Getting into MIDI with the Akai MPK Mini IV

When it comes to making music I tend to be fairly 'old school' in that I play traditional instruments like guitar and drums. I appreciate that a lot of music these days is made digitally using computers and either physical synthesizers or virtual ones. I wanted to experiment with that world so I got myself this little keyboard. You can read a review on Music Radar. I actually have an old Casio keyboard with basic sounds, but this is a more powerful device.

I am old enough to remember when the MIDI interface revolutionised music by allowing you to connect various instruments together. I have experimented with it a little before, but things keep moving on. Before I needed a separate interface to link my old keyboard to the PC, but now you can just hook up a USB cable that also powers the keyboard.

The MPK Mini has a two octave keyboard, eight drum pads and eight rotary controllers. It is very programmable so you can make it work with whatever intruments you have. There are user presets to store these configuratations. The previous version had some software you would use on the PC to set this up, but the new one can do it all without a computer as they added a tiny screen so you can see what you are doing.

It can control instruments either over USB or using the original five pin serial cable. I was having issues getting the latter working until I read that it needed to be powered with a mains adaptor rather than from a PC USB port for that to work. I assume it needs extra power for that, but it means you cannot be interfacing to an instrument and a PC at the same time. I will look into that as it seems like a strange limitation.

I was plugged into my Yamaha DD-65 electronic drums that does have lots of sounds if I can only work out how to select them. I need to read the MPK Mini manual more deeply. There are plenty of videos about it including some tutorials from Akai.

Included with the MPK Mini you get access to some software that gives you loads of instruments, but I cannot use that as I run Linux rather than Windows or Apple. I am not too worried about that as I am just playing around and I do have access to a lot of free music apps on Linux.

I am already impressed with this gadget and I will be looking to use it for future recordings.

Rock on!

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