The following article is an Overview of the AKAI MPD18 – For a Sourced Review of the AKAI MPD18 click here!
AKAI Professional has squeezed its popular MPD USB/MIDI Controller Series into a much simpler, compact device with its new MPD18 USB/MIDI Controller.
Here’s a breakdown of its core components:
Just as with its sister MPD controllers (MPD16,32 and 24) the MPD18 sports 16 AKAI-exclusive velocity and pressure sensitive pads for banging out your beats and triggering your samples.
The MPD18 operates via USB to send MIDI messages to your computer software (Ableton Live, FL Studio, Reason, etc.) With the Q-Link fader and button, you can assign them to your most frequently used parameter within your Soft-DAW’s.
Since the MPD18 is USB powered, it does not require a power supply however it is optional.
This AKAI MPD product is ideal for Music Prodcuers on the road or who want to clear up space in their studio.
If you’re looking for a simple pad-tapping sample triggering device, then you oughta check out the AKAI MPD18 USB/MIDI Controller.
Via AKAIPRO:
MicroKORGXL will be in stores in six days. A new version of a world famous synth and vocoder known for big sound on the corner of a desk. Many producers will be copping this one so we are giving the world a heads up. Check out the specs.
Though I wish you could simply right click a Marker and select a Mixer Insert from that Markers menu in SliceX, the new FL Studio 8.5 Public Beta has a much quicker way (than FL8) for routing (Output Track Offset) your SliceX markers to a desired Mixer Insert. This is ideal when working with any kind of samples, especially drums. (ex. a Kick slice routed to Mixer Insert 2 with Reverb – Snare slice routed to Insert 3 with Delay – and so on…)
In the current FL Studio 8, you’d have to scroll through the Mixer Insert numbers which would be a pain if you had to route to lets say Insert…54. By the time you get there, you’d have had to extend your arm forward with your mouse or ease up your mouse, bring your arm back to then continue scrolling. Not anymore!!!! But again, it would be great if you could just right click the Marker and select the Mixer Insert from the Marker’s menu. This is also cool when building your own custom drumkits in SliceX.
Up until now + with the release of FL Studio 8.5 Public Beta, any audio dragged and dropped from Edison, using the Drag/Copy Button, would be automatically saved to the Sliced Beats folder within the Data/Patches directory.
Now you can freely drag samples out of Edison into any folder you have listed in the Browser. Awesome!
Watch a tutorial on FL Studio Edison Drag Copy Button here.
it’s that simple!
Click here to buy FL Studio + 10% Discount.
Playback in FL Studio has just become a lot simpler. With the release of FL Studio 8.5 Public Beta, the Pattern and Song mode Playback has been greatly improved – this will definitely improve any Producers workflow utilizing FL Studio.
The Pattern and Song Modes which correspond respectively to the Step Sequencer and Playlist windows, now sport their own PLAY buttons. Awesome!
You can simply play single patterns when building a cool drum loop or play a full song by clicking the respective Play buttons (yellow arrows).
When you click and select one of the Play buttons on the Step Sequencer or Playlist, the main audio playback in FL Studio will reflect whichever Play button was last clicked.
it’s that simple!
Click here to buy FL Studio + 10% Discount.
jmc over at the Image-Line FL Studio LoopTalk forum has posted to the FL Studio community – the release of FL Studio 8.5
This latest release of FL Studio (only for FL Studio owners – buy here with 10% OFF) almost looks unreal, not to mention the 200+ new added features. Below is a list of images of the Playlist, Piano Roll and Step Sequencer.
Latest News: Finished downloading and will test-run. Subscribe to SampleSimple YouTube for latest videos news on FL Studio. – Wallholder
It is 2009. Are we are still waiting for Reason 4? Each new version provides the developer an opportunity to improve on the previous interface. These improvements can come from new ideas conjured at the source as well feedback from external sources.
Our opinion is that if Reason 4 were out, some or all of the following would be incorporated:
We understand Reason can be Rewired with other programs and by doing so, may address some of these exclusions, but rewiring properly takes up A LOT of processing power. Reason at this stage of the game should not be relying so heavily on Rewiring and external programs for base level functionality.
So… is Reason 4 out yet? Yes, but the 4 does not represent the content. We feel the release of 4 was another part of the spoon feeding process. When they release Reason 5, could it be what 4 was supposed to be?
We could have written a longer post of the benefits of Reason 4, but hope this will prove to be more useful for the future.
I decided to pull out an ugly sampled beat I made a couple years ago, for the intro of Episode 13 for Boombox Radio.
Boombox Radio is a Hip Hop Podcast Show I work on with Special from Low Pro Entertainment. We’ve been going strong now for the past couple months and we’ve just updated the site layout for a more Web 2.0 experience.
We post new episodes every Saturday evening in addition to daily Videos and Music throughout the week that are listed.
Click here to listen to Boombox Radio Episode 13 and be sure to subscribe to the email list and follow us on Twitter.
There are a lot of “small” midi controllers, which you can fit in a backpack, but usually that will take up most, if not all of the space. KORG has made a valid effort to eliminate this problem. The Nano Series are ultra-portable and offer three layouts. Pads, keyboard and faders.
We would see this very useful for triggering in Reason on a laptop, since the qwerty keyboard cannot. Also adding some functionality on your desktop setup right in front of your standard keyboard. Maybe one of these can solve a kink in your work flow.
