responsive keys
- 64 note polyphony
- Built-in sustain and optional pedal socket
- 128+ GM tones and 20 preset notes
- Built-in mp3 speakers
- Collapsable built-in music stand
- Free iOS and Android app
I can’t recommended The One Light Keyboard highly enough. So many cool pieces of tech come across my desk and no matter how cool they are, they tend to end up in a drawer or a storage room after a few weeks/months. The One Light Keyboard is the sort of thing that you will be playing for years to come and makes for a great teaching tool to get the family making/learning music together. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some learning to do!
Visit SmartPiano.com (http://bit.ly/1XCugNS) to pick up your own One Light Keyboard or to learn more about the unit.
*A unit was provided for this review*
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