NEW: Welcome to The World of VIP Music Software | Effortless Integration, Enhanced Workflow
Experience expanded control of your VST instrument and effect collection with MPK88 and Akai Pro VIP3.0 (Free Download Included a $99.99 Value). VIP3.0 provides you with unparalleled access to your virtual instrument and effect collection, seamlessly integrating the hardware / software experience and grants the unrestricted freedom to create in a user-friendly, intuitive format. The combination of VIP and MPK88 maximizes workflow and ensures a playing experience that feels natural and enhances creativity – the natural, tactile feel of hardware fused with the unrivalled processing capability of virtual Instruments. Quickly find sounds based on instrument type, timbre, style or articulation from your entire VST library; sculpt immersive, expressive sounds and textures layering up to 8 separate instruments and patches per VIP instance; load up to 4 different VST effects per instrument channel to sculpt the perfect sound; put power into your performance with Pad Chord Progressions and user-friendly Key Control processors; and much more. From live performance to studio production, VIP’s user-friendly functionality coupled with a diverse feature set guarantees simple, seamless integration into your existing setup and provides the ultimate platform for unrestricted creative expression.
Piano-action production powerhouse.
The Akai Professional MPK88 is a professional performance keyboard controller with MPC production controls. The MPK88 draws on the design of the popular MPK49, the first keyboard ever to feature MPC pads. This first-of-its-kind keyboard is ideal for performance, starting with a premium, fully weighted, hammer-action keyboard, adding MPC pads, Q-Link controls, and a selection of MPC technologies. The MPK88 is born for the stage and is equally at home in the studio.
Creative Input
MPK88 features an 88-key keyboard and 16 genuine MPC pads. The hammer-action keyboard is fully weighted and features aftertouch for expressive melodic control. The MPC pads are pressure and velocity-sensitive to capture every nuance of your creative concepts. The pads can access four banks of sounds, so you have 64 samples at your fingertips with the touch of a button.
The MPK88 places dedicated transport controls within your reach for easy control of some of the most important tracking and editing controls. The MPK88 has modulation and pitch-bend wheels for expressive musicality, and two assignable footswitch inputs enable you to connect an expression pedal or other continuous controller and a footswitch for momentary controls like patch change or start/stop.
Q-Link Command
One of the most important input devices on an MPC is its Q-Link assignable control section. Akai Pro built a massive collection of Q-Links into the MPK series. The MPK88 gives you eight virtual knobs that are assignable to control nearly any software parameter. You can control three different parameters per knob thanks to the knobs' three-bank selection, totaling 24 parameters of instant, hands-on control. Like the virtual knobs, eight virtual faders and eight virtual buttons also control three banks of parameters each, so you get 24 virtual faders and 24 virtual buttons. That's 72 Q-Link controls!
Expressive Engine
Two technologies pioneered in the MPC series and built into the MPK series are MPC Note Repeat and MPC Swing. These note-modifying features can be heard in many of the most popular tracks over the last two decades. MPC Note Repeat is a capability that enables the MPK (or MPC) to automatically play a rhythm pattern, such as 16th notes on a hi-hat, for accuracy and speed of entry. MPC Swing is sometimes referred to as "the heart and soul of hip hop" because it turns perfectly aligned sequences into human feeling time alignments. You can specify exactly the degree and timing of swing you want to apply for the perfect feel.
The MPK88 has Key Split, enabling you to control two different sounds from the same keyboard. On top of MPC technologies, the MPK88 has its own arpeggiator, which enables you to create quick, creative riffs in seconds. Just pick a note or chord and a rhythm pattern in the arpeggiator's library and the MPK will play your notes in the rhythm and sequence you choose.
The MPK88 also has MPC Full Level and MPC 16-Level on its pads, as well as Tap Tempo and Time Division so you can nail the tempo, timing, and dynamics exactly as you hear them in your head.
Complete System
The MPK88 is a MIDI controller that sends its MIDI values over USB. It’s bus-powered, so all you need to connect and power the MPK88 is the supplied USB cable. Because it is MIDI-compliant, the MPK88 works with most MIDI recording, sequencing, and performance software for musical performers from keyboard players to producers to DJs and even VJs!
The MPK88 also comes with Ableton Live Lite Akai Pro Edition, one of the most popular and powerful performance and production programs in the world. Ableton Live Lite enables musicians to spontaneously compose, record, remix, improvise, and edit musical ideas in a seamless audio/MIDI environment.
Hit the stage with the only keyboard designed to enable you to perform the way today’s music is made.