Hey everyone,

I'm posting a bit of a rant on M-audio and I was wondering if anyone encountered the same issues with M-audio products.

Let me preface this by saying I am someone who takes care of my electronics. I'm a bit OCD about it you could even say.

I bought a keystation 61-es right about a year ago. About 3 months ago, the keyboard started sending random midi information to my DAW. It was sending CC7 (volume) information continuously turning the volume down. You can guess how madenning this became pretty quickly.

I got my sustain pedal, also an M-audio, at around the same time. 1 week after receiving it, it already stopped working. It just stopped working altogether after one week and I requested a new one.

Today I just replaced that piece of sh* keystation as the CC7 craziness was getting worse and worse and I couldn't make any music anymore. I barely had enough time to start enjoying my new keyboard that the pedal stopped working. It works about half the time I push it now.

So I'm buying a new pedal now, one year after buying the previous one.

My conclusion is: I will never buy a single M-audio product in my life, ever again. Their products are utter shit.

They do seem however to be very popular so I was wondering if anyone else encountered the same issues with M-audio products ? Or am I just unlucky?

Cheers,

 

I had same problem with a m-audio oxygen 25 keyboard. Googling to find a solution I discovered that is a common failure, maybe caused by low quality components used.
I wont buy any m-audio devices in the future: definetely cheapy and not reliable

 

I tried a M-Audio 88 key fully weighed controller a couple of years back. I returned it It really felt cheap to me.

 

It's all made in China, of the cheapest mateials available with the sloppiest tolerance... Buy Fatar, Roland or Yamaha. Or build it yourself - best option in my opinion.

 

I bought a couple of the keystation 49's when they were still owned by Avid, they never failed me yet, very light
and efficient. I also bought the 88es which was ok.. nothing special.. but I got them prior to the company being sold
to inMusic... dunno if that made the difference ? Generally agree that the low end M-Audio stuff is cheaply made..

I did buy the C400 interface as well, to get a legit copy of pro tools MP-9.. it was just ok.. prone to noise the last times
I tried to use it.. I replaced it with a Steinberg UR-22.. much better quality. Would not buy another M-Audio interface.

 

Got an Axiom pro 49 a sustain pedal, and a fast track pro since 2008 all still working nice althought I have some connecting bugs with the FST.
On the contrary, my recently exp-pedal looks really cheap and don't work most of the time.

Maybe the components are not the same as used 5 or 6 years ago. I can't be sure but the quality seems to be worst as the years go by.

Anyway, I don't think to ever buy other M-Audio stuff with all I've read here and there, more since most companies offer good and low cost products.

 

Last edited: Dec 24, 2016

I had the original Axiom 61 - it was a steaming pile of crap.

1. All the keys had a slight stick to them which would cause a tick/crack noise when first played each day (imagine if you spilled soda pop on your keyboard, that's what it felt and sounded like). I got in the habit of doing a glissando across the keyboard everytime I played. And if I let it rest a while it would even come back in the same session.

2. The endless knobs were notched, causing a loud grinding noise as they turned. What were they thinking?

Can it get any worse than that? Yes it can!

3. Not even a year after purchasing this thing (brand new), I turned it on one day and got the BSOD. The Blue LED screen lit up without any information readout. All functionality including basic MIDI output was gone. The keyboard was dead. After doing some research apparently it is a common problem in every Axiom that uses the same chipboard.

I looked into fixing it for weeks, but eventually gave up after reading that the problem would most likely come back, and add to that the fact that I thought the keyboard sucked anyway.

I literally threw the keyboard in the trash and vowed to never buy another M-Audio product again.

tl;dr $300 in the trash, never buy M-Audio

 

m-audio is a sad story. somehow they still got good reputation from before they were bought and later sold again by avid to inMusic brands.
inMusic is a powerhouse in buying reputable brandnames and putting it on some plasticky piece of shit audio-tech.

btw.: my ancient delta1010 is still running like a charm.