Product: Akai MPD-24
Price Paid: EUR 199
Submitted
08/09/2007
at
11:42am
by
Laurens
Ease of Use
:
10
Manual is right on akai's website:
http://www.akaipro.com/documents/MPD24/MPD24.zip
For me it worked completely plug and play.
That is, using battery 2 (in windows xp) as well as using the included bfd lite. dont expect to much that one btw, its really just a demo of a few kits with only 2 velocity layers.
Features
:
10
Better then i expected.
- upper end of the velocity sensitivity is adjustable, in 16 levels.
- has 4 banks for storing what commands the pads send. that is 4 banks per preset. then there are 30 presets. so you got 120 banks total. they dont tell you that on their site, you have to read the manual to find it out. or get the unit.
- faders have a nice feel, with some weight to it. CC ranges upper and lower end values are adjustable.
- a big lcd screen tells you things like what velocity and aftertouch you are hitting. the screens contrast is adjustable.
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
4
Heres where it came to dissapoint me.
Akai has quite a reputation on these pads, comming from their MPCs and all, big dissapointment though. theres not enough expressiveness in this thing to be usefull. it triggers medium and hard hits reliably but forget about soft hits. forget about subtle playing. when you hit it softly it just doesnt respond.
now hows that going to work for making music with it. you cant do a roll on a pad like you would do a two finger trill on a piano, for example. you cant play in the low velocity range cause you'll be hitting the pads while not triggering them all the time.
I just compared it side by side with my piano (rd150), both on the same midi channel into Battery 2. And i actualy like my old piano better. just because it allows me those little subtleties that make it musical. whats more, the piano's keys arent that noisy. the mpd24's pad noises cut even though headphones.
Reliability
:
No Opinion
hey, i've had it for two days, i dunno. feels reliable.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Overall Rating
:
5
akai is kind of no-nonsense i guess. no overblown advertising. yet has all the features it should have. great piece of machinery. irony is, it's not great as an instrument.
I've just put it back in the box, i'm bringing it back.
