Akai APC40 MkII

Five years ago, Akai, in consultation with
Ableton, produced the APC40 (
141, 10/10),
the deinitive live performance control surface
for Ableton Live, if not one of the inest MIDI
controllers ever made in general – an accolade
that still stands today. Contenders from
Novation and other manufacturers have failed
to topple it as the ultimate on-stage tool for Live
users – not even Ableton’s sublime Push (the
perfect APC40 companion, incidentally, being
superior in a studio capacity, and overall the
better all-rounder) matches it for on-the-ly
arrangement potential. So, can the long-awaited
“MkII” successor outdo the original classic?
Before we start, we should quickly explain
the fundamental APC concept. The APC40 (both
original and MkII) features an 8x5 clip-triggering
button matrix (with the ability to jump between
contiguous banks); Scene trigger buttons; eight
channel strips with volume, mute, solo, send and
pan controls; eight dedicated device
(instrument/efect) knobs; transport controls;
nudge controls for beat-matching your set to
sync to a DJ; and various other controls tailored
for taking Live onstage. Crucially, it’s not really a
studio-orientated music production tool, so if
you don’t play live, it’s probably not for you.
Two steps back
The irst thing that strikes you about the APC40
MkII is how – functionally, at least – it’s almost
identical to its predecessor. The most signiicant
major change is the design of the casing and the
layout. The old APC40 was a bit of a beast, but
that size and weight was justiied by its brick-
privy build quality: every button, knob and fader
felt like it was built to last (and, indeed, they all
have on our heavily used unit).
The MkII is a more slimline afair – narrower,
thinner and lighter – but it doesn’t come across
as quite as sturdy or, frankly, nice. The faders,
triggers and rotaries are chunkier, more
A k a i
APC40 MkII £290
It’s hard to improve on a MIDI controller classic, but that’s exactly
what Akai claim to have done ive years on. Let’s have a look
cramped and less distinct, and the triggers
require noticeably more pressure to activate
than before. Unlike Akai’s beautifully built Push
and APC40 MkI, the MkII feels like many other
budget-to-mid-priced controllers: a bit plasticky
and extravagantly futuristic, rather than a
potential music technology design classic.
It’s also much harder to see at a glance what’s
going on now, with the solo, mute, record and
(newly added) crossfader assign buttons for
each channel packed into a squashed, tight
square arrangement, rather than the well-
spaced vertical layout of MkI.
Another change is the repositioning of the
per-channel send/pan knobs from their own
dedicated section to above their respective
channels. While this might sound like the more
logical place for them, in this already cramped,
dark interface, we ind it just adds to the clutter.
On the plus side, though, the new User button
switches said rotaries over to control eight
92 / CoMPuter MusIC November 2014
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