Ja
MPD 218
I bought this unit to upgrade from my Akai LPD8. Which has served me well for the most part, but is limited and has now started to mis-trigger on one pad. I also wanted more pads for variety in my 'finger drum' playing.
The unit is solid looking and feeling, doesn't move around on a table top when you play due to good quality rubberized feet.
The pads themselves feel good and are much more responsive than the LPD8. You can get a nice amount of dynamics in the sensitivity. Overall it feels good. The 6 endless rotaries feel good, but I don't really plan to use them, so I can't elaborate much there.
The configuration software that comes with the unit is OK and does the job. I was quickly able to set up some custom banks that worked almost instantly with EZDrummer and in cubase.
One problem I had was that after-touch was on and set to trigger on the the MIDI channel. This meant that I was often choking hits in an undesired fashion (mostly noticeable on cymbals). So this is something to look into first. Either turn it off on each pad or rig it so that the cymbals that you want to choke are on a different MIDI channel to the rest of the kit. I find it a bit fiddly during playing to use after-touch to choke cymbals anyway, so I just turned it off and put any chokes I wanted in editing.
Generally the feel is nice to play and doesn't tire your hands so much as say the LPD8 which really needs more of a whack on the pads sometimes to get them to trigger.
So, I don't have much else to say really. This is a simple, solid unit that will do the job for fairly advanced 'finger drumming' or sample triggering
The unit is solid looking and feeling, doesn't move around on a table top when you play due to good quality rubberized feet.
The pads themselves feel good and are much more responsive than the LPD8. You can get a nice amount of dynamics in the sensitivity. Overall it feels good. The 6 endless rotaries feel good, but I don't really plan to use them, so I can't elaborate much there.
The configuration software that comes with the unit is OK and does the job. I was quickly able to set up some custom banks that worked almost instantly with EZDrummer and in cubase.
One problem I had was that after-touch was on and set to trigger on the the MIDI channel. This meant that I was often choking hits in an undesired fashion (mostly noticeable on cymbals). So this is something to look into first. Either turn it off on each pad or rig it so that the cymbals that you want to choke are on a different MIDI channel to the rest of the kit. I find it a bit fiddly during playing to use after-touch to choke cymbals anyway, so I just turned it off and put any chokes I wanted in editing.
Generally the feel is nice to play and doesn't tire your hands so much as say the LPD8 which really needs more of a whack on the pads sometimes to get them to trigger.
So, I don't have much else to say really. This is a simple, solid unit that will do the job for fairly advanced 'finger drumming' or sample triggering
5
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M
Nice little unit, sturdy and looks well!
Nice little unit, sturdy and looks well. The pads and controller knobs seem to be good quality, literally just plugged it in and worked straight away with Cubase but I guess it could probably do with some more setup. Pad responsiveness is good although I would prefer if they were a bit more responsive - but again this may be something I can tweak in Cubase (triggers) so will have to investigate. Overall though for the price it's a great addition to my home setup and music creativity !
2
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d
Convenient with some minor flaws
This is a great product. However it does trigger multiple pads if you hit it a bit too hard.
0
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M
Bare bone but a quality build
I got what I expected as far as features go but I was pleasantly surprised by how sturdy and nice the build is.
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