Akai MPK 49 Controller Keyboard

Back to the MPK.
I love having a all-in-one unit sitting right in front of me ready for action. I use this controller with Logic 8. You basically map out your drums to the piano keys (in Logic using the esx sample editor), from their you can map out the pads to certain keys(kicks on the right, snares on the left). Since the MPK is not an MPC you will NOT get the heart and soul of the MPC which is the quantization, this is OKAY, I repeat this is OKAY! The MPK is meant to provide the feel of a MPC to use with your DAW. You can find MPC “Grove Templates” with a little searching on the net. These groove templates with provide the necessary swing to make a full transition to software based producing with a hardware “feel”.

I haven’t programmed the sliders yet so I can’t comment on them.

In all this is a great device to transition long time MPC hardware users to step up their game and jump into software. You can have best of both worlds. But don’t take my word for it, go down to your local music shop and take it for a test spin, compare the pad sensitivity to the MPC 2500 or 2000xl

Akai MPK good not great – C-Tru – USA
Now when I think of Akai, obviously quality and music productions come to mind. Unfortunately, this does not live up to the name. The biggest failing in this product is the drum pads. YES, THE DRUM PADS! No you might be thinking, ‘what could be wrong with legendary Akai drum pads?’ First off they are very unresponsive, you have to press down very hard just to trigger medium level midi sounds (yes, i even adjusted the sensitivity of the drum pads and this did not help). I am really perplexed by this, I’ll hit down on the pad, and then hit it again with the same pressure and it’ll either be louder or softer!!! I traded in my Axiom 25 and honestly, the drum pads on those were much much much better!!! On the plus side, the keyboard action on the piano keys is awesome! It has a slight weighted feel to them so you actually feel like your playing on a professional keyboard. (the Axiom series of keyboards had very light fake feeling piano keys). Needless to say, its alot of fun playing on the piano keys and 49 is good for most songs. The piano keys feel so great and are so responsive to slight pressure and touch that I’m using them instead of the drum pads to make my drum beats. Another great feature is the built-in arpeggiator, which is easy and fun to use when making melodies. There are also 8 knobs and 8 sliders that you can program on the audio program you are using. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to do this. I have Logic Pro and ProTools and I have yet to find out how to program the knobs on the keyboard to correspond. I do think though, that should you learn how to program it to work seamlessly with your recording or music making software it theoretically will give you the feel of a mini mixing board.

All in all 3 stars, I subtracted two because the drum pads were absolutely worthless and its a shame to advertise them as Akai drum pad quality! But what saves this keyboard is the excellent action on the piano keys and the many features it has. Oh yeah, and it also looks great and is very aesthetically pleasing (very cool looking) which is another plus. Don’t buy if you are expecting great drum pads. But buy if you are looking for a keyboard with great piano keys and lots of awesome built in features. Lots of time studying and reading the manual will be needed to master all the functions though. High learning curve.