I’m thinking of buying me one of those thingees mentioned above. Does anyone of you have any experience with it? Or other recommendations?
Here’s what I want:
compact usb keyboard with dynamic keys for velocity and stuff…
some knobs and faders to control fx, vsts etc. (duplex support for this device would be nice, btw )
price <100€
I think I might go for the 49 keys version, because the price difference is just 9€ (ignore the prices mentioned on the m-audio site) and it has 8 addional faders in comparison to the 25 keys version.
But the latter is cute, small and almost fits in your pocket… decisions, decisions…
Or are there any other suggestions, matching the above crtieria?
i completely “burned” my m-audio firewire audiophile 6 month ago, just because of a 6pin shit cable (included by m-audio!) that constantly was self-disconecting (i bought a new one because i was scared about that, and the new one definitively killed it, m-audio don’t care about it, they just write this on the support page:)
"Reports have come to our attention of isolated problems when hot-plugging IEEE 1394 (aka “FireWire”) devices. (Hot-plugging refers to making 1394/FireWire connections when one or more of the devices—including the computer—is on.)
When hot-plugging, there are rare occurrences where either the FireWire peripheral or the FireWire port on the host computer is rendered permanently inoperable. While M-Audio products adhere rigidly to the FireWire industry standard and pass stringent internal testing, the possibility remains that hot-plugging your M-Audio FireWire interface with some computers may result in the type of problem described here.
We strongly encourage you to protect your equipment by refraining from hot-plugging any bus-powered FireWire device, including the M-Audio family of FireWire products. Connect your FireWire device while both the computer and FireWire device are powered off. Power on the FireWire device, then turn the computer on last. If you are using bus power (systems with IEEE1394 6-pin connectors) make sure you make the cable connection first, then turn the FireWire device power switch on, and turn the computer system on last.
For a technical explanation about how hot-plugging a firewire device can damage the host or the device, please read this documentation by Texas Intruments.
M-Audio is being proactive in investigating any issues that may adversely affect our customers. Please consult the Knowledge Base in the Support section at www.m-audio.com for updates on this important issue."
my chance in this shit: my laptop is still ok, but i lost a device with no more waranty… so now i hate them an will soon buy a motu , i know you are talking about a keyboard, but i talk about m-audio in general
I have oxygene8 v2 25, which is pretty much identical to the one you linked. I’ve had it for at least 3 years now I think and it works just fine. For me it’s enough at least ar far as controllers and etc. go, but it’s not really enough for playing anything complex, but I don’t really do taht much anyway. If you like to compose stuff by playing it realtime to the patterns, get the 49 one. If you don’t, I’d say get the smaller one, because it’s really handy to move around as it takes very little space, and can be really conviniently taken with you.
I have an oxygen49 and it works fine. I use it more for playing than knob tweaking though. The fact that people seem to hate m-audio’s audio interfaces should not bleed over to their midi gear. I think their keyboards does the job and work well. For the price it’s good value but as always the feel of knobs and keys are matter of taste, but I like the oxygen.
maybe not 100% “supported” but works fine under win7 even without drivers pre-installed (kind of “class compliant” or something like that).
I have an oxygenv2, works great, very handy. dont use m-audios drivers with vista though.they arnt stable and have actually give me BSOD. vistas own drivers work fine.
First of all, thank you guys for your impressions!
(and subskan: sorry, that you fried your hardware but that was not the topic, though it’s an off-topic thread… )
Vista drivers won’t bother me, as my main machine is still running XP. I might go for Win7 but i skipped Vista on purpose…
Ok, what interests me the most is the usability of the Oxygen with Renoise in particular. I haven’t used any external controller yet and I guess this “DirectLink” software doesn’t have a profile for Renoise, does it? How complicated is it to assign functions to the knobs/buttons/sliders in Renoise?
A special question to the “49ers”: can you use the 9 sliders e.g. to change the track volume simultaneusly (i.e. not just the active/selected track which definitely should work, i guess)? Would be nice for mixing.
And can you (ab)use the buttons underneath the sliders as “triggerpad”? I’m thinking of the “live usability” here…
Easy as pie. Use the midi mapping (ctrl+m) all mapable parameters turn yellow, click desired parameter and then assign the desired slider/button/knob by moving it. Haven’t looked into direktlink yet. But midi mapping works perfectly well.
Yes it’s possible to assign volume slider for track 1 to slider 1, track 2 to slider 2 etc and then change them simultaniously and it doesn’t matter which track is selected. I should mention though that the short lenght of the sliders on the oxygen will make the changes a bit steppy (128 steps because of limitations in 7bit midi, I haven’t found out a way of making the oxygen send 14bit).
The buttons CAN be used as triggerpads, and send note values but since they are not pressure sensitive so they will then always send a fixed attack value.
Yeah, cool! Sounds convincing. Thanks a lot, you’re help is much apprectiated!
I don’t need the sliders to be -that- precise, it’s just to make a quick&dirty mix, which can be fine tuned later on. And I don’t need pressure sensivity for the “pads” urgently. So I think, i’ll go for an Oxygen49. I’ll let you all know when i got one.
I have Oxygen 49 and it’s solid. Works well with Renoise and Ableton Live. Contrary to popular belief, it’s quite durable unless you hulksmash it. Or take a hammer to it.
Yeah, it’s there!
This thing is pretty cool, esp. with VSTs.
I still have some issues, though:
The buttons under the faders can’t be mapped to e.g. solo/mute track? Instead it switches to preset 1-9, if a VSTI is used. Even if not, they just won’t work. Any idea? Changing the MIDI channel or something like that? I tried to get around the “advanced programming” features of the oxygen (looks pretty complicated), but i guess i just have to…
)
decisions, decisions… 
, i know you are talking about a keyboard, but i talk about m-audio in general
on purpose… 
