Article: A Review of M-Audio's Axiom 49 midi keyboard

[NTO]

This is an article I wrote quite some time ago now when I first bought the Axiom 49, hope you enjoy!

The Axiom 49 is a 49 key Midi keyboard from M-Audio. It's geared towards production and live performance. With a suprisingly solid build and portability, while still being right at home as a studio keyboard.

High Resoloution Photos

Top Angle

Front Right

Rear Angle

Features include:

* 49-key velocity-sensitive semi-weighted action keyboard with assignable aftertouch

* 8 trigger pads, 8 rotary encoders, 9 sliders, 15 buttons (including 6 reassignable transport buttons)

* 15 function buttons and backlit LCD screen for total front-panel programming

* built-in USB bus-powered MIDI interface including standard MIDI In and Out jacks

* 20 non-volatile memory locations compatible with free Enigma librarian/editor software

The Ivory:..or in this case, plastic. In my experience with previous "synth" style keyboards, the keys have always been rather flimsy. They did their job, but nothing more. While I have no experience with the highest end keyboards, I feel I can safely say that these keys are of decent quality, especially for the price. They are a semi-weighted velocity sensing key that require little to press but do provide a nice light kick-back which has helped me flow alot better in heavy improv sessions.

The keys also include a feature called After-Touch, something I hadn't heard of until I met this keyboard. This is essentially an extra, pressure-sensitive control at the bottom of the key that you can assign to absoloutely anything you want. Perhaps you want to link a low pass filter to the after touch from your chosen midi-enabled DAW? Quickly assign the control. Then all you need to do is press a key, and then hold the key and put pressure onto it, then hear the effect in action. Thats just a simple example, you could get really really creative with it.

More light on Aftertouch: Imagine aftertouch as a seperate part of the key, so you have the key and it functions on it's own as normal and as all others do. But once you get to the bottom of the key stroke, the key is resting on a pressure pad, which you can then activate and use by applying pressure. So if you had it assigned to filter frequency, you could play your piece and never even activate the control, but when you apply that bit more pressure once you've had your keystroke, it will start controlling the filter frequency.

On my particular keyboard, all keys work perfectly, no noteable squeaks or creaks and the actual functioning is still rock solid.

The Controls: Now I can't speak for everyone, and I'm sure eventually I wont feel the same way. But right now I feel the amount of controls is completely adequate, and more than enough at that price.

The Dials:

The dials work well, they do what they're supposed to. But they click. Something I didn't first suspect from them. Each increment on the 127bit encoder clicks. I suppose this is usefull to know exactly what you're inputing, but still unexpected. The click is also not consistant across the dials, each one is stiffer or looser than the last. But they do work well, so no complaints from me.

The Drum Pads:

The 'Drum Pads' I was rather impressed by. They're rather solid with a soft rubber cover. They are pressure sensitive and surprisingly they also feature After-Touch, which could be very usefull indeed.

The Sliders: They are made of plastic, like all the controls. They sit on a metal stem so they slide smoothly and react predictably, however they do feel kindof cheap beacuse of the odd felt covering that keeps dirt out of the slider area, and the plastic caps. But again, they work, and that's what matters. I still find them very comfortable to use.

All the other buttons are rubber and feel very nice, very comfortable and easy to press.

There are also of course the Pitch and Modulation controls. They are two very solid, smooth moving controls that stay where they are told. Except of course the Pitch control, which has a spring mechanism to bring it back to the middle.

Now, the fun part.

The Software: Many people have complained about the software being too compicated and not user friendly. I didn't find it hard at all, and found it rather intuitive. I will say however, that I have barely used the software. Beyond getting FL transport controls to work (which was a pain because of FL, not the controller). It's just not nessacary. In all the DAWs I've used it's been the same, all you do is right click the setting you want to assign a control to in the daw, press "Midi assign" or "Assign Control" or whatever the DAW has there, then move the control that you want to assign to that setting. Simple, effective, easy.

To swap between presets, you merely press the number of the preset on the numpad to the top left, and then wait a moment and it switches automatically. This is extremely usefull for when you're using multiple DAWs and need to use them one after another.

Now I've left the Transport controls to this section because the only issues I have with those lie within the software. They can be difficult to get working with some DAWs, especially FL studio, it's quite a procedure. If anyone needs it I can try to track it down for you. Just leave a message here.

The Display: Last one.

It's blue.

Yay.

It displays the current value of the control you're using, and the CC of the control. The CC is basically the ID of the control, so this becomes a handy feature when programming the keyboard.

Another feature of this keyboard is Zoning, which essentially means you can assign different instruments and controls to different parts of the key section. This can be helpfull in improvising with multiple instruments in the one recording take. Though 49 keys probably isn't enough to fully utilize this feature, it's still helpfull. There are probably other benifits to Zoning that I'm not aware of, but I'm sure if you're that deep into programming the keyboard you'd have a fair idea of how to figure it out for yourself.

Conclusion: For those who can't afford the very high end, but are not satisfied with the low end, this is perfect. It's a good price for what you get, and what you get works perfectly well. It's a very good example of how business should be done. It does what it says it does with no nasty surprises.

It holds an impressive list of features, it feels and works well and is solid and reliable. I've been using it for over a year now and it still works as it did when I started using it.

[Beniii]

Decent review mate...

I have the 25...

Hate it purely based on the clicking dials...

And the motherboard went on it once, but m-audio had it back to me in a week. so i guess thats a win....

[Cupe]

Nice writeup

+rep