M-Audio Ozone

I Had a lot of trouble with this out of the box. It just wouldn't work through cubase on an XP Lappy. Main problem was any attempt to record guitars or mics resulted in uncontrolable gain spike. Useless. Unfortunately I discovered this AFTER I arrived in Chiang Mai where i was planning to spend three months writing and recording music. Major bumer. It then sat in its box for 2 years until i got an imac. plugged it in. Loaded updated drivers. Worked perfectly. So it WAS the computer and not the Ozone.

The keys need to be 'punched' to get dynamics happening. but its not a bad little controller apart from that.

When recording instruments and mics there are a lot of electronically generated clicks and pops. What that measn for me is that this is not a pro piece of kit. Theres is no way that I would be able to do a proffessional recording with it. But as stated alsewhere here, great for beginners as you have everthing in one!

Even though its 2 and a half years old...I've only used it for a couplke of weeks over that time so reliability is yet to be assessed.

Terrible. I was ignored. Third party support is the way to go.

No way. I would buy a MOTU ultralight mk3 and a sep' keyboard. The original concept of this was a great idea although I wanted something that did all this and was USB or firewire powered. They got it half right...or maybe half arsed!

would be not so bad if it worked how it should

nice feeling keys. Looks good, nice knobs. Too bad it won't function with a computer. I have used it with both Mac and PC. One thing to know is the the Power supply MUST be plugged in for it to work. It won't run just off of the USB like the Oxygen 8. This was a big disappointment, as I thought the point of this thing was to be portable. Also, I constantly had to switch it on and off to get it to be "recognized" by either Pro Tools (in Mac) or Reason (in Windows, and Mac). It is difficult to describe how annoying this is, but lets just say it can totally ruin any creative flow.

see above. awful, really, really, really bad. I will never buy an M Audio product again. I actually owned an Oxygen 8, and that was bad too...I thought it would be better...never, ever again. I wish the company did not have such a monopoly on sound products. They make terrible, terrible devices. The staff is cool, but ultimately they do not help you, and the products do not work for more than a year tops.

see above

Installation is easy, the latest drivers work great with XP Prof. However, I just got myself an new laptop with Vista x64 and I'm not very amused that M-Audio doesn't offer suitable drivers jet. I'm working with Ableton's Live and I haven't experienced any problems up to now. Midi-routing works great, thanks to low latency recording is fun. Unfortunately space between the knobs is too narrow, in a wild life set it requires a lot of practice not to touch another knob while twisting the one you really use.

All you need for starting with live music. Really, if you're producing music 'just for fun', this device is what you need. If you want to go pro, this is NOT what you need! For me, the keyboard is fine, pro users might ask for one or two extra octaves. Eight knobs are OK, but I miss more sliders (might be to much for this size, but anyway...)

The sound is great! The M-Audio interface produces clear and powerful sound. Whoever tells anything different doesn't really understand how sound should be or simply uses terrible speakers or monitors. In fact, that's the reason why I'll throw this thing away (so please M-Audio: give the that f+++ing x64 driver..).

Never really had problems with XP Prof. When I bought my Ozone my system used to hang up a few times due to a driver conflict with my soundblaster audigy z2 soundcard. I deinstalled the sb driver and re-installed it afterwards... no probs since then.

Terrible! Rely on forums and discussion groups.

As I said, usefull for people, that produce music for fun. If you want more, don't buy this as it would be a waste of money. For hobby musicians this is the right choice. As I want to go semi-pro I would not buy it again, however for beginners I can only recommend the Ozone.

well looks nice to use, and fairly well laid out.
has never worked properly as a soundcard, and intermittently works as a midi controller.

seemed ok. keys felt quite nice

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reliable? absoulutely not! this thing has a mind of its own! good price for a product with its own functioning brain, but i rather it left things to me to make the decisions.

well tech support have been quite prompt and suggestive. however the drivers are rubbish, and they still only have BETA drivers for vista!! come on!

no i would never buy another one. i would rather eat burnt hair on toast.


please spend a little extra and steer well clear of m-audio products!

well, first of all, according to official M-audio distributor in Brazil, m-audio does not ship the installation cd anymore, you have to guess that the Protools M-powered Demo disk has the drives. Second of all, the drives on that disk are not updated for Vista, so they are worthless. So you download then, install and the drivers go fine, except that the Ozone Control Panel crashes everytime (but the ASIO driver still working). A ******* crap.

Good features for the price. But for a bit more you can have all fuctions of it plus a very good analog synthesizer (check Roland SH-201 synth-interface).

good for its price

well, after the saga to install it, i used my ozone 3 ******* times and it broke. warrant was okay and fast but i had to pay the shipment to repair it.

It brokes in two weeks and you have to pay the shipment to repair it.

- if it were stoles, broken or lost i would never buy it again.
- i have it for three weeks
- It is the worst **** i own
- nothing to love. i hate the drivers.
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Easy enough to install. I'm using it with cubase sx3 & reason 3 on my laptop. Have been very happy with it. I have recorded drums, guitars, bas, vocals with it. Although the preamps aren't all that great, i found that using good quality mics and preamps before going into the ozone has given me great results.
I never had to program it much, other than to assign some knobs to vst instrument functions. That went well.

Overall good soundcard for the price. Ok travel midi controller.

I've recorded electro/rock songs with it. It does what it sets out to do quite well.

I first bought this machine in 2003. I'm on my second one now as i blew a channel on the first one after over two years of intense use. M-Audio were very cool and gave me a new one for 50$. The second one has been running perfectly since then.

I occasionnaly need to reboot the machine when the cpu on my laptop gets over loaded. That only happens when I use a lot of vst instruments. I found ways to work around that. I very often run over 30 audio tracks plus some midi channels with vst intruments and it practically never gives out on me.

Like i said earlier, m-audio were very cool with me as they gave me a new machine for only 50$ after I blew a channel during a recording session. That was way past the warranty had expired.

Bottom line, well worth the money. Great travelling device. Even with a pro machine, I'll still hold on to it and use it when i'm on the road.

Pretty simple to setup and use.

2 octave keyboard, velocity sensitive. Pitch and mod wheels. 8 knobs for midi cc's. 1 instrument in w/preamp. 1 mic in with phantom power. 1 stereo aux in. Headphone and main outs. Pretty versatile little device...

So far so good...

I'll give it a 9. It does what it does well. Your limited to 48/24 if you want 96 you have to disable a set of stereo ins or outs, this isn't M-Audio's fault it's USB after all. The stereo aux input should be a pair of 1/4" ins though, and you can't control the level of gain on the stereo aux in, a bit of an oversight. I needed an all in one device so I could get back in to making music and the Ozone fit the bill, definitely
worth the money. I used to have a room full of hardware, now with this and some softsynths I can raise plenty of hell...

No problems getting it working. Simple to install, connect up and use.

This is a great all-in-one product for the beginner who has a guitar, a microphone, and a laptop. It is a midi keyboard, control surface, low-latency sound card, intrument interface, microphone interface, and more, in one device.

Fine keyboard as far as I can tell.

Not really a pro instrument.

Great value. Ideal for beginners. Compact. If you want to record instruments/voice and do MIDI sequencing you'd normally have to buy 2 or 3 separate devices, so you also save cables and connection problems with this product.

i had kinda the same problem that Anonymous had, the sound works, but just when it wants to... sometimes i'm listening to some music or even producing something at reason and it just stops playing and it takes me about 30min to make it work again

the only problem i had is that the sensitivity of the keys are too low, so you have to hit it too hard to get a loud sound

the sound of the soundcard is amazing... WHEN IT WORKS!

i wouldn't trust it

they just don't return my e-mails

i don't reccomend... it's better to pay a little more for a good soundcard and a decent midi controller than to buy ozone

This really could not be any easier to use. I had no trouble setting it up. The drivers installed effortlessly and so did the free Reason Adapted software.

It is a really simple midi controller. It not too feature packed. The Mod wheel and the Pitch bend and the assignable knobs are the only real features.

There are no sounds that come on board, you have to plug it into something. I've used it with my computer and some midi equipment with no problems. It does have "semi-veloscity sensitive" keys which aren't that great but it's better than no sensitivity at all. Playing it feels like playing a little toy keyboard.

I have never had any trouble with it.

I really like this little controller. It's basic, just keys some knobs and a USB jack. It's incredibly portable and economical. I normally dont write reviews of equipment, but i was offended by some of the negative reviews that this got. I like this one so much that I bought the M-Audio 61-Keystation too.

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.