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Ableton + Akai = APC 40


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Pretty nuts. MPK25 is cut down in size too.

 

 

http://www.akaipro.com/apc40

 

Ableton Live performance, perfected.

 

 

 

The APC40 is the world’s finest Ableton Live control surface. Ableton and Akai Professional worked in a joint partnership to make the APC40 the perfect Ableton Live control surface. Whether you are an electronic-music performance artist and Live is your canvass, a DJ using Live to mix tracks, or a traditional musician using Live on stage or in the studio, the APC40 is designed for intuitive, powerful control.

 

 

DIRECT DESIGN

Because Akai Professional and Ableton designed the APC40 for Live, you don’t need to map its controls to talk to the software. Just connect your laptop to the APC40 with its USB cable and you're ready to make magic. The APC40 is class compliant, so you don't even need to install drivers. And if you’re an advanced Live user, the APC40 gives you the ability to remap every one of its controls to suit your own style.

 

 

VIRTUAL VIEW

The APC40 talks directly to Live and Live talks directly to the APC40. This exclusive bidirectional communication makes the APC40 an advanced controller in that it can receive feedback from the software and display it on its clip matrix of 40 triggers and on LED rings surrounding each knob. The clip matrix gives you an instant view of clip status: what's loaded, what's playing, and what's being recorded. Each state displays on the matrix in a different color so you can get a quick picture of clip state. You can shift your clip focus and get an overview of the clips you have loaded for your set. The APC40 has 16 knobs, each surrounded by a ring of LEDs. These LED rings make seeing your settings a breeze on dark stages, indicating the currently selected parameters’ values. This advanced visual feedback makes performing with the APC40 focused more on the music and less on squinting at the computer screen. In fact, you might even forget that the computer is there!

 

 

PREMIUM CONTROLS

Ableton selected Akai Professional as a partner because of its leadership position in great-feeling controllers that are rock solid, rugged, and precise. From the legendary MPC series that changed the way music is made to the industry-standard MPD and MPK controllers, Akai Professional is revered by musicians, DJs, and producers everywhere for creating the feel that powers their creativity. The APC40 is built with a rugged, metal chassis and slip-proof rubber detailing. Knobs and faders are solid and precise for pinpoint performance. It even features a high quality, replaceable crossfader.

 

 

CREATIVE CONTROL

The APC40 comes with a special edition of Ableton Live Lite so you can use it out of the box even if you’re new to Live. There's also a free patch that upgrades full versions of Live so if you're already a Live user, you can take full advantage of the APC40.

 

The APC40 has two banks of eight knobs. The first set controls Global parameters so you’ll always have instant access to your main sends, pans, and other essentials. The second bank of eight knobs is dynamically reassigned to the Track you select. You can control eight track parameters at a time, and as you switch channels, the Track knobs follow your focus. You also get special clip-status views and feedback that only the APC40's matrix can display. The matrix is not limited to only 40 clips: you can scroll and shift, enabling access to an unlimited number of cells.

 

The APC40 has a wide range of controllers. The eight Global knobs can access four banks of controls; the eight Track knobs control nine different track parameters each. This gives you a massive total of 72 controllers that are dynamically reassigned. Channel faders, bus faders, and a crossfader give you smooth control of key values. You have even more control power with special controls including Tap Tempo, Tempo Nudge, record enables, solo/cues and two assignable footswitch inputs.

 

Designed in partnership with Ableton, the APC40 is the most advanced Live controller for the most advanced performers.

 

Ableton and Ableton Live are trademarks of Ableton AG.

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Fucking genious if you ask me, glad someone has finally done this. I don't use ableton at the moment but I do have a future with it, I'm working on producing tracks but when tracks are done I'll be taking them apart and adding new material and taking it all to ableton for a live ting...at that point unless someone has made something better then this will be mine!

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Live is a piece of piss to use mate, it even comes with some tutorials which may take you an hour to go through but at the end you leant pretty much everything. It then takes a little while to get used to it and the key commands but it's very straight forward.

 

Personally I don't like it as a sequencer at all, although many people swear by it, however as a live tool it's the best there is.

 

Live lite is a bit shit though since I think it only has 2 or 4 channels or something.

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First thing I want to use it for is just making some custom remixes for DJ, but then I'd like to use it for recording mixes and making tracks. I would love to use it live but I know nothing about that so it's kinda overwhelming at the moment.

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First thing I want to use it for is just making some custom remixes for DJ, but then I'd like to use it for recording mixes and making tracks. I would love to use it live but I know nothing about that so it's kinda overwhelming at the moment.

 

mate, the live stuff is a piece of piss, basically you make a load of loops and samples (either in ableton or elsewhere), you then load them all into the ableton grid with each column being a channel and you just trigger them as and when you feel like it and ableton keeps it all in time and shit. You can then also mess with effects and plugin parameters it real time and that's about it tbh

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  • 1 month later...

I pretty much have moved over to all ableton sets. i pre-ordered my APC as well!!!! It's the most exciting thing to happen to me in a while. It reminds me of when serato came out. Reminisce...

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  • 6 months later...

Novation came out with a similar product for $199. Just a simple grid controller.

 

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/10/01/first-hands-on-novations-new-199-launchpad-grid-controller-for-ableton-live/

 

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I bought the launchpad last weekend after Gabe came into town and showed me it. Super cool. I have not barely done anything with it yet tho--been so busy. Gabe has this and the Akai one but both are good for different reasons... Launchpad is WAY more portable.

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