Customer Reviews

M-Audio Axiom Pro 49 Advanced 49-Key USB MIDI Controller with HyperControl Technology

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a unique keyboard and is really useful if you do any music production of any kind on your computer. It works with all major music sequencers that matter. This will save you boatloads of time mixing and probably spark some creativity. I'm not even a keyboardist...I play guitar, but being able to mix with this, use it as a sample trigger, the velocity pads...laying down some simple lines on the keyboard....all on one device..it's a life saver, not to mention a space saver. Buy it on Amazon...the other musical go to sites out there can not hold a candle to Amazon on pricing. Look for yourself.

Best price that I could find anywhere else was $479 plus tax or shipping. $372 total at amazon. I plugged it into my USB hub and hypercontrol automatically mapped the hardware to ProTools 8.0.4 on my Win 7 64-bit 3.2 GHz Phenom II box. I have an old Korg N1 that I have connected via an MBox2 (midi cables to MBox - MBox USB to PC. Pro Tools instruments work fine and the EAST/WEST Complete Composers Pack works fine (PLAY2 engine)both standalone or within ProTools. It was pretty easy to figure out how to map one set of sounds to one keyboard and another to the other. Keys are semi weighted and the action is what was expected. The N1 has 88 fully weighted keys so I didn't need a full keyboard or fully weighted keys on the Axiom. It might have been nicer to have purchased the Axiom Pro 61, but there was a serious price difference for the extra octave without any other benefit.

So far I am very happy.

I like most of M-Audio products and this one is included in this set. HyperControl functionality is great for controlling Cubase 5, which I extensively use and speeds up any music creation process in times, making able to concentrate on idea rather than implementation.

I really wanted to like this controller. The keyboard itself is solid, well-built, nice action, etc. My big gripe is with the Hypercontrol, which is the big selling feature of the Pro series over the non-Pro Axiom 49. Hypercontrol is supposed to auto-magically map the knobs, sliders, buttons, to the DAW software for you with presets that make general sense. This saves you a lot of time trying to map these things yourself.

It kind of works, but then I upgraded to Snow Leopard on my Mac, and it stopped working with Reason 4.0.1. It seems the only way to contact tech support at M-Audio is via the public web forums. I did, and eventually was told that Snow Leopard isn't working with Hypercontrol, and they don't have an ETA on when it will get fixed. This is a bummer, since now this thing isn't much more than a midi controller with just the keyboard, since none of the knobs, sliders, etc. do anything very useful.

I also have problems with Hypercontrol and Ableton Live 8. In the web forums, M-Audio claims the issue is with Ableton. Nice support.

I'm considering selling this controller and buying something that has better software integration. I've been happy with the Novation products and their Automap software.

I like the product. It's just that the delivered one has a surface abrasion next to the pitch bend. One more thing is that some rotary encoders are very hard to turn.