Post your set up and your sexy cat...

[rosti]

Please repost all the pics. Just for the viewing pleasures.

[4.33]

Please repost all the pics. Just for the viewing pleasures.

yeah... each pic just HAS to be posted at least 5 times

[Tarekith]

How do you find the feel of the keys, pads, sliders, knobs, and modualation and pitch wheels? I'm interested in buying an Akai MPK49. I'm planning to do a fair bit of drum work and I am also a pianist who usually plays acoustic pianos.

I have the MPK25 which is more or less the same as the 49. Personally I think it has the best keys and knobs of any mid-level controller. The keys aren't weighted of course, so not the same as a piano, but still very solid. I sold my Novation SL37 for the Akai as I felt the Akai was a more solid and better feeling controller.

[MPGK]

Seriously, you have the Metric Halo and Genelecs, but no room treatment?

Why did I know this question/criticism was coming? You buy stuff in the order you want. I'll buy stuff in the order I want. I used to be in a different space (that was pretty good without treatment - was carpeted and smaller). Came to this space not too long ago. I'll treat it when I can afford it. You can sit in your treated room with no monitors if you prefer that to listening to good monitors in an untreated room. I take the long view on building up my studio components, so I was not interested in buying shitty monitors and shitty room treatment in the short term. I A/B with headphones a lot for now. And this room isn't that bad for tracking vocals and guitar - I'm not getting bad comb filtering. Thus, the metric halo is serving me plenty well, not to mention when I use it mobile.

If this really bothers you, feel free to PM me a gift certificate to GIK.

Relax, I didn't even mean it as criticism. I was just a bit baffled.

Heck, if I had 1500 bucks to spend, I'd rather spend it on a better interface too, the mobile aspect is a big part of that.
But: I spent 25 EUR on Basotect clippings I got on eBay, and another 25 on cheap fabric and some fiberboards for attachment, and the room sounds a lot better now. Just saying, there are convenient DIY solutions, some guys here described them a few pages back.

Who am I to judge anyone here for their GAS management strategy? I haven't even posted a picture myself yet. Will do that soon, though I must say I'm a bit intimidated by some of the pictures posted here.

[dave999z]

How do you find the feel of the keys, pads, sliders, knobs, and modualation and pitch wheels? I'm interested in buying an Akai MPK49. I'm planning to do a fair bit of drum work and I am also a pianist who usually plays acoustic pianos.

Thanks!

They're good. But I use this for composing, not performing. (I've never been a gigging keyboardist.) I have a Roland FP-4 for when I want to play piano. The Akai feels nothing like an acoustic piano the way the Roland does. But for a semi-weighted synth action controller, I think it's very good. And it has aftertouch! The keys feel solid and it's pretty easy to get the velocity you want. They are a bit loud when you bang on them. The sliders are fast (i.e., not much resistance). I just use them to control track volumes in Live. The rotaries are a little stiffer, but they're nice. I map them to macros in Massive, and it's great. The only annoying thing is that Live's native automap support for this keyboard works great for the first eight tracks, in that if you move the tracks arround in session view, slider 2 will now control whatever is appearing on the screen as channel 2. But that nifty feature doesn't work when you switch the controller to bank 2 (tracks 9-16) or bank 3 (tracks 17-24). I don't do a lot of drum programming. When I do, I use a mouse. These pads feel fine on your fingers and seem like they're made well, but you have to pound on them to register a 128 velocity. There is a thread on a simple DIY mod you can do to the pads to make them more sensitive. I think the 61-key version of the MPK would be preferable if you do drum pad programming, because it has 16 (not 12) pads, so would match Live's drum racks.

[dave999z]

Relax, I didn't even mean it as criticism. I was just a bit baffled.

Heck, if I had 1500 bucks to spend, I'd rather spend it on a better interface too, the mobile aspect is a big part of that.
But: I spent 25 EUR on Basotect clippings I got on eBay, and another 25 on cheap fabric and some fiberboards for attachment, and the room sounds a lot better now. Just saying, there are convenient DIY solutions, some guys here described them a few pages back.

Who am I to judge anyone here for their GAS management strategy? I haven't even posted a picture myself yet. Will do that soon, though I must say I'm a bit intimidated by some of the pictures posted here.

Sorry for being defensive. Hard to read people and I'm getting so sick of negativity on forums that I'm starting to avoid them all. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get some decent treatment after Xmas this year, and I'm pretty busy until then anyway with the rest of life (non-music) so won't be doing a hell of a lot of mixing this fall anyway. Otherwise I would consider some DIY traps, etc. for now.

Cheers.

[bonomius]

this is mine...

[Rave]

I love my magic pad , how are you finding it. FYI I use the mighty mouse for another machine. It is redundant IMO once u get the trackpad?

[bonomius]

I love my magic pad , how are you finding it. FYI I use the mighty mouse for another machine. It is redundant IMO once u get the trackpad?

i like it too, i mainly use it for web or other general stuff.
When i need fast and precise pointing (like drag&drop or editing samples i still prefer the mighty mouse).
The real reason i use both is that changing device makes me have less pain to wrist.

[Rave]

I love my magic pad , how are you finding it. FYI I use the mighty mouse for another machine. It is redundant IMO once u get the trackpad?

i like it too, i mainly use it for web or other general stuff.
When i need fast and precise pointing (like drag&drop or editing samples i still prefer the mighty mouse).
The real reason i use both is that changing device makes me have less pain to wrist.

Me too. After moving to the pad my wrist issues have decreased. Dragging clips just takes more practice but after using it for a couple of weeks it is a no brainer. I may get another for work now.

[steko]

[oblique strategies]

[BoxDJ]

How do you find the feel of the keys, pads, sliders, knobs, and modualation and pitch wheels? I'm interested in buying an Akai MPK49. I'm planning to do a fair bit of drum work and I am also a pianist who usually plays acoustic pianos.

Thanks!

They're good. But I use this for composing, not performing. (I've never been a gigging keyboardist.) I have a Roland FP-4 for when I want to play piano. The Akai feels nothing like an acoustic piano the way the Roland does. But for a semi-weighted synth action controller, I think it's very good. And it has aftertouch! The keys feel solid and it's pretty easy to get the velocity you want. They are a bit loud when you bang on them. The sliders are fast (i.e., not much resistance). I just use them to control track volumes in Live. The rotaries are a little stiffer, but they're nice. I map them to macros in Massive, and it's great. The only annoying thing is that Live's native automap support for this keyboard works great for the first eight tracks, in that if you move the tracks arround in session view, slider 2 will now control whatever is appearing on the screen as channel 2. But that nifty feature doesn't work when you switch the controller to bank 2 (tracks 9-16) or bank 3 (tracks 17-24). I don't do a lot of drum programming. When I do, I use a mouse. These pads feel fine on your fingers and seem like they're made well, but you have to pound on them to register a 128 velocity. There is a thread on a simple DIY mod you can do to the pads to make them more sensitive. I think the 61-key version of the MPK would be preferable if you do drum pad programming, because it has 16 (not 12) pads, so would match Live's drum racks.

Thanks!

[BoxDJ]

How do you find the feel of the keys, pads, sliders, knobs, and modualation and pitch wheels? I'm interested in buying an Akai MPK49. I'm planning to do a fair bit of drum work and I am also a pianist who usually plays acoustic pianos.

Thanks!

They're good. But I use this for composing, not performing. (I've never been a gigging keyboardist.) I have a Roland FP-4 for when I want to play piano. The Akai feels nothing like an acoustic piano the way the Roland does. But for a semi-weighted synth action controller, I think it's very good. And it has aftertouch! The keys feel solid and it's pretty easy to get the velocity you want. They are a bit loud when you bang on them. The sliders are fast (i.e., not much resistance). I just use them to control track volumes in Live. The rotaries are a little stiffer, but they're nice. I map them to macros in Massive, and it's great. The only annoying thing is that Live's native automap support for this keyboard works great for the first eight tracks, in that if you move the tracks arround in session view, slider 2 will now control whatever is appearing on the screen as channel 2. But that nifty feature doesn't work when you switch the controller to bank 2 (tracks 9-16) or bank 3 (tracks 17-24). I don't do a lot of drum programming. When I do, I use a mouse. These pads feel fine on your fingers and seem like they're made well, but you have to pound on them to register a 128 velocity. There is a thread on a simple DIY mod you can do to the pads to make them more sensitive. I think the 61-key version of the MPK would be preferable if you do drum pad programming, because it has 16 (not 12) pads, so would match Live's drum racks.

Thanks!

[boboter]

It took me 260 pages to post my setup.
Here it is: