Akai Professional MPK Mini MK3 25-Key USB MIDI Keyboard Controller

I love this Midi because of how easy it is to use and learn. I watched a few videos and I was able to figure it out. It is reasonably priced, and it works as described. It’s very portable. I would also suggest buying a case for it so you can carry it around with you while keeping it safe. This midi only plays sound when connected to a digital audio workstation like FL studio or GarageBand, but it sounds great when connected. 10/10 would recommend.

I’ve been using this Akai MPK Mini for more than 4 years, and it has never disappointed me. It’s reliable, compact, and perfect for music production. The keys, pads, and knobs still work great, and it’s been an essential part of my studio setup for years. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced producer, this is one of the best MIDI keyboards you can buy for the price. Highly recommended!

It's just as the Youtube Videos describe. A gotta have that feels solid in its construction. The keys are fine and the buttons, knobs, and touch pads are very usable.

It's a MIDI keyboard, you need software on a MAC/PC/tablet in order to use it, and I have a lot of thoughts on whether you should buy it. As usual, I have a 2min version and a 5min version of my thoughts. Please at least read the 2min before you buy! 2 MINUTE VERSION PROS: it's a good MIDI keyboard, okay? The buttons do the things they are supposed to without breaking. It's well-built. The included virtual instruments are pretty decent (big CON on these down below). It's *highly* customizable. But. . . CONS: the keys are dinky. If you're expecting that, great, but I myself was expecting them to be at least a little bigger. Velocity curves are super janky out of the box. This is especially true for the pads. There are many undocumented features that I discovered through forums and tinkering. I could not find any supported software to configure the device, whereas previous models had full software to configure nearly aspect of the keyboard. The included virtual instruments sound great but do not come with VST versions for me to deploy in my DAW. The lack of documentation and supported software made this feel like a rushed product meant to secure sales. *Shrugs* Maybe the users and AKAI will create more documentation and discover easier ways to tweak this thing as it matures 5 MINUTE VERSION I'll start off by saying that I don't feel like I wasted money on this MIDI keyboard. Not by any stretch. But getting it to *work* has proven to be an investment of my time in addition to the buying price. First of all, do not buy this if you are learning how to play piano. Do yourself a favor and get something with full-sized keys. Piano is all muscle memory and you do not want to hurt yourself early on in your career. This doesn't have anything to do with the device itself but more pianos and keyboards in general. This is not a *learning* device for new piano players. But! It is a good *first* MIDI keyboard for producers because you will learn how these keyboards work, and learn how to troubleshoot them. The problem is, you have to troubleshoot it before you even start using it. The velocity curves are awful out of the box. The small keys with small travel do not help. If I do a CMinor run with the default settings, it is guaranteed that one note will be soft for no reason and one will be LOUD. Imagine this for whole songs, where you record the MIDI clip and then have to go through the MIDI data with a fine-tooth comb. That is actual production hell and please don't do that to yourself. To add insult to injury, there is no documented way to modify the velocity data in the keyboard itself, and there is no AKAI-supported software to do so. This documentation and this software exists for the Mk 2 version of this keyboard, so why it doesn't exist for the Mk 3 is absolutely baffling. It's a GREAT product, AKAI, so please include every little minute detail of what I can do with this thing in the packaging! I shouldn't have to bookmark forum pages that have documentation that is not included in the user manual or on your website. *Clears throat* Anyway, the velocity issue is most notable with the pads. You have to smack the absolutely dogcrap out of the pads to get them to register higher velocities. I was shaking my whole desk and still not hitting 100 Velocity with them. If you're drumming, especially with dynamic drums, this means everything will sound soft. Luckily enough, Ableton has a Velocity effect that can modify Velocity data as it enters the DAW. This fixed the keys as I could set a minimum velocity and maximum so the dynamics are more balanced. However, the pads still register too low on Velocity, so I ended up putting them on 'FULL LEVEL' so they always play at 127 (max) velocity. If I need dynamic drums, I go in and edit the velocity levels in the MIDI clip manually. I said earlier that this was production hell, and that opinion hasn't changed, but that is the only way the pads work for me because I cannot find any documentation on how to edit the 'pad' velocity anywhere. Keep in mind not every DAW has this ability, so Ableton is saving my booty here. For the keys, you can hold the FULL LEVEL button until a screen comes up with v1-4 and some numbers. You can increase V2 to increase the key velocity. Cool, right? Here's the thing: totally undocumented feature. There's a forum post about it, so if I go ham on these settings and that forum post gets edited or deleted, POOF. No documentation on the original settings and I will have to factory reset the whole keyboard. I hope you are seeing the problem now. Is it worth the money? Absolutely, not a dollar less. It's a wonderful product. If you buy it, be prepared for initial and ongoing troubleshooting to get it to work for you. If you are a budding producer, this will be great experience for you but will definitely prove frustrating. I hope they release official software for this soon, because I will be happy to edit this review when that happens.

I waited a couple of months before writing this review. There's a lot to dive in and I wanted to write a review short enough to read that contains everything you need to know. For your money you get two things, the hardware (the MK3) and some free software, MPC Beats. The MK3 is a 25-key USB MIDI keyboard. In addition to the 25 keys, there are selection buttons on the left and right, a joystick/knob, 8 drum pads, 8 knobs, and a teeny-tiny LCD for younger users with better eyeballs than mine. They keyboard has a tiny bit of weight to it, but you won't mistake it for a paperweight. Keep in mind that on its own, the keyboard does nothing, It only works when plugged into a computer, running software. The free DAW software Akai provides is MPC Beats. MPC Beats has approximately 9 million buttons and options, so don't expect to figure it out in an hour or even a day. There are so, so many features. You can of course make tracks, loops, patterns, and so on. There are tons and tons of free instruments available. It can get confusing as to which can be assigned to the keys and which are assigned to the drum pads. Fortunately there are tons of video MPC Beats tutorials online, which can teach you the ropes. The free version of MPC Beats has one major limitation in that songs are limited to 8 MIDI tracks and 2 "audio" tracks (which could be used for vocals or samples). If you're just wanting to create loop based music, 8 tracks are actually quite a bit. If you do eventually outgrow MPC Beats, you can upgrade to the pay version, MPC 2.0, which allows 128 tracks, all of which can be MIDI or digital audio. So, what's to say? There's a bit of a learning curve with the software and figuring out what all the buttons on the keyboard do. It has been a while since I played around with a DAW and so it took me a couple of days to wrap my head around everything. Again, there are lots of YT tutorials out there that will point you in the right direction, and the more you play around with things, the better you'll get. Physically the keyboard's looks may not impress your studio friends, but there's no reason why you couldn't create a hit song with this thing.

every musicians must have!! great for all kinds of music production

Lots of fun

First off, this is a nice unit, I'm sure works well and worth the cost, in fact I'm amazed it's so cheap. However, I know nothing about MIDI, and bought this with the idea of getting my toes wet. I will freely admit the main issue here is with my expectations and patience, so I wanted to share with you so you don't have the same frustration 1. This does nothing by itself. It's like buying a TV remote without a tv. or Xbox controller without an Xbox 2. You plug it into a computer, it lights up, still does nothing. 3. You have to have software to run it. AKAI offers a a free package, however it took me over an hour to register the unit, and download and install the software. It can maybe run with other software, but it wouldn't work with Audacity, or Musescore, the only ones I've used 4. I was then able to make noises with it, but there's nothing intuitive about it. There are some online tutorials, some I'm sure very good, though the first one I watched the demonstrator couldn't get it to work right away. 5. So if you have the time and (mostly) interest in learning how all the software and buttons works, you'll likely love it. But like the Xbox example, unless you're willing to spend time on the game it isn't a lot of fun. 6. I picked up my acoustic guitar, played a few tunes, and wrote this.

Ürün 5 iş günü içerisinde eskişehire teslim edildi. Gayet hızlı ve güzel kargoydu. Ürünle alakalı: Benim gibi sırf merakı olduğu için paldır kültür girecek bilgisiz insanlar için Bi tık zor bir ürün. Ama eğlencesi de böyle keşfetmekte. Bilgisayarda Fl studio ile biraz kullanmaya çalıştım çok fl çok karışık geldiği için iphone kamera bağlantı kablosu ile telefona bağlayıp garage band ile kullanmaya başladım..Böyle çok daha kolay ve eğlenceli. Tavsiyem öğrenene kadar imkanınız varsa garageband ile kullanın. ( Ayrıca akainin kendi sitesine üye olup seri numarası girince mpc beats gibi programları ücretsiz indiriyorsun. Yurtdışında millet onu kullanıyor.) bakalım şimdilik durum böyle. Fiyat böyle uyguna geliyorken aklından geçiren herkese tavsiye ederim.

The perfect mini mobile controller to complement my Hoton Ampero Multi Effects Pedal and BOSS RC-30 Loop Pedal. My principal instrument is electric violin, but also play guitar, mandolin, and ukulele. This Akai mini controller is perfect for creating rhythms and backing loops for my solo performance as a busker. It's fun to play with but also a serious piece of high quality kit for any musician using pedals, or a composer who needs a mini keyboard that's compact and has a rich pallette of sounds. The keyboard feels well made. It's NOT a guitar pedal that's used on the ground. The AKAI is an instrument that will be used and treated with care and respect like any other keyboard. So, it's build quality is comparable to larger keyboards like my Yamaha. I had no problem connecting the AKAI to my Smartphone and Tablet using a Piano App. Whilst the controller is designed to be used with a DAW on MAC or PC, I like being able to learn, practice, and experiment with chord inversions and progressions on the go, as I recently started learning keyboard with Pianote. The AKAI is not a substitute for a digital piano or keyboard but it's a very useful tool with a lot of potential. IMPORTANT! Don't use Bluetooth to connect to a smartphone or tablet as you'll have latency problems. Use a cable and there's no latency issue. (The age and quality of your PC, smartphone or tablet could issues. But it works fine with my Huawei P20 Pro, DELL XPS 17, and Neocore Tablet. There are plenty of YouTube videos that provide excellent instruction and reviews by professional musicians who give in depth, hands on analysis of the keyboard. Every review I've watched and read is full of praise for this MIDI Controller. Another 'best buy' for me.

good device but had to send it back for ios related issues

ممتازة

Non sono un musicista, sto solo cercando di divertirmi e questa Akai Professional MPK Mini MK3 sta facendo in modo che io, ed anche mio figlio, ci divertiamo ad usarla. Pur essendo un oggetto compatto e leggero, una volta collegata al computer apre un mondo infinito di suoni, regolazioni e creatività. La vera forza di questo controller sono i software inclusi, che ti permettono di trasformare la tua scrivania in uno studio di registrazione: MPC Beats: Software completo per produrre musica; Hype: Sintetizzatore potente con trame sonore; Electric: Collezione completa di pianoforti elettrici; Essential Keyboards: Tredici strumenti per ogni tastierista. . Oltre a questi software inclusi, se ne possono trovare online tantissimi altri programmi, anche gratuiti, compatibili con questa tastiera, per non smettere mai di sperimentare ed aprirsi a nuovi suoni. Il funzionamento è impeccabile: i 25 tasti, di dimensione leggermente ridotta rispetto allo standard, sono molto sensibili e reattivi, mentre gli 8 pad retroilluminati sono spettacolari per creare ritmi e beat con le dita: io e mio figlio ci divertiamo a suonare insieme, con uno dei due che suona i pad e l'altro la tastiera. Sonon presenti 8 manopole ruotabili a 360 gradi, vari pulsanti di impostazione e il joystick super preciso che ti permette di modificare il suono emesso. Riepilogo punti di forza: Dimensioni ridotte, perfette per ogni spazio e soprattutto facilmente trasportabile: ti basta un computer portatile e la tua tastiera e suoni ovunque; Tasti e pad sensibili alla pressione permettono di regolare il volume e l'espressività della nota (in breve, ad esempio, potrei avere una corda di chitarra che se uso velocità bassa quasi non suona, mentre se è a velocità media suona perfettamente e se a velocità alta distorce); Una gran bella dotazione di software inclusa nel prezzo. Il rapporto qualità prezzo è veramente alto: con una spesa contenuta ti porti a casa un controller professionale e programmi di alto livello. Ci stiamo veramente divertendo ad utilizzarla, quindi ve la consiglio.