Akai Pad Quality = Complete Garbage

[Rane]

Fair enough.. What are you thinking of getting instead? I've had a korg kontrol and really liked it. I now have Maschine mk ii and a push and would say I prefer Maschine for finger drumming, but push is still pretty good for that. And I've got to say that the new trigger finger looks like it might be am interesting proposition...

I've read good things about all the controllers you mentioned. I'll probably end up going down to Guitar Center and trying a few out to see how they feel. I do like the pads on my Arturia and have gotten used to the 8 per row pad configuration. Unless the sensitivity on the other controllers is noticeably better, I might give the new beatStep a shot (when it ships).

... Or maybe I should save up for a Livid Base controller. lol

[Fritz609]

My beloved MPC2500. I remember those late nights banging out beats(literally) with painful fingertips feeling like the skin was being torn from under my nails. How i long to take her back out the box in the closet(push has taken over).

[jlgrimes]

I'm pretty new to Ableton/midi controllers. My first was the Arturia MiniLab. I really liked the drum pads and figured I'd get a controller with more pads that was hopefully more sensitive.

So, I bought an MPD18 with aftermarket MPCStuff pads.

Worst.

Purchase.

Ever.

The pads are terribly lacking in sensitivity. I even pulled it apart to try out the "increased sensitivity" mods that everyone talks about. Nothing I did brought it even close to the Arturia's sensitivity. Plus, who thought it was a good idea to design a square pad with hollowed out corners and a round convex disk as the triggering mechanism?

It's like the finger drumming equivalent of being on a ship at high seas!

Perhaps I am being a bit over-dramatic, but I was just surprised that these things don't have a lot more negative reviews. Yeah, if you play it long enough, you start to forget what the good pads feel like, but a quick jump back the the Arturia and you hate the Akai again.

My review's probably overly negative, but I figured I'd just throw it out there for anyone considering these controllers without actually trying them. Believe me. One person's awesome is another guy's garbage.

Akais never really IMO had great pads. Some of the bigger models looked nice and were functional (mpc 3000) but Akai pads are normally clunky.

My favorite Akai pads though were from the MPC 4000 but even that was somewhat clunky. Akai never really showed any love on their lower priced models when it came to pad quality.


Maschine, and Korg pad control have great pads which are smooth feeling and more dynamic.

That said many people love the Akai pads and they have some good functions like the full level, 16 levels, and note repeat but some of those wouldn't even be available easily on a "dumb" pad controller.

[jimfowler]

mpk/mpd pad quality is questionable at best. however, the mpc4000 pads are great. my friend's mpc60 pads are even better. i did not care for the pads on the mpc5000. so, it could be said akai spans the range from unusable to standard-setting.

[analog_rome]

I was surprised to find the best Akai pads -- by far -- I have ever found are on the MPX8, their little sample player that came out last year. By 'best' I mean most sensitive and responsive.

I got the MPX8 as a portable little way to practice finger drumming, now I use it regularly with Ableton, wish it was natively supported so I could lock it to a drum rack.

My playing style leans the most on light velocity tapping, to really hear the playing when using mallet or metallic sounds. The MPX8 does better with that than anything else I own. 2nd place goes to Livid Base. Distant 3rd to PadKontrol.

Until I win the lottery and can afford a Madrona Soundplane or the like, I roam the earth looking for an affordable pad controller with sensitivity comprable to real world hand percussion.