“It’s too big and too heavy to hide”, said the Ginger Ninja as she walked in the door from her shopping trip, “and I don’t think you’d mind getting your present early, so here it is!”
It was the keyboard pictured above — the Axiom 25 by M-Audio. It doesn’t make sounds on its own; rather, you hook it up to your computer and use it with synthesizer, sampling and sequencing software to record music. This model is compact, yet bristling with controls for keyboard playing, drum and sound effects playing (that’s what the square pads on the upper right-hand side are for) and tweaking sounds on the fly (that’s what the bank of 8 knobs near the upper center are for).
Before I was an accordion player, I was a synth player. I’ve been meaning to get back into playing synths and writing electronic music and have had my eye on this keyboard for some time. I’m looking forward to making all sorts of music both for fun and for work (for podcasts, screencasts and videocasts).
Thanks, Wendy!