Is the M-Audio Oxygen Pro 25 for MIDI good as a simple controller live show?

[Oogie Wa Wa]

Looking to use a small controller as a direct MIDI DIN input to another keyboard in a live setting. Mostly for playing left hand bass, everything else on the other board. Would this thing work well? 25 keys is plenty, Avoiding a USB interface is nice. I've never played piano, so no weighting needed. I can also use it standalone with a DAW when road tripping.

Thanks!

 

[happyrat1]

Why not keep it all in one thread?

Speaking of triggering things; what's the low down on the Behringer Swing?

How well would the Swing work for adding a second keyboard on my Juno DS61 via 5-pin MIDI for bass duties? In a live situation? It looks like I could hook up the IN cable to the DS OUT, hook up a power supply, set it to MIDI ch 1, assign a bass guitar patch to MIDI ch 1 and have at it? It...

www.keyboardforums.com

 

[Oogie Wa Wa]

I wasn't sure I'd reach the target folks that might know. There's no M-Audio sub forum that I could find. Sometimes I think you're the only one here, lol!!!

 

[happyrat1]

M-Audio Keyboards

www.keyboardforums.com

 

[happyrat1]

Actually I think the Arturia Keystep knockoff by Behringer will accomplish what you need. No bells and whistles.

But you will have to buy an adapter to power it.

https://www.amazon.com/Behringer-000-E2V00-00010-Swing/dp/B097BQM1P7/

https://www.amazon.com/Security-01-Supply-Adapter-Center-Positive/dp/B09JVZ71TH/

https://www.amazon.com/Arturia-430201-KeyStep/dp/B01BPSBU40/

https://www.amazon.com/Arturia-All-One-Performance-Connectivity/dp/B083WHBMWT/

 

[Biggles]

I literally bought one yesterday.

Only just got it set up with our Macbook and Logic Pro and busy looking at tutorials.

One I did see uses his exactly as you ask.

This guy did three short tutorials, watch all three.

 

[Oogie Wa Wa]

I literally bought one yesterday.

Only just got it set up with our Macbook and Logic Pro and busy looking at tutorials.

One I did see uses his exactly as you ask.

This guy did three short tutorials, watch all three.

Excellent! Thanks! Great timing! lol I'll definitely watch those.

I'm looking over the Behringer, the M-Audio Oxygen and the Arturia Keystep 32 manuals tonight.

My daughter bought the Behringer for me for Christmas, but it's delayed until mid-January. Sweetwater will let me make it a credit towards either of the other two instead. So I've got a few days to decide.

Muchly appreciated as usual, guys.

 

[Biggles]

I had three contenders, the MAudio Oxygen Pro, a Novation Launchkey and a Nektar Impact LX

My local Music Store had them in stock and the MAudio and Novation were on display, they got out the Nektar for me but after trying them the MAudio is more robust in construction and has a vastly better feel to the keybed which is semi weighted with channel aftertouch.

The other two just have synth action keybeds and light construction, the downside of the MAudio is that it cost £135 where the other two were only c£90.

I did have an Arturia Essential a while back, what a load of crap that was, key feel all over the place and a very flimsy feel to all the controls.

Do note that I have the Oxygen Pro, they also produce a straight Oxygen model which I did not consider.

Also it is easily missed but quite a few of the available small form factor MIDI units only have mini keys which for me limited the available models, all the above have full sized keys.

 

[happyrat1]

The Arturia is also semi-weighted with aftertouch.

That model uses a Fatar keybed but keep in mind they are mini keys.

I also had problems with an M-Audio Oxygen 49 about a decade ago. The CPU was too slow and weak to register velocity properly and I had to disable velocity to make it at all usable.

I also tried the Keylab Essential and for me the crazy software updates drove me insane. Agree on the crappy keybed.

But the Keystep models are perfectly usable without having to install their tacky software at all.

The keystep and the swing are both priced within a few dollars of each other and so I'd sooner get the keystep which I know has a metal chassis and mine has performed flawlessly since I bought it.

Behringer has been known to suffer QC and reliability issues on some of their hardware.

 

[Oogie Wa Wa]

Again thanky kindly. I did some research, and I'm just going with the Behringer for various reasons. I never played piano, so weighting isn't necessary. Neither is they key size; in fact for bass playing that might actually come in handy. I double-stop a lot, add fifths and a few things since we're only a 3-piece band.

Since this is actually a cheap way to test if I can handle multiple keyboards, it meets my needs. Plus my daughter won't have to do anything other than change the delivery address. We're headed south for 3 months.

Interesting that they all have "chords" that can be built. Well, sort of. Record the notes you want played, then push the lowest note and you get the chord. Press any other key and it transposes that. Arpeggiated if so desired. "Quite handy" until you figure out that little things like minors and sevenths and all that stuff won't work. Weird. Now if it held one pattern for each key . . . . And remembered them without a laptop.

Until the next time my friends....