Was expensive when it came out, but it was worth it

Alesis AXYZ Dome series products line had a very limited lifespan. First there was two very disruptive products that were used by many professionals as a secret weapon: the Alesis AirFX and AirSynth. I happen to have owned the AirSynth before, and it was lots of fun. Not precise at all but lots of fun still. But I quickly realized with its limitations that it would have been so nice if it had MIDI, and that I could connect other hardware to it and control it using the AXYZ Dome,

A year later (iirc) Alesis announced the Photon X25 and X49; a couple of USB MIDI keyboard controllers with onboard class-compliant audio interface and the infamous AXYZ Dome. Wow, that's a lot of features in such a small piece of gear!

The knobs on the controller are one of the most satisfying I ever touched. They have a nice restriction that feels natural and allows for very precise movements. Menus on such a small display are a pain to navigate through but fortunately Alesis made the settings pretty simple to configure.

Keybed feels great. It's one of the good keybeds I've encountered on a MIDI controller. All others felt way cheaper when playing. I'm not talking Fatar-quality here, but it's still nice. No aftertouch on such a vintage product either.

All in all it's a very unique product that is fun to use. Korg has Kaoss pad controllers, Roland has D-Beam and Alesis once had AXYZ series. I'll keep my X25 forever.

If you dig interesting instruments, this is a must have!

I had an Alesis AirSynth before. While the AXYZ dome was nice to play with, the sounds were so limited it wasn't really interesting. Same for the AirFX.

This little controller is bringing the one-of-a-kind control to any MIDI feature you'd like. It's also a class-compliant audio and MIDI interface (no driver required), The knobs on this thing are plenty enough to control all your standard synth/sampler features, the semi-weighted keybed is really comfortable to play with.

Back to AXYZ. It's not precise. It's not meant to achieve exact results. It's a little sad it's been discontinued before software caught up with this. The best way I found to use it is set range-based random effects. Crashing a track with Stutter Edit and the AXYZ dome feels like a spiritual link between the track and you. Jiggle your hand a little to modulate instantly...

Listen, it's a 25 key controller; there's nothing much special about it. The audio interface and dome are what sets it apart, and if you use it for random results and probabilities, try to find a used one!