Dear M-Audio...

Hey, Guys At M-Audio! It’s me, Chris. I just wanted to thank you for living up (or down, rather) to my expectations. You see, I was facing an emergency situation where I needed a MIDI controller with aftertouch, and I couldn’t wait for shipping from a proper store of a proper controller.

So, after traveling around the various music stores of Portland, Oregon, and discovering that virtually the only 49-key controller available was the M-Audio Axiom 49, I bit the bullet and got one. At Guitar Center even. (I figure in for a penny, in for a pound, right?)

Here’s what I said to myself: “self, they sell a fucking gazillion of these things. They can’t be that bad, can they?” Well, as it turns out, they can.

I bought this piece of poop in January. Here it is March, and it has had a catastrophic failure. About two weeks ago, the display started flickering, and it would stop sending MIDI over USB _or_ the MIDI port. If I unplugged it, killed whatever host I was running, plugged it back in, and restarted the host, it would work again for like 10 minutes. Needless to say, this had a bit of an effect on my workflow, but it was something I could deal with.

Today, however, the display has gone blank.

“Rebooting” it has no effect whatsoever. This happens on either buss power or adapter power. It sends no information of any sort out any port. To be clear, this unit never left my office, and was hardly used at all. When it came from Portland to here, it was in its original packaging, the same box it was shipped to Guitar Center PDX in.

I’m sure it’s something simple or whatever, but my point is thus: despite being a low-end peice of kit, it should still work for more than 3 FUCKING MONTHS. The M-Audio Axiom49: To Be Avoided At All Costs.