I have used the Oxygen 8 for a week (demoing Logic, so it was most likely exactly what you'd use it for) any my advice would be NOT to get it. While M-Audio/Midiman certainly is doing great audio cards, this thing just seems to be not worth it. The drivers were crappy, causing lots of system reboots (no way to get them back without a reboot under Win2k) and hardware quality was less than what I'd call acceptable (and I'm not even a true keyboard player by myself). Pitchbend data for whatever reason was thinned out (most likely to take some burden off the USB bus, but it seems you can't change that when using it as a plain MIDI controller), causing some bad stepping effects when using higher bendrange settings, the PB wheel itself started to hang a notch below zero position on day No.3 every now and then, so there was often some PB data being sent out continuosly. And while it might be nice to have all those pots on it, they don't make use of the 270° range they offer, but you loose a good amount in the end and the beginning of the knob range, so the actually usable amount is more like 180° or so. Personally I can add that 2 octaves defenitely are not enough for me, not even in an "occasional keyboarder" context. With 2 octaves it's impossible to play any common chord voicings and add a bass with your left hand - something I'm doing all the time. Regarding the MIDI interface: Right now I'm using an MT4 which is working at least OK, but there have been some problems installing it properly as Emagics installer CDs seem to have recently changed and apparently the installer is still looking for the older CDs file structure. I wasn't that amazed but Emagic is aware of the problem and I'm sure they will fix it soon or add at least some notes to the package. No noticeable timing or whatsoever problems caused by USB, btw. Regards, Sascha