AKAI Professional MPK Mini MK3 Reviews

Perfection

It gets job done.

Best Mini Midi for the money

It works fine. The keys are smaller and the pressure is not very good. However for this money you really get a lot

Not bad

All good with this midi keyboard. One thing i don’t like in particular is the “feeling” of the keys (i.e. soft playing is not loud at all).

Good product

Everything is just perfect, but pads are to hard to push :)

AKAI Professional MPK Mini MK3

The midi keyboard is cool, the only thing it lacks is a separate 9 volt power supply. The rest is cool stuff.

Pads are terrible

This worked fine at first then the pads became practically useless. Sent back to Germany for repair. Unit is better now, but still not as it was.

Keys are very small and the joystick is a gimmick.

It's a bit of a toy, and a disappointing one at that sadly.

Great

I've been using this one for 4 years, daily. And I share It with my brother. I only had to by a new one now. I am very pleased with it and its new design.

Nice little starter keyboard

Good intro to midi keyboards, enough for me to plug in to Ableton and start music. Box feels a little plasticky, no real weight to it, but otherwise does the job well.

Keys and pads velocity works well. Supprised with the force required to register max velocity, I have no experience as to whether that's normal or not for these things. Pads and keys do respond well to subtle touches, so happy for normal playing. Jut have to really mash the pads/keys for it to register as a hard strike.

Software is a bit limited and dated, and single licence means I cant install simultaneously on my PC and mac.... However the voice library with the AKAI software is pretty comprehensive.

All in all, happy with the product.

Great value for price

Great value for price, not highest quality, great features, portable midi controller

Does the job

I just needed something to control garageband and add some keys and drums, it does it perfectly.

I pu 3 inquality as I am running in a M1 macbook mini and the soft provided is not working properly so far.

Good

Good midi, light weight, solid construction and nice keyboard

Good mini keyboard if you can live with small keys

Good quality overall, but the keys are very small. I am not a keyboard player, bought the Akai to learn a bit of piano. Loved the pads and the knobs, hated the keys. Creating your own MIDI bindings in the AKAI editor software is a pain as you have to manually put in note numbers, AKAI mention a pull up menu for note names, but it's nowhere to be found at least not in the latest version of the software. I sold the piano after two months. I think M-Audio Oxygen 49 Mk4 is a much better offer if you're ready to shell out 20 euro more.

gutes Gerät

Ich finde es toll, wie viele Funktionen es mit sich bringt. Die Qualität ist super. Für Anfänger ist es aber ein bisschen schwierig sich einzufinden.

Gold standard

In this case version MK3 means a highly refined hero product. Well done! This device is inspiring. I use it as an small and powerful mobile alternative to the full studio. I throw this in my guitar bag side pouch with an interface, microphone, laptop, and a few cables, and boom I have an instant minimalist music production setup. Since it's all USB bus powered, it's truly mobile. The drum pads and keys on the Akai are quality and viable as an instrument. Endless encoders are a cool bonus - one less problem to deal with. Display is clean and sharp. The mod/pitch stick is pretty wild, but it gets the job done. To me this product is the benchmark in its category early 2021

Sequencers

I can make nice sequencers with it. Like the way i want. Everything you can adjust manually easy. And pretty small perfect for Desk setup.

I used it with waveform synth and drum plugins

All works good. No complaints

It's Good for the price

This one is solid for the price so far so good tested it work well, for the first timer MIDI user for me it's good, maybe a bit dirt magnet for the pad. overall it's good still.

Perfect combination of size, quality, features, and price

I have this keyboard for two months now and I am super happy about it. I use it as a small and mobile input to my MIDI setup and to create short melodies and sometimes just to have fun.

The quality (for the price) is quite high. I really like the feeling and the response of the pads. The whole thing is fully programmable and with 8 pads and 8 knobs it's completely enough for my use case to also act as a MIDI controller for my AUM setup on iPad.

Pros:

- quality for the price

- size

- programmable (the note and command code of all pads and knobs can be changed)

- No driver needed (Mac and iPad)

cons:

- the software package that comes with it is amazing, but the only thing is that somehow Akai makes it hard to download them. I had hard time finding the program editor, but once you get them, you are all set.

Con:

I'd definitely recommend this for beginners and advanced musicians

I purchased this as I needed something on the budget to compose my music on, as a laptop keyboard was very inconvenient. I am a beginner and I haven't had experience with many MIDI keyboards, but I can tell that this just does the job! It's such a small yet powerful tool! It doesn't take up much space, it looks nice, and connects to my MacBook without a problem. I use it with Garage Band for now and it works great. I would definitely recommend it!

Pros

light but sturdy

range of options

simple after reading a manual or watching a short tutorial

fun to play with

cons

the keyboard is very small so can get clumsy

no sustain option

Superb keyboard for the price.

I’m not a professional pianist, but I am a professional sound engineer.


I mostly work with live instruments, but most projects I do these days include at least some software instruments. So far I’ve got by with an old M-Audio keyboard, but I needed something better for a theatre-project I was working on. I wanted a portable and nice feeling keyboard that could make playing and recording synths and especially percussion easier, and this one ticked all the boxes for me: Small and light weight, pads, rotary encoders and a nice price.

Pros:

Keys feel nice. I like that they’re a bit stiff.

The rotary (endless) encoders are a huge plus.



The pads are very good. Velocity sensitivity is very good.

Excellent portability. Low weight and small frame means this will fit in the smallest of bags.

Cons:

Keys are a bit on the small side, but it’s not a huge issue unless you’re expecting real piano keys. I don’t play “real” piano, so I don’t care much, but my significant other, who’s a pianist, absolutely hates the size of the keys.

The joystick, instead of separate mod and pitch wheels, is so-so. It’s not a dealbreaker for me, but I would prefer wheels.