M-Audio Oxygen Pro 61

The keyboard itself is quite nice, pleasant to play. The feature set is good for this price point. Having sliders, pots, pads and transport controls in reach means less reaching for mouse and (computer) keyboard. Overall the device feels fairly robust. DAW support is good, with a large number of options supported. Software is basic, but provides what you need.

Some reviews state the action is quite heavy, but keyboard and pad sensitivity can be tuned in the preset editor software.

Octave, transport, settings, and other buttons are quite "clicky" and don't feel like they'll last as long as the keyboard. I hope I'm wrong. I prefer Novation's soft-touch controls for transport etc. That said, buttons are responsive and I have not had any mis-clicks.

There is a "Vegas mode" style sleep mode which cannot be disabled - as I understand it, sleep mode includes a screensaver to prevent burn-in on the OLED screen, so cannot be turned off. Depending on your setting, this may not be appropriate - this mode is heavy on flashing lights.

An annoyance is, when the device returns from sleep mode, it may not return to the same state it was in before (depending on the mode you use - I think this will not effect DAW mode at all). In my case, I use a custom preset and enable "MIDI" mode. The device leaves "MIDI" mode when sleep mode is stopped. Re-enabling this mode is a single button press, so this is not enough to warrant a return, but I think it needs mentioning. I contacted M-Audio about this, and they have logged the issue, so hopefully a future firmware update remedies it.

You will struggle to find better at this price-point. I am happy with the keyboard and plan to get many years of use from it.

You can immediately feel this is a cheaper controller, looking at the build quality and quality of the keybed. Also I feel that the black keys are much more sensitive than the white ones, which might be an issue just on this specific unit (this is a common issue in my experience on even much more expensive controllers). Having tried the bigger brother of this keyboard, the Hammer 88 Pro, that keyboard was much better in its own league, even though the interface and the feel of the keybed is similar. The software provided with the keyboard looks good and works ok. Overall, taking into consideration the price, I would say that what you pay for that’s what you get. Might be a good keyboard for a beginner who wants to start getting into midi controllers.