AKAI Professional MPK Mini MK3 Black

I have the MPK mini mk ii and it's a useful controller for travelling with a laptop. However I never liked the flimsy knobs or the spongy keyboard feel.

Happily, the MK iii provides a slightly better keyboard action with more resistance, and much nicer endless encoders, which greatly improves their usability. The pads now also send aftertouch and the response is very smooth. I use it for playing VST and iPad synths and it feels pretty good!

I have the all-black unit and it looks very sleek and sexy. Overall a nice upgrade. I'm happy with the purchase.

My only minor gripe is that, to access the editor software you have to jump through some hoops: register the product, download the software manager and from within that the editor. Akai should just provide a direct download to the editor software on their website.

I've purchased the controller and started the set-up, which you unsurprisingly need a preset manager for. Upon installation, it suggests you check out some free software that comes with the controller, which is AKAI's own MPC Beats (a DAW) with a couple of sound packs, and three plug-ins: Hybrid 3, Mini Grand, and Velvet. The MPC Beats ran OK, but the plug-ins kept crashing my Logic Pro X on start until I managed to exterminate all the traces of free AKAI software on my machine. And it's kinda finicky if you don't know what you're doing.
The controller itself is fine though.

You can create some serious music with this thing.

I bought this to lay down ideas within my DAW, and it does what it's supposed to do. Assign different parameters within your DAW to the knobs on this thing, and you can improve your workflow if you set it up right.

But keep in mind that the keys are very small (as the name suggests, this thing is so tiny and cute!), so if you have large hands, you might find yourself feeling some pain after playing for a while.

Also, the pads are not as responsive as say Native Instrument's Maschine, but they are good enough to lay basic drum patterns (I usually use the fixed velocity function and adjust it later in the DAW).

This thing is probably the best deal if you're in the market for a small, portable midi controller that's reliable and fun to use.

This is one of the most affordable and common MIDI keyboards. It is fine. The included software is okay, but it serves very little purpose for me. The construction is very cheap and light, but for this price - it's fine. I have used it a lot and it does the job. The expression knob is rather flimsy, but fun to use. The worst issue this MIDI keyboard has is the velocity curve. In order to reach the optimal dynamic range of most VSTi plugins, one needs to bash the keyboard hard. This can be fixed by holding the "full level" key and editing the dynamics through the hidden menu. However, the fix only worked until the keyboard was disconnected and then this had to be done again. This might be an issue with my particular product, but I have heard similar feedback from other users.