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illogik « Great fun / Unusable live »
Published on 02/18/14 at 07:48This is a sample player.
You load the samples on an SD card, the machine reads them. It's simple, but that is exactly what I needed for me not lugging a computer on stage.
It could have been awesome BUT: the samples are played louder or softer depending on the strength of your hits on the pads, which is cool to have fun, simulate a drum ... but UNUSABLE to read samples in live situations.
I was hoping Akai adds a feature to disable the pad sensitivity, but their "technical representative" told me that it was not in the agenda.
UTILIZATION
Very simple. No need for the manual.
It is easy to have fun with.
SOUNDS
Transparent. No problem.
Warning: unbalanced jack output so = You need 2 DIs for use on stage!
OVERALL OPINION
I used it for 4 months.
THE BIG PROBLEM:
No option to disable the pad sensitivity.
Specifically, in live situations, when I trigger a sample (2 or 3 times per song, at the very most): I never know if the volume is going to be too loud or not loud enough because it depends on the way I hit the pads (which varies! because no, I'm not a machine!).
Result: the sample is either too loud or not loud enough. Working with the sound engineer for 1 hour will not change anything because the volume varies despite all my efforts to be as regular as possible.
= The sound engineer goes crazy.
= The MPX8 stays sleeping in the closet, I no longer use it. And I don't recommend it to anyone as long as Akai does not provide a firmware update in order to have the possibility to play samples at fixed volume. (Which is not going to happen according to J. Sandeen, their "Technical representative")
You load the samples on an SD card, the machine reads them. It's simple, but that is exactly what I needed for me not lugging a computer on stage.
It could have been awesome BUT: the samples are played louder or softer depending on the strength of your hits on the pads, which is cool to have fun, simulate a drum ... but UNUSABLE to read samples in live situations.
I was hoping Akai adds a feature to disable the pad sensitivity, but their "technical representative" told me that it was not in the agenda.
UTILIZATION
Very simple. No need for the manual.
It is easy to have fun with.
SOUNDS
Transparent. No problem.
Warning: unbalanced jack output so = You need 2 DIs for use on stage!
OVERALL OPINION
I used it for 4 months.
THE BIG PROBLEM:
No option to disable the pad sensitivity.
Specifically, in live situations, when I trigger a sample (2 or 3 times per song, at the very most): I never know if the volume is going to be too loud or not loud enough because it depends on the way I hit the pads (which varies! because no, I'm not a machine!).
Result: the sample is either too loud or not loud enough. Working with the sound engineer for 1 hour will not change anything because the volume varies despite all my efforts to be as regular as possible.
= The sound engineer goes crazy.
= The MPX8 stays sleeping in the closet, I no longer use it. And I don't recommend it to anyone as long as Akai does not provide a firmware update in order to have the possibility to play samples at fixed volume. (Which is not going to happen according to J. Sandeen, their "Technical representative")