« A worthy controller, but not the best »

The MPD24 is a Midi controller from Akai featuring 16 pads, 6 faders and 8 knobs. It has USB and midi in/outs. It's pretty easy to use, and the quality is nice. The pads feel good under your fingers and are responsive, featuring velocity and aftertouch and such. There are four available pad banks. It also has a set of transport controls. The thing is well built, but not as good as some of the other pad controllers out there, and rather small. The big pads are nice, but you only have 16 which means you can pretty much only use it to record drums. If you have the cash, you should spring for the APC40 or the Novation Launchpad, my favorites. I wouldn't really recommend it unless you need more pads than come on a lot of midi keyboards, and only want to do drums. Set up and installation are easy, factory presets work fine. The sliders are actually of exceptional quality, and the knobs are pretty smooth. I'm still not sure how useful or economical the thing is though. It's only use is playing drums and samples. It's basically a midi version of the MPC. If you need an MPC type thing, save up and get one, way worth your money compared to this. Also, one thing is that the pads are square, but the sensors below are round! This can cause some velocity and feel issues that can actually be pretty annoying, whereas something button based like the novation launchpad is a better option. I sold this not long after owning it, as it just sat in my unused junk closet gathering dust and taking up space. It's really not a good alternative to the MPC type approach to making music, though I don't like that approach anyways, so you may want a second opinion.