M-Audio Ozone

Using with an xp operating laptop.

I really did not know anything about these little machines and what they would do... so I asked to a friend while choosing my M-Audio Ozone. It is easy to carry around and has lots of features on it. I connect my bass guitar and a mic. It works for a small home studio kind of work if you are working with reason and acid pro4 kind of stuff... a friend of mine (mehmet ataman) has given me instructions on the phone in about 25 minutes and I did miracles using reason... so

The machine has an asio sound driver in its cute little body. And the response time is very good. Latency right..? Dont know the terminology so much... and the velocity is also working.. I dont know if you can use it without the computer... couldnt figure it out yet... and i need a midi keyboard starters guide I guess..

good for a starter I guess... 8 knobs and 25 keys to enjoy which open up virtually by the touch of a button...

it is up to the program you are taking the samples from... or let me say the samples that make the difference... it is more effective when you use it with a good pc....

on live? dont think so... why not go for a nord lead.. instead.. if you are a performer...

didnt.. dunno what to do with it...

It is small... does not require anything but an usb port to use... the new version looks quite sexy....

Please disseminate far and wide to all your musician friends and to anyone else considering the purchase of an M-Audio Ozone.

Before you consider shelling out your hard-earned cash for this product, try this: Grab a plastic bag, walk around your neighborhood and select the biggest, freshest pile of dogshit you can find. Then take that dogshit, place it near your computer and plug a USB cord into it. This will fully simulate the experience of the M-Audio Ozone USB MIDI controller keyboard. And lucky for you, the experience was free. I wasn?t so lucky. While I managed to escape the full retail cost by purchasing the unit off Ebay, I still took a hit.

Let?s start with the nuts and bolts: (The following applies to Windows users only) The installation CD contains folders for several M-Audio devices. Each has its own folder and the folders contain the drivers for the product. Installation is a breeze, to be honest. It?s the stuff being installed that causes all the trouble.

First of all, any software company worth its salt will submit its programming to the Microsoft labs for what is commonly referred to as ?Windows Logo Testing.? This testing assures customers that what they are installing will function properly in the Windows Environment. Now, I am not a software developer and I know next to nothing about this process. It sounds like a pretty good idea to me, though. I mean, if I were a software developer, I would certainly take the time to put my product through the Windows Logo testing?and be sure that it passed?before offloading my stuff to my customers. I would consider it a very basic courtesy.

The discourteous folks at M-Audio apparently didn?t give a shit that their product is incompatible with Windows. Don?t believe me? Windows will warn you when you are about to install drivers or other programs that have not been tested or have not passed the Logo Testing process; during the process a window will pop up indicating the software has not passed the Logos test and you will be presented with the option to ?Continue Anyway? or ?STOP installation.? The Ozone installation manual (For XP, anyway), makes you ignore this warning no less than six times during the installation process. Red flags, anyone?

The gist of it: the device did not function after installation.

Granted the tech support guys at M-Audio tried their best. Of course they suggested the obvious: ?is it plugged in??, ?does the unit have power??, ?did it fall out of a three-story window in the last hour??? Then they directed me to a few driver updates and (long story short) those failed as well. The second time they directed me to a website that dealt specifically with XP-related audio streamlining. This site contains 26 ?tips? on how to fine-tune XP for audio/music applications. It?s a great site, really (http://www.musicxp.net), but all of those tips were the computing equivalent to placing a glass roof on a house of cards. You can?t really fine-tune your OS if the drivers are not even in the same key.

I went so far as to upgrade my Thinkpad 380ED to Windows 98 with hopes of fixing the problem. No such luck. I can?t stress enough that you should avoid this product at all costs. If you have purchased M-Audio?s Ozone within the last 30 days, run?don?t walk?to the store tomorrow and get your money back. You won?t be sorry.

the ozone is very simple to use with software like reason and live.
The manual is useless, 20 page of "how to install the drivers,," thas it........so if you want to try to edit the preset,,,,,good luck!

mmmmmm the midi controller are cool, the keys are soft....but no effect....few out/in

the instrument sounds good ,,,,,,,if you want to play elettronic,chill-out........

mmmmm i don't think you can have a live with the ozone,,,,but is perfect to work at home

the emagic web page sucks!!!!!

look like a toy but is very helpfull for the homerecording and for songwriters, is small, cheap (is a workstation) , fast, easy.
But no for professional use

Very easy to use, manual is very thourough

pitch wheel, modulation wheel, 25 keys, 8 assingable parameter knobs, instrument channel, mic channel, monitor levels for these channels, headphones level, too many to list here.

Velocity and aftetouch are very good on this. Very responsive

Very solid, I've managed to knock this from my stand twice unforunately during live rehearsals and its still working and without a scratch on it.

no experience

I would definitely buy this again, it looks good, is easy to use, only probalem is its size. When placed on a keyboard stand it isn't very stable as it barley fits on. However this is marketed as a portable device so that isn't really a problem.

well there is no preset, it is just a midi controller keyboard.very well laid and simple to use, just connect the usb to your laptop and it is ready to go.i presently use it with reason 2.5 and cubase-sx( sample tank2, stylus,trilogy,atmosphere,virtual guitarist)

no polyphony issues as it is a triggering unit with inbuilt sound card which has virtually no latency problem.but once you are using with your laptop and if you have set the latency to "very low", there is a strange crackling noise in irregular intervals. when the manual is consulted it says that your cpu power should be okay to handle low latency, but what the manual does not indicate as to what should the desktop or laptop configuration.

it is a breeze using this particular machine and the sound card is quite powerful, clear and can be used to dump your precious sequencing in the studios. can trigger the inbuilt sounds of great vst instruments. the programmable midi knobs are quite helpful and can be used for varied applications and even dj like expressions of overlapping and crossfading etc.

yeah reliable and does not take the earth to understand how and what to use this machine for.

yeah, have contacted them regarding that irregular crackling sound problem( this happens especially in fruity loops and in cubase sx with vst instruments) but they really could not focus onto how to solve that. very general answers, so not so dependable customer support. would love if anyone can give me a solution to this.

yeah, i would probably buy it again if it were lost b'coz you do not get this kinda machine or rather there's no other machine of this calibre in the market.