Improved Rotaries for the Akai MPK49 & MPK61

User bobseekone from the Propellerhead Forums has generously contributed a great new patch (which he calls ReasonEx) for the Akai MPK49 and MPK61 MIDI controller keyboards that turns the rotary encoders from absolute to relative positions. This means that you can switch to another device in Reason, move the knobs, and when you return to the original device moving the knobs does not cause them to 'jump' away from where they were. Another way to think of it is that Reason can remember where your controller knobs were for each and every device. Very useful - thanks Bob.

His patch also changes the buttons from toggle to momentary so that they can be used between devices more sensibly too. See Bob's blog for overview and details.

Disclaimer: I was involved in the creation and testing of this patch for the MPK49.

Akai MPK49 Pad Modification

A few years ago I did a light review of the Akai MPK49 MIDI keyboard controller. Subsequently I bought one and I've been happily using it since.

However one thing consistently bugged me (and everyone else) about the design - the drum "pads" are terrible. You have to hit them quite hard to even register a hit, let alone a loud one. Because I'd never really used such pads before, it didn't bother me too much. But Kong is coming...

So when I saw these two threads on the Propellerhead User Forum, I knew I had to give this a try. I'm really glad I did.

This video is a nice guide on how to take the MPK49 apart and get access to the rubber pads. There are 28 screws to remove, but it's not very difficult. The video author does a good job showing how to get inside, so I'm not going to rehash that here.

Some things to remember while taking apart your precious MIDI controller:

• use a manual screwdriver rather than a motorised one as in the video - take note of how much torque is required to unscrew those twenty rear-plate screws, and when you put back together again, do not tighten them up any more than that. You're screwing into plastic - you do NOT want to strip the threads!
• also try not to cross the threads when you're putting the screws back in, or you'll risk stripping the threads.
• when you remove the little PCB, watch out for that little 1-inch ribbon connector. It's not too fragile I suspect, but try not to pull on it if you can.
• when removing or replacing the rubber pads, be careful not to damage or scratch the underlying sensor array. I don't know exactly what it is (PVDF perhaps?) but it looks delicate.
• when you replace the outer case, be careful not to trap the ribbon cables that might stick out the back.

 
The fundamental problem with the pads is that there is a gap of approximately 1mm between the bottom of each pad and the pressure sensor underneath. This means you have to hit or press the pad hard enough to travel that 1mm before any pressure will be sensed, regardless of the pad sensitivity settings within the MPK49. It doesn't matter how sensitive you set the software within the keyboard to be, that gap is always going to be a problem.

The simple solution is to fill the gap up with something. Many people, including that video, recommend using four layers of electrical insulation tape underneath the rubber pads. But electrical insulation tape? Really? I hate that stuff! After a while, the adhesive oozes out and goes everywhere, it's horrible, horrible stuff. Avoid!

Instead, I decided to use some cloth tape, sometimes rightly or wrongly called "duct tape", or occasionally "gaffer tape" (although mine isn't black nor has it a matte finish). The nice quality about this tape is that the adhesive is pretty stable and doesn't migrate much, but it's also pretty sticky. It's also quite robust and for this application it should hold its thickness over time.

I didn't know how much I'd need initially so I put a strip onto some grease-proof baking paper and ruled out 15mm x 24mm rectangles. The baking paper made it really easy to cut the tape to the right size and then peel it off for application without contaminating the glue with dust or clothing lint.

I started off with just a single layer on a single pad. I reinstalled the rubber pads and gave it a try. The improvement was considerable - in fact I was very tempted to leave it at that. But of course I'm not one to take something apart without trying out a few things...

So I tried two layers. This was even better! I could now do cool drum rolls with my fingers and I wasn't constantly 'missing' the pads and sounding incompetent.

Once again, I was going to leave it at two layers, but just to make sure I tried out a few pads with three layers.

Wow! The improvement is dramatic! I barely have to exert any pressure on the pads at all to get a decent signal, yet I don't get spurious hits either. Three layers is definitely where it's at in my opinion.

But three layers of the tape I've got doesn't mean much to anyone else, so I measured it for you.

Without going into the gory details, I ascertained that the tape is approximately 0.3mm thick, and I used three layers, so that's a total thickness of 0.9mm, with an error of, let's say, +/- 0.05mm. When you look at the underside of the rubber pads end-on, you can see the top layer of tape just below the edge.

(I used the coin as a known thickness to measure inside the pad cavity - the coin is 2.15mm thick on the edge, I measured 8.05mm without tape, and 8.97mm with three layers of tape. This is about 0.3mm per layer.)

Once you've put it all back together, you can set the pad sensitivity, threshold and curves to whatever you want. I'm using threshold 1, sensitivity 16, curve A and it seems to work fine.

The Akai MPK49 is a great but not perfect keyboard. If you have one, I definitely recommend doing this mod - it's not hard, just take your time and think ahead. In total it took me about an hour with all the measuring, experiments, etc.

Bring on Kong!

Korg Kontrol49 & Akai MPK49 Comparison

This review was previously posted on my personal blog and has been moved here.

Recently I had the need to purchase a MIDI controller keyboard for my own music production interests. My requirements included programmable sliders and encoders, as well as a minimum of 49 'piano' keys, velocity action and drum pads. I also wanted to keep things as inexpensive as possible. I'm not a live keyboard player, so I aim to use this device for music composition, with programs such as Reason.

I narrowed the field down to the following three models:

• Edirol PCR-M50 - NZ$400 from the Rockshop.

• Akai MPK49 - NZ$800 from the Rockshop.

• Korg Kontrol49 - NZ$800 from Peter Jamieson Audio Limited.

I also looked briefly at some Novation models but 49-key versions of these started at NZ$1000.

I was able to quickly eliminate the Edirol, because I felt the feature set was too limited for the level of control I was after. This left the Korg and the Akai.

First, the Korg Kontrol49. Peter from Peter Jamieson Audio Limited graciously agreed to lend me a unit for a weekend trial - without this opportunity, my choice would have been much, much harder to make.

The Korg is an excellent piece of gear. I was impressed with the way it worked in Reason - especially the feedback that comes through and labels the controls. I had no trouble installing it and getting started. From what I can tell, it's extremely configurable and can probably do anything MIDI-wise you'd ever need to do.

I had read a lot about the Akai MPK49, which seems to be the closest competitor to the Korg. In comparisons, I read a lot of speculative opinion either way which made me uneasy, so I decided the only way to know for sure was to try it myself. Mark at the Rockshop in Lower Hutt agreed to let me trial the Akai so I was able to set both keyboards up next to each other at home, and make my own hands-on comparisons.

Here's what I found.

- the Korg provides a much better level of feedback, especially with Reason. You can easily tell what a particular control will do by the label sent from the PC. However, because each encoder and slider share a single display, and it only shows the last control moved, you can't see what the label for the other control is until you move it. However, in this area it still wins because the Akai doesn't do anything like this at all.

- The Korg is a 2004 product, the Akai is 2007.

- The Korg is slightly bigger and slightly lighter than the Akai.

- The build quality of the Korg is somewhat lower than the Akai. For example, the encoder knobs and sliders on the Korg are a bit flimsy and can move side-to-side. The Akai controls are very solid in feel. I also prefer the pitch-bend and mod wheels on the Akai as they are larger and have a better (rubbery) surface.

- the pads on the Korg are really cool - the different coloured lights tell you what pads are playing when reviewing a drum pattern, for example. The feel of them is good. The Akai has only 12 pads, no visual feedback, but interestingly I found they had a better strike response and I found it easier to 'play' the drums on the Akai.

- The Akai keyboard has a better feel than the Korg, in my opinion.

- The Akai has features that the Korg lacks - aftertouch on keys (Korg has an aftertouch send but it's global), note-repeat, built-in arpeggiator. However the Korg has the X-Y joystick, but unfortunately it has a 'dead-zone' in the centre which makes the input non-linear.

- The Akai has dedicated transport controls - so does the Korg, but I found the Akai ones easier to use. The Korg can be configured so that any button will transmit 'record' or 'rewind' but it can be complicated and there are no dedicated controls.

- The included "library" software is quite minimal with the Korg. The Akai software is better as it allows you to set up the keyboard using a graphical representation, and then send this config to the keyboard in a single operation. It also has a MIDI monitor which is useful for debugging MIDI messages and assignments.

I've spent a lot of time comparing these products and my final conclusion is that although the Korg is excellent, it unfortunately falls short of the Akai for my requirements.

Many thanks to Peter at Peter Jamieson Audio Limited, and Mark at the Rockshop Lower Hutt for enabling me to make this hands-on comparison.

Postscript

I have been using the Akai for about a week now. I am very impressed with this keyboard. It has an excellent feel and now I'm used to the controls it's very easy to get around the configuration. Although it lacks the direct feedback Reason has with the Korg, it doesn't take too long to learn which controls affect which parameters on each instrument.

Final note - the YouTube videos by "TodaysbeatsTV" on the MPK49 are a complete waste of time. Yes, there's some info there, but the presenter rambles on and on and ON and ON. Just make sure the MPK49 clock is set to internal if you want to drive the MIDI clock from the keyboard. Pretty obvious really.