Akai APC40

OK I cannot WAIT for this. Check out the video. This thing meets nearly all of my needs as far as midi controllers are concerned.

http://www.ableton.com/home?movie=4

Tags: ableton, computers, midi controllers, music

Thursday, January 15th, 2009 Uncategorized

11 Comments to Akai APC40

Looks fabulous, although there is one style of play that it isn’t suited to, which is that of a traditional DJ playing nearly full tracks – there is no way to simultaneously control bass/mid/treble. For instance, it’s a frequent-used technique for a DJ to bring down the bass in one track while bringing it in on another. For me, I would have welcomed fewer clip slots and a dedicated per-channel set of assignable knobs (3 or 4) to allow for this type of control. As is, you’ll need to adjust two EQ params in steps, which might be a bit odd to get used to. As a progressive house DJ, it’s unfortunate that the Numark Mixmeister control might be better suited for me. All told, though, the price point is right, and should be a huge hit – if I have the cash, perhaps I’ll just get both! The Vestax VCM-600 is MY ideal controller (almost exactly like my current MIDIBOX homebrew) but it is at a ridiculous price-point.

One other suggestion that people can try (I did, and it works great) is the inexpensive Behringer DDM4000 mixer. This mixer is also able to assign most of its controls to MIDI, allowing you to map CC Midi commands to ableton features using the learn features in AL6/7. It works suprisingly well in this capacity when used with BOME’s midi translator and MidiYoke (these allow the mapping of some ableton features that can not be assigned to MIDI but CAN be assigned to a keyboard shortcut). You send a midi command to Bomes, which outputs a series of KB commands in response.

aegis on January 20th, 2009

hmmm… controlling bass and treble levels simultaneously IS a big deal to me. It’s something i have trouble doing with my current controller (behringer BCF2000) because the knobs are so few. (i know 8 should be enough but i have several mapped to other things)

so yeah… that’s a point of contention for me… thanks for bringing that up.

SeventhSwami on January 20th, 2009

If you are willing to have WAY fewer channels available, you could have two channels and assign 3 faders to bass/mid/treble (this would give you two “channels”, each using 4 total faders. But the top section would be pretty silly then – perhaps mapping the top controls to a step sequencer or something like that would work. It would definitely make the unit a highly repurposed and less elegant solution.

I think this is why Ableton has driven the homebrew market so heavily – every DJ works differently, and wants to emulate that workflow in a controller. If I might, I would personally recommend the Midibox platform (opensource MIDI) which is wonderful. Here’s a link to my controller design:

http://www.midibox.org/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=d6888fb750f81f5ea6e27e538b17c8ec&topic=6402.msg43051#msg43051

aegis on January 20th, 2009

I think this is perfect for Live performance controls, but I still think a combination of my Nocturn and Remote SL are better for plugin tweaking and general MIDI controls. You’ll be seeing me with all three for shizzles.

The Android Bishop on January 21st, 2009

WOW Aegis! nice work on that controller! I’d love to see some photos of the finished product… or a video would be even better =)

Last night I created a new live set featuring all the completed tracks from the new album, plus bits and pieces of the stems… i normally dj using 3 channels with eqs and reverbs (and one with effectrix applied) but last night i experimented with some new configurations… I’m really interested to see and hear how other DJs use the session view… I have been doing it one (very straightforward) way for so long… i’m guessing there’s a whole universe of tricks that i’m not even aware of.

SeventhSwami on January 22nd, 2009

I have a cheapo evolution uc-16 that I picked up on ebay a few years back. It has two rows of knobs and I dedicate it to the high/low eq for each channel (who cares about mids! . It’s nice because it is relatively small and easy to tuck away in your rig somewhere, and then you can dedicate your apc40 or whatever other controller you are using to everything else.

brandon on January 22nd, 2009

You can use Smart Mixer which Moldover uses as a Reaktor ensemble. While you don’t have finite control it alleviates the muddy side of things if you want it done automatically.

Here’s a link

http://www.biglimemedia.com/smartmixer/

FRGus723 on February 10th, 2009

whoa dude. that is very interesting! thanks for the link. How long until the live7 version? =)

SeventhSwami on February 11th, 2009

regarding EQ on the apc40..

arent the device control knobs meant to be used to control whatever parameters within live that you wish?

soooo assign them to bass/mid/treb eh? :_]

Billy tha kid on March 28th, 2009

found this while googling around for some APC tricks. i just got mine over the weekend and i’ve been tweaking on it ever since. amazing controller!

dris on January 2nd, 2010

awesome! I’ve been loving mine. let me know if you encounter any bugs with yours. i keep having certain lights turn on/off or blink for no apparent reason…