M-Audio Oxygen 49 or Alesis QX49 or ?

[Ervin826]

Hey im just getting into midi keyboards im a newb i would like to ask everyone's recommendation on which of these keyboard are best for what i want to do i am mainly gonna want to make beats and later want to have a set up to record music which of these two are the best choice or if there's one near the same price range $150 that is better ?

 

[happyrat1]

I own an Oxygen 49 and mainly use it for fooling around on my laptop while watching TV. My only real complaint about it is that the velocity sensitivity is hit or miss on a good day and generally I end up simply having to turn it off entirely.

Otherwise, looking at the specs on the Alesis I'd have to say if you can pick it up for the same price it is probably the better buy. If only for the fact that it has real MIDI ports on it as well as USB. The Oxygen is USB only. The MIDI ports will become useful if you someday opt to connect to a hardware MIDI sound module.

Then again, the Oxygen is USB powered so one less cable and wall wart for powering it up. The Alesis uses a separate power supply.

Finally if your main interest is recording drum beats, the Alesis has dedicated drum pads while the Oxygen does not.

If you can pick up either for the same price, I'd have to say the Alesis is a better choice for you unless the additional power supply is a dealbreaker.

Gary

 

[Ervin826]

could you connect additional things to the oxygen 49 could you multiply the usb ports or convert them to midi and multiply them ? im am kinda leaning toward the alesis but the only thing that kinda pushing me away is what i hear some people say about how the build quality feels i just want to hear more about what people have to say about it

 

[happyrat1]

The Oxygen is designed to do simply one thing. Connect to a computer and control a soft synth. You could, in theory, hook it up to a sequencer in a computer and use it to control a hardware module through software but it would be a kludgy and ungainly solution. Oxygen build quality is nothing to write home about either. The keys are cheap and wobbly and is roughly the equivalent of a $100 Casio keyboard.

All things being equal, I'd say the Alesis is probably the better value.

 

[Ervin826]

Do you know of other keyboards around the same price range that compare to these?

 

[happyrat1]

These are pretty much the bottom of the barrel price wise. Anything better is gonna cost significantly more.