[MW Forums]

M-Audio on Tuesday unveiled Ozonic, a FireWire MIDI production and performance keyboard that features 37 keys, 40 assignable MIDI controllers, eight knobs, nine sliders with drawbar mode, nine buttons, pitch and mod wheels and sustain and expression pedal inputs. All of its MIDI controllers can be programmed to a MIDI controller number and unique channel, and its 4 x 4 analog audio interface operates at up to 24-bit/96kHz fidelity. more

[CarGuy]

I'm keyboard shopping, and was going to get the cheap M-Audio one Apple sells for $100, but saw this one...it has more features (and is more expensive), but much fewer keys (37 versus 49). I'm a beginner, so which is better - get the one with more bells and whistles, or the one with more keys? Any opinions?

[trevorz]

It depends very much on what you will be doing with the keyboard. If you get the $100 keyboard, you get a basic MIDI keyboard that hooks up to your Mac over USB. It will be helpful in Garage Band, etc. for playing MIDI, but that's all it does. You can't record your voice, or a guitar, or a bass, etc.
If you get the Ozonic, you get a good microphone preamp, so you can record any sound from a professional mic into your computer, you get an instrument input, so you can record bass or guitar into your computer, you get line inputs and outputs, so you can connect CD players, DAT recorders, tape decks etc. and easily get their sounds into and out of your computer. You get a really good headphone jack. You also get a whole gamut of controllers, so you can easily tweak sounds as you plan on the keyboard. Ozonic is extremely versatile.
Trevor