Akai MPK49
The first new keyboard product from Akai in many years…what can Mark Jenkins learn from its design?
Akai was a leading brand in the musical instrument market for many years, having become an established name in hi-fi, but the company’s keyboard instruments never became widely used. After launching a couple of analog keyboard synths, Akai concentrated on sound samplers, and though there were a couple of keyboard samplers – including a big sound sampling version of Akai’s wooden weighted MIDI master keyboard – the sampler market basically became one for MIDI sound modules only.
So Akai’s musical instrument division basically became an outlet for their sampling modules like the S900, S1000 and S3000, and when that market collapsed with the advent of software sampling, became rather dormant. Some products were still available including wind synthesizers and the MPC range of sampling drum machines, which featured large velocity sensitive pads and were always popular in the hip-hop music market – and it’s the continuing success of this range which has partly led to the revival of Akai’s keyboard lines in the form of the MPK49.
The MPK then offers to provide MPC drum machine-style pads combined with MIDI/USB keyboard control and a set of software editing controllers. It’s a four-octave design as its name would suggest, so neither too small to play convincing piano parts nor too large to fit on a small desk alongside a laptop or desktop music computer.
Placed above the keyboard (always a good way to save space) you’ll find conventional pitch bend, and (re-programmable) modulation wheels, while the rest of the hardware comprises 12 pads, eight sets of illuminating button/slider/rotary, an LCD display and around a dozen assorted programming buttons. A simple enough layout then, while the back panel features MIDI In and Out, USB, footswitch and footpedal inputs, and a socket for an external power adaptor if you’re not using USB power from a computer.
There’s nothing unfamiliar about this specification – none of the motorised faders of the CME controller keyboards, no X-Y touch pads as on some Novation and Korg designs – so though the MPK49 is comprehensively equipped, it does face massive competition from similar products marketed by companies such as Novation, M-Audio, Edirol, Korg and others. One aspect the MPK49 does have going for it is its keyboard feel. It’s rather firmer than most plastic controller keyboards, far from being a weighted but maybe a semi-weighted feel, certainly giving a little more resistance to the player than usual, which may well be to the taste of many potential purchasers.
Akai The Noo
The MPK49 is the controller keyboard that likes to say “yes” – it offers almost every facility you’d require for both studio and stage use, and most of the parameters are re-programmable to suit any hardware or software setup with which you may be working. One important note though – many controller keyboards offer an extra slider so there’s a set of 9 to simulate drawbars on popular organ emulation software like the Native Instruments B4. With only 8 sliders ( a much more logical number for mixing and other jobs admittedly) you’re going to be potentially missing a harmonic on many organ emulation packages.
What you could do though is assign the last rotary knob to replace the missing slider controller; all the buttons, sliders and continuously rotating controllers are completely re-programmable and the MPK49 stores three complete sets of functions (which includes 3 pad banks, so 36 in all) in 30 programmable preset memories.
The basic function of the central set of control buttons is a tape transport which will put your software sequencer into Stop/Start/Record modes, and these aren’t compltely re-programmable. But the 12 pads (which are similar to those on the MPC500 drum machine/sequencer) are, and since they are both velocity and aftertouch sensitive, can come in handy for a whole range of functions. One obvious one is simply to trigger drum sounds for when you’re programming backing patterns. But let’s be a bit more imaginative than that shall we? You could also use a pad to trigger a long sampled effect over which you could play on the keyboard; or set up an octave of tuned percussion and play the pads like a marimba; or set each pad to play a different type of backing drone, with the volume or tone controlled by your finger pressure on the pad.
It’s also possible put the pads in Note Repeat mode so they trigger repeatedly at the current speed of the built-in arpeggiator. The MPK49 features quite a comprehensive arpeggiator, and so although a lot of sound synthesis software and most sequencer software has an arpeggiator built in, you’ll find it useful for generating repeated patterns of all kinds. Push the Time Division button and the eight programmable buttons allow the basic time division of the arpeggiator to be selected – you can synchronise this to an external clock from hardware or software, and there’s also a Tap Tempo button to set the arpeggiator speed.
The arpeggiator can be Latched in two ways – adding all new notes you play, or only sounding the actual notes you’re holding – but one disappointing omission is the fact that the keyboard can’t actually split (though of course it can be switched in octave range, and transposed). It would have been useful to be able to have an arpeggio sounding on one software instrument from the bottom octave and a half, and a different sound to play chords from the remaining range of the keyboard. Or you could have set up more conventional keyboard splits – a bass at the bottom and strings at the top.
Still, the MPK49 is going to find a use in many studio and state setups, especially those of players who use and like the MPC series drum machine/sequencer. The factory presets include controllers for Ableton Live, Reason, Cubase and SONAR sequencers, it ships with Ableton Live Lite Akai Edition software which is a useful live performance oriented sequencer, and is in the shops now.
AKAI MPK49 USB MIDI CONTROLLER £279.00
- Number of Keys: 49
- Type of action: Semi-weighted, Velocity and Aftertouch (Channel).
- Computer Interface: USB/MIDI.
- Display: LCD.
- Footswitchable Patch Changes: yes.
- Number of Independent MIDI Ins/Outs: 1.
- Programmable Continuous Footpedals: 1.
- Programmable Footswitches: 1.
- Programmable controllers: MMC, MIDI START/STOP, MIDI CC.
- System Real-Time Controls: MMC, MIDI START/STOP, MIDI CC.
AKAI MPK49 USB MIDI CONTROLLER KEYBOARD WITH MPC-STYLE PADS
- MPK49 delivers a total of 76-assignable controls.
- 8 full-sized, 360 degree rotation pots, each with 3 banks.
- 12 MPC-style velocity and pressure sensitive performance pads.
- 8 full-sized sliders with 3 controller banks each.
- Arpeggiator with 8 musical timing division patterns.
- 8 assignable backlit switches with 3 controller banks each.
- Large LCD display.
- MPC Note Repeat Function assignable to the pads.
- MPC “Full Level” and “12 Levels” Function.
- Akai Groove Quantise built into the internal clock.
- MMC / MIDI Start Stop transport controls.
- Ableton Live Lite Edition software included
www.akaipro.com
Filed under: Musical Instrument
