Comments on: Akai APC40 Video from Ableton; More Controllers Coming

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 23:00:50 +0000

Anyone know if the APC40 will have the ability out of the box to assign the faders to one group of eight tracks and the clip matrix to another?

I’m gonna be sadly disappointed if every channel strip is hardwired together and us poor saps have to wait for Max for Live to remap them…

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:02:30 +0000

Would be good to have EQ for each channel – create more knobs (yes i know!)
just a basic hi-mid-low instead of having to filter in between base lines to get a decent fluent mix.

By: Aaron Liven

Aaron Liven — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:54:55 +0000

To follow up on my own comment, I asked Akai about the compatibility question.

They stated that some CC messages are hardwired into the APC40 for use with Ableton. Therefore, the hardware messages cannot be changed, but as long as the software supports remapping it’s controls to different CC messages it will all work fine.

By: Aaron Liven

Aaron Liven — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:45:35 +0000

I’m really interested in buying this, but only if it’s compatible and works properly with other software as well.

I’ve also found the lack of information on the topic from Akai interesting and slightly suspicious.

By: frabo

frabo — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:40:32 +0000

but it is not powered by usb ..!?hmmm

By: Introducing the APC 40 | AaronRutledge.com

Introducing the APC 40 | AaronRutledge.com — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:35:06 +0000

[...] YouTube – Touch – Introducing the APC 40. [...]

By: Create Digital Music » New Music Tech Round-Up: NAMM in a Nutshell on CDM

Create Digital Music » New Music Tech Round-Up: NAMM in a Nutshell on CDM — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:23:09 +0000

[...] and mixing. You can customize it with Max for Live and get interactive control of the program; see videos and hardware shots for [...]

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 02:18:56 +0000

@mercury: I haven’t seen any evidence that the APC can’t be used with other software. Curiously, Akai hasn’t made *any* mention of that either way. (I mean, obviously they’d emphasize the Ableton angle, but still a bit odd.) It uses MIDI, so I expect it will work. The catch is, I don’t know what will happen with the lights on the encoders or the triggers.

By: mercury

mercury — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 02:07:02 +0000

can you use this as a controller for other software like FL studio, etc, in addition to Ableton? I would hope it acts as a basic MIDI controller via USB…but I won’t assume…

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:20:09 +0000

Nothing against Mac OS, folks, but touch capabilities are available in Windows right now and baked into Windows 7, which ships before the next Mac OS is likely to ship. There’s already multi-touch capable hardware.

Anyway, whether it’s 2009 or not, buttons have tactile feedback, touchscreens don’t. (And the so-called “haptic” touchscreens don’t do much, because they still make positioning your fingers a challenge.)

I’ll choose buttons for this kind of work any day. Touch is great, but not exclusively.