Akai APC40 MK2

Rated 5.00 out of 5

04/7/2017

great bit of kit, easy to use .

vincent finch

Rated 5.00 out of 5

05/2/2017

Very easy to use, setup and learn. For ableton it works like a dream, it really facilitates live performance as you rarely need to look at or touch the computer, and makes the software more pleasurable to use too. Akai have thought this out really well, it's going to be important in my setup. It's lightweight, fits in a large backpack or cabin bag, and bus powered, so you can travel light. Although it's plastic it feels solid and durable. The faders are more fragile though, I think it'd benefit from some kind of soft case when packing it as you could rip a fader off pulling it out of your bag. Only had it a few days so I'll discover more about it I'm sure, but the only frustration so far is the fact you need two hands to change which SENDS you're controlling (hold down 'sends' and then select 1 - 8 with the other hand). For me this is a very frequent function and it's almost impossible to do while playing (or even just holding) an instrument. Plus I'd love to be able to UNDO from the APC. There may be workarounds for both these functions that I'll discover in due course. A screen would be a good feature to have but I guess this would also raise the price.

FM