Comes with a great daw so no need to try everything u see online

I have bought lots of pad/keyboard controllers and never really got what I wanted from any of them. This is probably the closest though. I have a full weighted 88 key MODX synth and use that for serious playing but I like have something on the desk for when I am using software synths. I use logic X and own some great synth plugins already so I wasn’t expecting much from the bundled plugins – they are ok and would definitely get you started. I wouldn’t bother with them if you already have nice synth sounds but they are a good start for a beginner.

The next thing – don’t think you will be a YouTube sensation in 10 minutes! This controller is very flexible but it takes a bit of work to get it set up and the included sounds that don’t really cut it (in my opinion). They do provide you with a neat looking DAW to get you started though – I’m not keen on the workflow so haven’t used it stand alone. The DAW also runs as a plugin which is interesting as it could really help if your existing DAW doesn’t have a loop launcher. I have set it up with Logic Pro and in the main it works. You have to remember to listen to the midi on channel 10 for the pads and channel 1 for the keys to make sure you can control 2 separate instruments if working that way. Alternatively you can assign the pads to trigger loops in logic – this works really well. I am struggling with assigning the rotary knobs to the Atruria Collection plugins – they seem to only register as on or off which makes them unusuable. I’m sure this is user error on my part but if I can’t resolve this in the next 24 hours I will have to return it as I mostly use these synths. Build quality is nice – it looks good and the knobs etc feel solid. The keybed is ok for the price and the pad velocity sensors seem good (although sometimes I think one of the pads gets slightly triggered by an adjacent pad). The joystick was a bad idea – in theory its good but in practice having bend and modulation on the opposing axis is just not workable as you end up unintentionally using both at the same time. I think you can reconfigure this in the editor. You have to download this from the advanced options in the installer. I think the editor is likely to resolve my issue but need some time to work through it. It certainly gives the impression that this controller will do whatever you want it to if you are willing to spend the time with it. (No idea why this is considered to be an advanced feature!)

It’s a tough call between this and artruia products – if I can sort the issue with mapping the knobs it will stay on my desk! Otherwise it will have to go back and I may get an Arturia keystep The manual is awful and the best info out there is offered by YouTubers.

I enjoy playing the keyboard on garage band only because I don’t have a windows or MacBook for the MPC beats but it is my best first MIDI keyboard.

I use this to aid me writing tracks using lots of samples and this is just the tool for the job. Can be challenging at first to get it to do exactly what you need but once you get the hang of it, it’s Brilliant. I see alot of professionals using it and can see why. A really Great bit of kit, well worth the investment.

Used Akai MPC MkIII keyboard with GarageBand on MacBook and was incredible. Decided to then install 3rd party (Air Instruments) software; Hybrid 3, Velvet & Mini Grand. Have latest Mac OS ‘Monterey’ and software is presumably out of date, so GarageBand broke and wouldn’t start unless Core Audio disabled (by holding Control just after clicking on GarageBand), which made it useless. No options to uninstall, so not happy. However, go to the root > Library > Audio (NOT Users > (username) > Library > Audio) and delete the Velvet, Hybrid & Mini files in the sub-folders, restart Mac and GarageBand will work again, hurray. Told Akai but no official response yet. Air Instruments support form just doesn’t work!

I haven’t touched a keyboard since I was at school and I didn’t like it very much, but roll on 15-ish years later, I find I need to use one for my job and it has been great. I found for me, that the setup process was a pain in the ass having to create not only an account for Akai but also for iLok too. I had hoped this would have been plg and play with the software preinstalled on the keyboard itself. That is the only downside, but other than that, it is highly recommended!

This item arrived today. I knew I had a steep learning curve but I also knew that I could play it straight out of the box using the three included software addons one of which is a flashy piano apparently. Well I didn’t get very far with this because the first thing I had to do was make an account with Akai which included wanting my date of birth — WHY? I didn’t give the right one, never do. This allows you to download the MPC Beats software — which I don’t need but did it anyway — and the other special instruments. This all went pretty well but wasn’t as straightforward as they imply. The software has to be downloaded, not too painful. The software is downloaded, now you have to install it. Five different things, five different installs. Once it’s installed you’d think that was good enough, think again. Now I have to activate it, easier said than done. The MPCBeats software wasn’t a problem but to use the added instruments you have to download a licence manager from iLOK and to get the licence from iLOK you have to, you guessed it, create and account. OK, I’ve got this far, let’s keep going. A whole lot of messing around later with activation codes and logins I get my instruments up and running — ONLY TO FIND THAT THEY EXPIRE IN 15 DAYS!!! All that effort for just about nothing because they didn’t tell me at the beginning (as far as I know anyway, it was probably buried in the small print). I didn’t bother anymore, I deleted the extra instruments, deleted the iLOK licence manager and deleted MPCBeats too, just out of spite — I use Presonus Studio One anyway and Studio One has a present for the Akai MPKmini so it was easy to get working.

I’ve only had this a few hours and so far it’s been fine, apart from all the above crap I didn’t need, and I’m sure it will do what I want it to do with the software I already have.

If you buy it, just plug it into your computer, use your favourite DAW package and completely ignore everything else. Don’t register it, don’t bother downloading anything, it works fine on it’s own.

EDIT: After much messing about I now have the software on an unending licence so the 15 day thing above is wrong. Software acquisition could be a whole lot easier with a bit of thought but hey ho, it’s done now.

Great keyboard, good quality and im enjoying learning on it.

Very good bit of kit could be abit more help for total beginnersbut I’m very impressed with i

Meine Tochter wollte unbedingt Musik machen, also legte ich ihr nahe, sich dieses Tool von Akai zu besorgen da ich selbst den MPC X besitze und somit wusste was sie dort erwartet. Nach dem Registrieren auf der Akai Website, bekommt man zugriff auf die Software wie eine DAW und noch Synthesizer mit der sich eigentlich schnell Sachen erstellen lassen, und zwar Professionell. Man kann auch die anderen Sachen von Akai, wie die MPC One MPC live MPC X etc, ber diese Software laufen lassen und es lassen sich auch andere VST Instrumente sowie Effekte ansteuern bzw. Integrieren was eine unzhlige Anzahl an Tools hinzufgt. Natrlich ist eine Version von Ableton auch nicht zu vergessen, wer das kennt wei was da zu erwarten ist 🙂
Ich lese in den Bewertungen das sich die Anschlagsdynamik nicht verndern lsst, was natrlich nicht stimmt. Lasst euch nicht davon abschrecken, das ist ein Astreines Produkt mit dem man definitiv Professionelle Lieder erstellen kann und wer mal nicht weiter wei, fr diesen Menschen gibt es die Hilfe rechts im Programm mit Links zu Tutorial Videos.
Das einzige was ich bemngeln wrde wre, das fr mich die Tasten zu klein wren und die Oktav zahl nicht hoch genug geht ohne umschalten zu mssen, aber das ist eine andere Sache die den Controller nicht schmlern soll.
Vergessen sollte man auch nicht dass es kein Standalone Gert ist, womit ein Computer mit Internet Zugang vorhanden sein sollte (z.B. Win 64bit da sonst die DAW nicht Installiert).
Von mir eine klare Kaufempfehlung

Amazing product easy to carry and move about and build quality is amazing. The first thing to note is the amazing pads and endless nobs is a big game-changer which is perfect for finger drumming definitely a 10/10 buy

Initial impressions of are keyboard were good, it seems pretty robust and decent quality at this price point.
Its clear they are trying their very best to force you to use with their supplied free software, and users should note that the free instruments come with the hated and dreaded Ilok software, which is a big shame as this software often cause issues all by itself.
The installation files and guides are all out of date on Akai’s site, meaning you can scramble around for information with little hope of finding something relevant to the latest release and I followed one tutorial on knobs to functions on studio one that no longer works.
Akai use their own software manager, which for some reason doesn’t show you one of the most basic bits of software you need. You need a program editor to set up this unit with your DAW and to manually change and assign midi data, pretty essential on a midi controller. By default this essential software is hidden and not offered for download. To see it as an option you need to hit the gear cog in the top left of the window, which shows three lines. You are looking to ‘Show Advanced Software’ – there should be a check box for you to tick! As Akai are total muppets, the check box is exactly the same colour as the background and therefore invisible. This has cost me almost a day of trawling the web and leaving service tickets, but if you click madly somewhere on the right hand side of the menu in line with the text, you’ll eventually hit the checkbox by luck at which point you can download the program editor, which should never have been hidden.

So, hardware is OK and works out of the box for the included software. Support is horribly out of date and quite frankly, all over the place and not updated for current models eg tutorials that don’t work any more.

Setting up for other Daws is a pain and nothing like the Nektar offering which has specific maps to match their keyboards to your Daw of choice, and templates to match many 3rd party instruments.
I wish I bought from another supplier to be honest. I bought this to make music not to see how inadequate Akai’s software tools are.

Great midi keyboard. Unfortunately I paid full price but have seen it on here since for a little over 50!

I use it with an iPad using camera adapter and it works really well.

Only issue I had was with the key velocity, I really had to hit the keys to get them to play. Fortunately it turns out you can adjust the velociy by holding down the “full level” key which brings up a menu where you can adjust the levels (there is a post on intua beatmaker3 forums about this).

Aside from that blip it’s been great, decent quality keys, pass, seems reasonably robust. I’ve really enjoyed using it.

J’ai achet un MPK Mini MK3 aprs avoir renvoy un Arturia Minilab MK2 25 qui avait les boutons rotatifs qui envoyaient des donnes erratiques (un problme rcurrent, voir Jumpy Knobs sur Google)
Le Akai a moins de boutons rotatifs (8 au lieu de 16). Ce sont comme sur l’Arturia des boutons “endless” et EUX fonctionnent trs bien. Le petit afficheur indique le valeur du contrle en cours et permet un rglage prcis.
Les pads renvoient une information de vlocit et ont un aftertouch global, ils peuvent tre assigns des touches ou des contrles.
Le seul bmol est sur la documentation et en particulier l’accs au programme qui permet de reconfigurer les paramtres MIDI du contrleur. Aprs avoir cherch un moment, j’ai fini par trouver ; pour avoir accs celui-ci, il faut :
– lancer “MPK Midi software manager”
– cliquer dans la “petite roue” et haut gauche (Settings)
– slectionner “Show Advanced Software”
– et l, le programme “MPK mini Editor-mk3” devient visible et tlchargeable (c’est le seul programme vraiment utile, et il est bien cach !)
Le programme permet de rassigner les paramtres Midi des diffrents contrles -y compris le joystick-, les valeurs min et max, etc. INDISPENSABLE !
Le seul point perfectible, mon got, est le joystick pitch/modulation. Deux commandes spares (comme sur l’Arturia) aurait sans doute t prfrable pour une utilisation pitch/modulation, mais en mme temps (!), on peut raffecter le joystick d’autres paramtres que le pitch et le modulation, et du coup, le fait d’avoir un joystick peut avoir un intrt…

As with any product of this type, make sure it fits your intended usage before you buy. For me, this product is excellent for the following reasons:

– Build quality is solid
– Small size is perfect for a minimal home studio (photo attached for indication of product size)
– 25 keys ideal for simple leads and bass lines (you can switch up and down octaves with one touch to find the best range)
– Plug and play is instant, works with stand alone synths or your DAW of choice (for me that’s Cubase and it works great as expected).
– 8 pads that are touch sensitive like the keys, great for drums/percussion (and can easily switch between 2 banks so effectively you’ve got 16 presets)
– Control knobs can be assigned to DAW
– Excellent synth bundled with the product (Hybrid3)

Factors that were relevant to me:
– I’m mainly interested in rock/metal and guitars, I just wanted the Akai to be a simple tool to control the rest
– I’m not an expert on piano/keyboards, so I don’t mind fewer keys and I’m perfectly happy with the feel of the keys on the Akai

I also had to weigh up the Akai against an alternative product that offered potentially better out-of-the-box integration with Cubase (but that had less of a software bundle). In the end I decided I wanted the Hybrid3 synth more than the instant integration, as I’m happy to map the controllers myself (it’s easy enough) so I went with the Akai. I’m glad I did as Akai feels perfect, and Hybrid3 is actually worth a few quid in itself. There are some excellent freeware synths out there, and I expected it to be like a good one of those, however it surprised me with just how good it is and how much I enjoy using it. It’s a great synth offering modern blended sounds (effectively it’s 2 synths blended together), it really takes things up a level.

There is other bundled software:
– Mini Grand and Velvet are 2 decent VSTs, but not necessarily my go-to instruments (Velvet’s interesting, Mini Grand is fine but just doesn’t really fit with what I’m trying to produce musically)
– MPC Beats is a loop-based DAW and there are some sound/sample packs to support it. This could be a great beginner software kit if you’re just starting out with loops, it has some interesting tools but doesn’t really suit the rock/metal vibe I’m playing with, and my tool of choice is Cubase as mentioned earlier. Having said that, MPC will open as a VST in Cubase so it’ll link in neatly if needed.
– Also worth mentioning is ‘MPK mini Editor’ is available to download too (it’s hidden in the download manager settings under “Advanced Software”). It will help with all the detailed controller mapping; as yet I’ve not explored in to too much detail here, for now I’m satisfied just using basic controls and it’s good to know the functionality is there for when I’ll want it later.

Couple of points to bear in mind particularly if you’re very new to digital music production:
– This is a midi controller and it needs separate software to generate sounds. You get Hybrid3 and a couple of other VSTs which is an excellent start, so once you install them you can get on and make loads of sounds immediately with this package. You will need a DAW to record and mix the sounds (there are plenty at all price points -including free- out there if MPC Beats doesn’t quite give you what you need).
– The download and install process for the software is a bit extensive if you want all the associated products, but it’s only a one-off, and is pretty straightforward. You’ll need to make an Akai account online, and also as part of the install you need to create (or log-in with existing) iLock account to validate install.

Overall:
– Great plug and play product (with VSTs/DAW)
– Excellent supporting software synth (Hybrid3)
– A real no-brainer 5 stars from me as the MPK mini suits my needs perfectly, and the quality of the supplied synth exceeded my expectations.

Easy to setup and use works well with garageband on a macbook pro

Very useful, easy to carry around and use. Would recommend, well worth the money!

Very useful mini keyboard. I am using it on my desk with my PC, instead of a full size keyboard taking up loads of room. Ideal for working out chords and data entry. Latency very good with no noticeable midi lag.
Seems to be very well made. Good value for the money. Was tempted to get the full sized one but this does the job fine. Lots of programmable knobs and pads, but not tried any yet. It does just what I want it to do.

I loved the plug and play using an adapter with USB/ lightning ports I can use Garage Band on my iPhone 11 much quicker.
Laptop size but feels sturdy.

Diciamo che molto valido e ben fatto. Questo mk3 viene presentato come migliorato rispetto alla precedente versione e da mie ricerche effettuate sul web devo dire che vero. Ho ordinato questo piccolo gioiellino per mio figlio che guarda sempre su youtube i video di persone che l’utilizzano e vedendo cosa fanno si direbbe un piccolo prodigio dell’elettronica. Francamente la cosa ha entusiasmato in primis me stesso ma… tra il dire e il fare c’ davvero il mare. Non critico il prodotto perch molto ben recensito ed anche il pi consigliato tra tutti quelli esistenti sul mercato, purtroppo l’unico problema che se non si ha almeno una minima conoscenza ed esperienza in questo genere io credo che si debba considerare bene di fare l’acquisto. La speranza che almeno mio figlio, che pi giovane, riesca a capirci qualcosa ed usarlo meglio di me.
Essendo un entry level e per tanto economico, un altro fattore da considerarsi, nonostante a corredo ci sia anche un bel pacchetto di softwares gratuiti, il fatto che si comunque limitati e per dover fare quello che uno vorrebbe si poi costretti a spenderci sopra altri soldi in hardware che non sono di certo i 99 euro del MPK mini. Altrimenti vuol dire accontentarsi cos. Sia ben inteso che sto parlando di un uso non professionale ma creativo amatoriale.

Bonjour, j’ai commenc utiliser le clavier Aka MPK Mini MK3 dans l’optique de dcouvrir ce que l’on peut faire avec un clavier midi. Je suis donc novice dans son utilisation et ne matrise pas encore l’instrument ni le programme MPC Beatmaking fourni avec.

Le clavier est trs intuitif de par son minimalisme: on retrouve toutes les fonctions importantes que l’on peut modifier souhait, autant sur les pads que sur les potentiomtres. Leurs ractivit est trs satisfaisante, et c’est trs amusant de jouer avec.

Les possibilits de sons sont dj trs varies avec le programme.

Pour un dbutant je recommande ce produit. Il est simple et pur, c’est facile de faire ses premiers pas.

I bought this as a begginer and to be honest it’s the best thing I’ve had for ages, eat little machine ,plug it in to your computer and run fruity loops or other programmes alike and this baby will sing for you.it helps to have prior knowledge of music DAWS .fast delivery.i also night a rock jam sustain peddle and works a treat .

After searching for a new MIDI Controller, I finally found this one, which is the newer version of the one I currently have and I’ve gotta say this one feels sturdy and the keys are so much better! I admit installing the previous software was a nightmare, but this one was super easy, with just one installer and you also get mpc software for free! Been playing with it for a few hours now and it’s a blast!