AKAI Professional MPK Mini MK3 25 Key USB MIDI Keyboard Controller with 8 Backlit Drum Pads, 8 Knobs and Music Production Software, White

Everything is tactile and responsive, and the keys feel great to use. Pads are easily the highlight, being extremely dynamic and responding to even the slightest touch, but requiring you to really hit it if you wanna max out the vel. Fantastic if you're looking for something small to travel with you. There are programs to download. You have to set up separate accounts to do so. It is plug and play and many programs you have already may work with it instead.

I have used midi keyboards before but not one that is a midi controller with pads and everything. I love it! I am able to plug it right into my laptop and use it with my own music software or the software that you can download from the company website. It took me a bit to figure things out at first but now I am catching on. I love the ability to program what I want and do things like arpeggiate those sounds. I can record whatever I do right into my software. It's awesome! I will have a lot of fun with this.

Small but mighty! This is a complete tool! Everything you need! If you're interested in producing your own music this is perfect. It's pretty easy to use out of the box. Has a lot of convenient features and a lot of things to help you in your pursuit of a music career. It's good for novices, so don't be intimidated. It's small and compact so will easily fit on a desktop or table. It's black in color so loks professional. Thanks!

The AKAI MPK Mini Midi controller is a win for our small studio. This controller is replacing our very old and out dated Yamaha keyboard, saving us room when our studio is finished being remodeled from hurricane Ida. We have yet to truly unlock all of this very small controllers attributes. Here is what we have so far..... 1. Easy hook up. Our DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) Recognized it and installed really fast. 2. Powered with USB cable that was provided. 3. Comes with the following software, MPC Beats, Hybrid 3, Mini Grand, Velvet 4. Pitch & modulation control 5. Sustain pedal input jack 6. Built-in arpeggiator And the list goes on and on. We were put off at first by the light weight and thought it was cheaply made. We were very wrong. One of the only things so far is we wish it had a better manual.

I'm going to start right off by saying that this is going to take some time to learn to use if you haven't used a music production system before. the Quickstart Guide is pretty good and will get you going. You will need to download software to use this with your computer. If you're a beginner, this may take some time to learn about. If you're an experienced music producer and you like creating your own beats and loops then this is definitely your compact system. I played with this for two weeks and like the pad-feel, the keyboard is just right. Lighting of the pads and controls is also a very nice touch. Connects to your computer via a usb port. If you have an apple system, you'll likely need an adapter. The keyboard has 25 notes, but you can use octave down or up buttons and expand the range. You choose the tempo with a tap-tempo button, you set the pace by tapping your finger on it. I don't really like the 4-axis thumb stick as I'd prefer arrow buttons, but it's not a problem overall. The pads are for drum hits, BUT, you can set them for other sounds and are speed as well as pressure sensitive. You can play a series of notes and press the "note repeat" button to have those notes continuously repeat as you add in your beats etc. Lots of fun! SIZE: width is 12 and 1/2 inches. front to back is 7 inches exactly height, from table to top of buttons and knobs is at 2 inches. I like it, and I definitely recommend it.