Review: Akai APC40

Review: Anthony Touma

BUILT LIKE A BANK

The build quality of the APC40 is excellent. The pads and buttons are very responsive and have that classic Akai MPC feel to them. The knobs feel solid and smooth to the tweak, and the LED indicators that surround them are clear and precise. The faders have just the right amount of resistance to them and their sensitivity is spot on. The bank select and global play/stop/record buttons, on the other hand, are of the hard plastic variety, which is a bit disappointing from my perspective. Having said that, these are identical to the buttons used on the MPC series of Akai samplers, which have certainly been put through their paces over the years without too much complaint from the user base. The power supply is external to the unit and is of the classier rectangular brick variety, not the cheap and nasty wall wart. The case is sturdy, feeling very much like a ‘pro DJ’ mixer in its construction and the side panels are made of thick rubber for a good non-slip grip when handling and seating.

CONTROL

The 8 x 5 grid on the APC40 has three backlit colours that indicate where and what is going on in Live. The colour orange indicates that the respective clip slot in Live is loaded with a clip but isn’t playing. Green indicates the clip is playing, Red indicates the clip slot is armed to record and no colour indicates… yep, you guessed it, an empty slot. This colour scheme is very helpful; the colour-coded lights succinctly clarify what’s going on in your project, even in the dark. Launching scenes is also a doddle, as each row of eight clip pads is provided with a scene launch button, which will fire all loaded clips at a single press. At the base of each vertical set of pads, a ‘stop all clips pad’ is also ready to go at a single button press. Beneath these controls there are also solo buttons (which can be used across multiple channels simultaneously), an arm record button, and a route to cue for previewing clips in the cans.

In use, the grid on the APC40 is truly inspirational. Almost immediately, the need to fiddle with a mouse goes straight out the window, and more importantly perhaps, using the controller makes things so much more fun and natural. Within seconds I found myself soloing and muting tracks more than I ever had before, for the simple fact that, to me, pushing buttons feels like a far more musical experience than navigating strategically with a mouse and clicking its various buttons. In many respects this initial experience of the APC40 was like using Live for the first time. I was hooked.

ROTATION, ROTATION

The eight encoders at the top right of the APC40 are, as mentioned earlier, endless, and for good reason. Coupled with the LED indicators that surround them, these encoders allow you to switch between banks and always remain informed of exactly what a fader’s given level is every time at a glance, rather than being locked into a previous bank’s position. Beneath these eight knobs are four buttons: Pan, and sends A, B and C. Pressing these options will assign the eight knobs respectively to each of these four modes, each knob belonging to one of the eight channels in the grid – knob one, channel one etc. The placement of these knobs is a little peculiar in some respects, and perhaps best illustrates Akai’s decision not to adopt a conventional channel strip layout. Making the unit slightly shallower and a touch longer would have allowed for send and pan controls to sit directly above the faders, which would have given the unit a more traditional (and some would argue more ergonomic) feel. Having said that, the current layout certainly allowed for my tweaking hand to go to town while my left hand triggered pads and worked levels, which made the unit feel a lot more like an instrument as opposed to a controller or mixer. The space between the pads, channel faders and knobs really lets you use both hands efficiently and dynamically, which inspires a style of Live performance I’d never experienced before; making it really easy to fall in love with.

The eight encoders for effects and instrument control are also of the endlessly-rotating variety. Considerable forethought went into the layout and design of these dials because almost all of Live’s instruments are also laid out in sets of eight dials. Pressing the left and right arrow buttons under the banks allows you to flick through each effect in the chain on any particular channel. This, like the Track Control section of faders, is kept in sync with the 8 x 5 grid, ensuring you’re always dealing with the same eight channels highlighted in your project. For all effects in Live 8, the first four knobs are for typical controls (such as ADSR or Wet/Dry etc, depending on the effect) and the remaining four dials are unique to each effect. In instances where more than eight parameters are required, pressing the ‘shift’ key along with any one of the eight buttons beneath the controls will give you access to a second bank of controls (four banks in total), all of which are assignable to suit your tweaking needs. I found I didn’t need to switch to another bank for anything, and between scrolling through channels, tweaking FX and adjusting instrument parameters I was more than adequately covered by the static layout. Moreover, given the way Live is designed, the immediacy of having the most common parameters at the forefront of the GUI is something the APC design has taken advantage of and adopted very well.

The fader controls in the APC40 are again, very ‘Pro DJ mixer’ in their vibe. These eight, high-quality channel faders (nine, if you include the master fader) control volume levels with a nice combination of accuracy and feel. Unity gain resides about three quarters of the way up the fader, mirroring the software mixer in Live faithfully. Automated faders would have blown this fish right out of water in my book, but I guess this extra bonus would have blown the price tag out along with it. It may also have made that APC a little less appealing to some, considering it’s a controller, not a mixer.

The 10th fader – the horizontal feather-light crossfader that’s positioned at the bottom right-hand side of the unit – makes flicking from channel A to channel B (which are selections made per channel in Ableton) fast and enjoyable. The DJ fader is great for performance. It provides real-time fades between elements of compositions or entire tracks, and can be flogged without fear. Akai has also wisely designed this heavily used aspect of the controller to be easily replaced. To swap the fader over with a new one, simply remove the two screws from the underside of the APC and unplug the small PCB board that mounts the fader. Done. This is exceptionally thoughtful engineering on Akai’s front.

Above this crossfader are the global play/stop buttons, and although these require a confident press to register your command, they’re certainly in the hot zone if you find yourself crossfading passionately during a performance. There are also two nudge buttons and a tap tempo button located midway up the right-hand side of the controller (immediately to the right of the bank select buttons and between the two banks of knobs) putting them in easy reach during a performance. The nudge +/– controls allow for momentary tempo adjustments to the track, which can be used to give you a better sync with external sound sources such as a DJ or band, for example. The tap tempo button is also available for this purpose. The Bank Select buttons are again, typically Akai in appearance: a set of four arrows, one in each direction. A press to the right will shift all controls (grid and knobs alike) one channel to the left, turning Live Channel 2 into Channel 1 on the APC etc. Shifting up and down with this control set will also move things up and down a scene. It’s quite easy to get used to and almost impossible to get lost with the GUI constantly highlighting and reflecting these onboard movements.

Almost all the controls on the APC are, as mentioned earlier, well lit for use in darker environments, but unfortunately the associated labeling on the buttons – which are white – are hard to read in the dark; especially the shift options (labelled red). Maybe glow-in-the-dark labeling might be a consideration for the inevitable MKII version.

HOPELESSLY DEVOTED

Being a devout Live user, the APC is a real breath of fresh air and a bit of kit that lives up to all the hype. It truly inspired me to work in a new way from the moment I laid hands on it, and allowed me to enhance my current compositions significantly. I never felt limited using Live before, but the tight integration between Live and the APC has suddenly convinced me that there’s a brave new world of Live tunes out there just begging to be developed taking this different approach. Akai is no stranger to developing legendary gear, of course, and the APC40 is right up there with the best of them. Considering its size, it’ll easily fit in a backpack, and for what it does, I’d consider it a very light piece of gear (at less than 3kg). For new users who are curious about the Ableton Live software, the APC40 also comes with a version of Ableton Live Lite to get you going, and for anyone using Live in performance, you’d be hard pressed to find an excuse not to own one – the APC40 could easily cut your current live rig down to itself and a notebook. It has for me.