I’ve upgraded the battery from the original 2,000mah to the 3,600mah one (some soldering involved because of the different socket sizes). This one was taken for upgrade.
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Anybody else here got the keyboard already? Curious to have your feedback on it ))
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Mine should be here today, so I’m sure I’ll have something to say about it soon.
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Hi,
I got mine on friday and had a lot of work since then to make it work properly.
The arpeggiator is buggy - “random” just goes up, even in the new 013-firmware (which shows as firmware version 1.10 on the device; dates as 17.07.2025 on their website). The changelog mentions a lot of fixes especially for the popping and crackling issues of the sound.
The keys are quite small. I never learned to play piano/keyboard, but for me the keys are not as good as for example from the Arturia Keystep 37 (or even ESI XSynth …).
The device registers its audio interface as stereo microphone within Windows Audio, thus ASIO4ALL is necessary for properly using it in a DAW. Using 256 buffers makes it quite usable, it delivers 24 Bit 44.1kHz output.
Getting USB MIDI to run is a bit of a hassle. In Studio One I needed to add an external device as “Instrument” which uses MIDIIN3 and MIDIOUT2 from the SMK-37 Pro; that has to be connected to an external device “Keyboard” which uses the “SMK-37 Pro Midi” ports for in- and output.
The M-VAVE SMK-37 Pro delivers mono sound (didn’t check whether the FX section changes this). For a fast test I layered a few tracks: two pluck-like in the beginning (a little bit of chorus added in the DAW) and binaural pan on all tracks (Pluck1+2, bass, string, drums) for a bit of stereo feeling. The drum sounds are stored in bank 4, so all sounds stem from the SMK-37 Pro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlhEMnhU4uI (My first try was terrible, the timing was really badly off; removing every bit of quantization in the DAW helps a bit, but it shows a problem with the device IMO).
I hop this helps as additional oppinion on the device 
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For the price (or even 2x the price) its a nice keybed IMO.
The DX7 built in engine is pretty good, but as is noted there is sometimes some crackle/pop on certain presets, hard to reproduce. I need to try new firmware.
The fact that it’s battery powered & has headphone jack is neat so I can just sit on the sofa and jam by myself. It’s VERY light next to for example my ASM Hydra Explorer which I haven’t tried to use on a sofa.
Another under-mentioned feature is the little screen tells you what note you are playing, and more cool - it even tells you the chord you are playing when you play a chord. Given I have no musical training this is a nice to have for me.
I haven’t used it as a midi controller, nor tried the arp.
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I took some more time to try to record something proper with the SMK 37 Pro. It has a lag of nearly a whole quarter note at 120bpm. This makes it really difficult to record something with interesting timing like 1/8T with the arpeggiator. Fixing the delay is close to impossible. I think it’s still fun, but nothing for “serious” production – at least in its current state. Maybe more firmware updates will fix the timing issues. Listen for yourselfes: https://youtu.be/P4TQKcl-qb8
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For real FM fun I use my miniDEXED, and the SMK is just a doorstop for me because of the latency and delay… Sad.
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Funny, exactly the words I found in my mother tongue for it! 
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With the new firmware this is way better now.
Updated my unit yesterday and the pops when loading a new patch seem to be gone entirely.
Apparently they also made some changes (not mentioned in the release notes) on the FX units, but not to the better. The FX weren’t any good already, but now I think they are even worse (referring to Delay and Reverb).
The Delay was halfway useable before, now it’s just odd lol.
And the Reverb appeared to me (before updating) as some sort of shimmery convolution/impulse response, that became annoying quickly. After updating I don’t know what it’s even supposed to be, depending on how much you dial in the effect isn’t even recognizable. So they turned that into something odd as well lol.
Besides that, nice to see they are actively working on it and release updates.
So there’s hope for more fixes/improvements.
Is there a medieval edition?
can I eat it before bed?
yes but not before swimming unless you wait 30min
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yea you better ask TE about that
but prepare to pay like 600 bucks for it, instead of the 60 i paid for this one
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Waiting for the SMK-37 Elite (in the mail). Will check that one for the problems mentioned above (don’t see any new updates for the FW, so not much hope, but still…) At least it looks much nicer, I’d say more exotic and trendy (hello Teenage Engineering and Seqtrak, and even new Stylophone Voice ))
I’ve had the Elite since February. The hardware is fine, the keybed, in particular, is surprisingly good.
Unfortunately, the firmware has a few annoying bugs. I think I’ll sell it. Because the hardware is great I’ll wait a little longer, even though I’m not holding my breath for any serious bug fixes.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/comments/1qoci0h/new_firmware_for_smk_37_pro_v15/
New FW, maybe will help in some?
Direct link for Elite FW -
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That’s exactly the version I’ve been using since the beginning. I installed it straight away when Elite was delivered.
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Oh, OK. So no substantial help then… Do you have enough latency to feel it when play it’s FM synth live? What other bugs which you’ve experienced so far? Good to know ahead of time…
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I was not really interested in the FM Synth. I’ve tried it out, of course, but the effects are really poor and the latency is very noticeable. Some imported DX7 presets differ significantly from the original presets. I think there’s something wrong with the parameter mapping during import.
MIDI notes are sometimes output delayed when using the Elite as a MIDI controller.
With some scales, every few notes a wrong note is played (it’s C8 everytime, you can see it on the display).
The user interface of Midi Suite for the Mac is a complete mess with truncated text labels, incomplete drop-down menus, etc.
Not to mention the poor usability of the device itself. The display’s timeout is much too short, and the buttons and knobs are often very fiddly to use.
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Thanks for thorough explanation!
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