Need Help Deciding Midi!
Hey guys,
Anyways I wanted to get started with DJ’ing and just writing my own music. Anyways, I’ve come down to three choices of midi keyboards. I only want a 25 key, portable (Occasional drag from school to home and vice versa) and is pretty good.
I’ve come down to the
Korg NanoKey2
M-Audio Axiom 25
Akai MPK 25
If you can, please rate the keyboards and if possible, please suggest which one I should go with and why?
How about an m-audio oxegen? There cheep and have 8 rotaries that you can assign. There is also a sweet djtt mapping for use with traktor. It’d be able to do both and you can pick them up off ebay for under £40. Much better build quality than any of the mico controlers and a hell of allot cheeper than the mpk so you wont have to worry about smashing it up
What’s the difference between the oxygen and axiom series? I’m looking for a midi controller that has keys, a few rotaries, octave up and down, modulators, faders, appregiators and at leasy 6 drum pads.
So please help me decide.
Korg nanokey2 , axiom 25 and akai mpk mini.
What’s the difference between the axiom 25.v1 and v2?
Oxygen doesn’t have pads. 
Any suggestions though? Id really like the pads.. only reason why I’m including nanokey2 is because of its portability
Check out this:
That should give you a good idea og what you might need.
Honestly, think about being modular with your setup.
Get a keyboard to be a keyboard, a thing for drum pads to be that thing, and then get something with buttons/faders/knobs for doing that, at least from a production standpoint IMO.
While I can appreciate the all-in-ones I feel like something is lacking in one aspect or another from all of them.
Unless size is the big issue, but even then.
Agreed. Definitely from a production standpoint, and even still, for DJing. From my experience, all-in-one units are lacking in at least one department (usually the pads). I’d suggest spending a little more just to get a dedicated pad controller (if that’s definitely something you would like), a keyboard with a small set of knobs or encoders (oxygen 25 has worked phenomenally for me, both DJing and producing), and then something simple for faders and more knobs/encoders (similar a nanokontrol, but probably a little more robust if you’re going to be travelling with it at all).
In that case, I don’t think I’ll be using faders alot.
I’m looking for a keyboard with the octaves, modulations, arpregiators.
And a controller for dedicated pads.
Arpeggiators are not something you’ll find in the MIDI controller world. Pretty sure you’d be looking into a workstation for that, or software controls.
Oh really? The akai mpk mini has one. I’m only looking for beginner intermediate leveled controllers. Not only that but id rather get an all in one. But if two are necessary its fine.. id just rather have an arpregiator instead of playing them all.
I stand corrected. haha. And it has the pads (which I would trust more than any other brand releasing an all-in-one). I will say from experience though that those knobs are rather short and not as playable as I’d like, but you may find differently.
No matter what you decide, you should definitely go and play with it a bit in a store first. Go somewhere that has a handful of them lined up on display and play with each one to find the features you like the most. I’d want to feel the fader response/stiffness, see how the pads respond, how the general construction feels, and if the knobs and encoders are easy to grab at quickly. Chances are you’re not going to get exactly what you’re looking for out of one controller, so decide which aspects are the most important and which ones can be a little more lacking (for example, the pads don’t have to be spot on if you plan on an additional controller just for quality pads).
So you think the akai woud have better pads than the axiom?
I can’t vouch for the Axiom, as I’ve never used it. But pads come down to preference more than any other control you’ll use. Everybody expects something different out of their pads. It all depends on how you play them and what you use them for. That would be the biggest reason I’d want to play around with the controller before buying it.
Kind of unrelated, but I’ve gone through 4 Korg NanoPads. I LOVE the response and feel of them. There’s essentially no travel when they’re hit, and they can be played very quickly because of it. HOWEVER, pretty much anybody that’s owned a NanoPad can tell you that the general construction is $H!T. They don’t take abuse, which is obviously bad for DJs that toss them in a backpack, beat on them at the club, and generally…abuse it. haha.
Well I plan to keep mine at home for production. And occasionally to school when I collab a beat. So normally no abuse there. I just plan to use the pads for drums and samples when needeed.
Really the best advice I can give is to try them all. Make a list of what you want included, in order of importance, and go try a dozen different controllers. Nothing beats hands on.
Yea. I know.. I’m actually going to go to guitar center to try them out. But thank you so much for your help. I’ve been trying to figure that out.. the order of importance. Like honestly.. are knobs and faders really that useful. I’m just really looking for the basic keyboard functions and pads.
Again, it’s what you need it for. Knobs and faders are indispensable for DJing (at least for me). For producing, most programs allow you to map them to effect parameters for automation, which is super useful.
Ah I see. Once again I’ll just test and see. Whichever to me has the best response.
I just came back from guitar center. Anyways
I’ve decided between an AKAI MPK 25 or a Korgnanokey/Nanopad (both of them)
Any advice?