Product: Akai MPK49
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted
01/04/2008
at
11:29am
by
MarkM
General Features
:
9
The MPK is a sturdy keyboard with semi-weighted 49 keys with velocity and channel aftertouch. It also has 12 rubber pads like the MPC500 that have 4 banks. They also have velocity settings. It has a very large blue LCD display, and the menus are very easy to navigate via a control pot. There three banks of 8 pots (encoders), 8 sliders, and 8 buttons. There is also some transport buttons as well. An unusual feature for a controller is an arp for the keys and a repeat button for the pads. They are controlled by an internal midi clock.
Pads, buttons, sliders, and encoders can all be assigned any CC# and midi channel. The MPK49 is made of a very sturdy plastic, and is fairly heavy. It is powered either by USB or an external power supply (not included).
Additional Controls
:
9
Pitch bend and mod wheels are illuminated There are inputs for an assignable expression pedal and a footswitch for patch changes. The buttons are lit when activated. They and the pads can be programmed to be toggle or momentary. The buttons can also be used for dividing the clock which will control the arp and pad repeat. The MPK49 also has MPC "Full Level" and "12 Levels" functions on its pads, and MPC Swing can be applied to both Note Repeat and arpeggio functions.
Connectivity
:
9
Besides a USB input there are separate Midi IN and OUT ports. There is no need for a driver with my PC. It's "Plug and Play."
Additional features
:
8
It comes with editing software and a code to download Ableton Lite. I find the editing software to be fairly straight forward. However, to update the firmware is a bit clunky and involved, but well documented. This keyboard does not have the capability to be split. It has a Octave Up and Down button, and it can be transposed via the menu. Although the keyboard can't be split, the keys can be assigned on one midi channel and the individual pads another.
Overall Rating
:
9
I like this controller quite a lot. I use it for my soft synths (Reaktor, Absynth, Moog Modular V, and Ableton) as well as my Waldorf Q rack. It works perfectly. I find the keys to have a very good feel and weight. They are superior when compared to an Emu or M-Audio Radium controller. The menus are very simple to understand and navigate around. You can create 30 custom presets. It's very easy to change synth patches with the MPK49.
The pads could be made more sensitive. I've had to put sensitivity, threshold, and velocities to their most sensitive settings. Otherwise I would have to beat on the pads quite hard to trigger them. On some software I have to put the pads on FULL velocity. Otherwise, on software like Ableton or Waldorf Attack, they work fine. Even so, I wish Akai would make the pads more sensitive.
The MPK49 seems like a very sturdy controller and would be quite usable for live performance. I definitely recommend it. For the money it is quite a nice piece of equipment.
