M-Audio Oxygen Pro 49

The Oxygen Goes Pro

Oxygen MIDI controllers have always offered excellent features and performance at an affordable price point. Now, M-Audio has taken Oxygen to the next level with Oxygen Pro, which provides everything you need to make music at a pace that keeps up with your professional creative workflow. It all starts with a newly designed velocity-sensitive, semi-weighted keybed with aftertouch and assignable zones. For beat production, clip launching, and more, Oxygen Pro is equipped with 16 backlit, assignable, velocity-sensitive RGB pads with Note Repeat. Oxygen Pro 49 and 61 feature nine onboard faders and eight assignable knobs and buttons; the Oxygen Pro 25 forgoes the faders and buttons in favor of a compact design that fits in your backpack. All three models rock a road-ready, USB bus-powered chassis with an intuitive layout and informative OLED screen that’ll have you up and running right out of the box.

The expressive power of aftertouch

Normally only found on high-end keyboards, aftertouch is one feature you might not know you need until you’ve actually used it. Synth mavens at Sound Select use it like you would any MIDI CC, but the fact that it doesn’t require taking your hands off the keyboard (or operating a pedal) makes it especially valuable. Perhaps the best example of aftertouch in action is leaning into a note you’re already playing to apply some tasty vibrato to the tail end. Oxygen Pro is fitted with a mod wheel, and although it lacks an expression pedal jack, you can commandeer any of its assignable knobs for any continuous controller function.

Everything you need to make music

Oxygen Pro is loaded with smart features that pack everything you need to make music into one powerful package. No need to get bogged down in pesky music theory — Oxygen Pro’s Smart Chord mode lets you play sophisticated enharmonic or custom chord voicings, while its Smart Scale mode eliminates incorrect notes, so you can solo like a virtuoso. Also onboard is a full-featured Arpeggiator with type, octave, gate, and swing controls. DAW transport controls, ergonomic pitch-bend and mod wheels, a sustain pedal jack, 5-pin MIDI out, and USB-MIDI complete the setup. Oxygen Pro comes with Pro Tools | First M-Audio Edition, MPC Beats, and Ableton Live Lite DAW software, as well as a generous virtual instrument plug-in and MPC expansion pack bundle.

Included virtual instrument plug-ins:

• Hybrid 3 (multi-oscillator synthesizer)
• Velvet (electric piano)
• Mini Grand (acoustic piano)
• Vacuum * (analog synth)
• Boom * (vintage drum machine)
• DB-33 * (classic organ)
• * Pro Tools license only