Akai Professional MPK Mini Play MK3 - MIDI Keyboard Controller with Built-in Speaker and Sounds Plus Dynamic Keybed, MPC Pads, Software Suite and Native Instruments Sound Package

This MPK Mini Play MK3 is tiny and fits in my small overnight duffel along with a sustain pedal and stereo monitors (plus clothes and travel stuff)... amazing.I've owned many expensive full-size keyboards (like RD2000), and the synth sounds from this AKAI are surprisingly good and a reasonable General MIDI selection. Pianos, E-pianos, clav and harpsi are all good; organs are limited; basses are fine; string ensembles good but violin/viola not useful to me, drums are adequate, etc. The reverb is nice. The drum pads work while the keys are being played, so we've had two people playing on this tiny device... very fun. The keys are velocity sensitive (not weighted) and work fine for a 2-pound instrument. The joystick is very clever: push left to modulate volume (fade in, or volume dips for brass), right for vibrato, up and down for pitch shift.The octave transpose is essential (get the bass into the right register, get to the high strings) and designed just right. Too bad there isn't a chromatic transpose: for such a short keyboard, it would be nice to transpose on a song-by-song basis so we get the most of the keys that are here.The sustain pedal I like is item B08NSZFGC1, labeled Sovvid for $13. It works perfectly and is extremely lightweight. Most of my sustain pedals are very heavy, which is great for staying in place on stage but for travel this one is ideal. It is even lighter than a small footswitch. And it works with both electrical standards (normally open / normally closed).The lightweight speakers I carry are item B09PFGJ94L, Pyle 5.25" woofer 2-way active, though many other models (including active PC speakers with subwoofer) would work fine. Rated 300 watts (skeptica), these are plenty loud enough for a living room and they sound fine (but lacking deep powerful bass, as expected). Plug in the AKAI keyboard with a 3.5mm 15-ft stereo cable like Startech item B004G3WCNK $8. These Pyle speakers need a length of 2-conductor speaker or lamp cord to connect the passive speaker to the active one. In a pinch, the AKAI keyboard could be connected to a television analog audio input. The keyboard itself has a tiny speaker, but it's very limited.

The media could not be loaded. There aren't many options when thinking in midi controllers, built in sounds and built in speakers, AND portability.While most modern Casio or Yamaha personal keyboards got USB and can be used as midi controllers, none are as portable as this is. Except for the PSSA50 from Yamaha, which is the other one I was considering, but the lack of reverb and knobs made me move away from it.So I decided to give this akai a chance, and when I got it, I realized it is exactly what I wanted:-Super tiny and portable-Built in speaker (mono, yes, but good enough for playing around)-Built in very good quality sounds (many are really nice. The synth pads and brass are among my favorites)-4 knobs for tweaking with 2nd function each, you get 8 parameters that can be modified on the fly. This includes Attack, Release, equalizer for highs, eq for lows, amount of chorus effect, amount of reverb effect, filter and resonance, being these last two the most fun to use.-Arpeggiator. While it doesn't have a chord option, you can set amount of octaves, playing direction (let's say: random notes, notes up, notes down, up and down, exclude or include border notes.-I'm using 4 Epoch AA 1.5V lithium USB rechargeable batteries, they are quite new in the market but I can recommend them, I haven't had to recharge them yet and I'm using the keyboard on max volume for hours now.I'm still getting familiar with it, but first days with it surprised me quite a lot. I can recommend this keyboard if you want everything it sports.

My son loves it. Works great. Has fun features and the price was fair.

Spoiler: Standalone beat maker, synth, idea lab that runs on batteries, has a headphone/audio out, and is also a MIDI Controller. If this is what you are looking for...you should probably get this. Does it have laws? Yes. Is it a gamechanger for mobile creativity? Yes. Is it best for everyone? No.DISCLAIMER: Not a true apples-to-oranges comparison. This is a synth with built in sounds, a speaker, and HEADPHONE JACK. Not at all a fair comparison to any standard MIDI controllers. I did not test any bundled software. This review is primarily an "out of the box", plug-and-play test. The vast majority of the playing, looping and configuration was in Garageband for iPad and a little in Logic Pro X for iPad. I watched a lot of reviews on YT and decided to try them for myself. I am relatively new to the DAW/MIDI controller world. I have dabbled in piano and synth for decades, but am definitely not an expert. Below is my take on the Akai MPK Mini Play mk3.Devices tested (for comparison):⦁ Arturia Minilab 3⦁ M-Audio Oxygen Pro Mini⦁ Akai MPK Mini Plus⦁ Akai MPK Mini Play mk3 - THE DEVICE BEING REVIEWEDThings I liked about the Akai MPK Mini Play mk3:⦁ Pads are best of breed. The Mini Play mk3 pads are smaller and rectangle rather than the larger, square pads on Mini Plus, but both are excellent. To me, they feel like they "should". Solid, not bouncy. Easy to control precise strikes and velocity for beats. Akai pads are a big selling point for me.⦁ Headphone jack/audio out. This is huge for me. I want to be able to use this on stage and create loops (into a loop pedal). I have already done this and it works. This is a gamechanger. Just wish it had a sequencer built in. (AKAI, are you hearing me?)⦁ built in sounds (synth) are very good. So are the drums. Not a huge variety built-in, but those provided are excellent for "sketching out a rough draft" of your project on-the-go. Send it into Garageband (DAW) on your phone if you want to have an enormous range of instruments and capture the MIDI.⦁ Good amount of function labels on the face of the device. This made it easier to use a "shift" key press and the clearly labeled button/key to select a parameter.Things I DISliked about the Akai MPK Mini Play mk3:⦁ Only 25 keys. 37 keys would be my preference. That said, this is built to be ultimately portable, so 25 is probably the right size.⦁ key feel is not as good as the Arturia. Same feel and size as the MPK Mini Plus. They are thinner, look and feel less like "real" keys. Still serviceable and comfortable enough for the intended purpose.⦁ No physical pitch and mod "wheels" or even touch sensors. The only option is the joystick. It worked as expected. I definitely prefer a more tactile control of pitch/mod.⦁ No Sequencer. I feel Akai really missed the mark here. It would have made this a slam dunk for me, even without wheels and MIDI Out. This was almost a deal breaker. It would have been really nice to use this as a portable standalone sequencer without having to plug into an external device.⦁ No physical transport controls. Not even shared buttons.⦁ The preset for Garageband didn't map completely to iPad OS. None of the controllers I tested did, so this isn't really a dig on the Mini Play specifically.⦁ No faders at all. Not sure that's a deal breaker for me, but might be for some.⦁ MPK Mini Play mk3 has only 4 regular knobs, not endless encoders. That's a decent amount of controls to assign in your DAW when you use this as a controller.⦁ No MIDI in or out. Only USB.Overall build quality - Akai MPK Mini Play mk3: Very Good. Everything feels like quality. Pads are really, really good. Keys feel good, but not quite as good as Arturia. The speaker is weak, but good enough. If you want loud, clean sound, plug in headphones or a speaker.