If I owned any of the three, I would open them up to see what's going on in the circuitboard section (not key section of course). Now, I don't know if this will work for the MPK49, MPK61, or MPK88, but it's worth a try. After this mod, I have a perfect control surface as well as a killer pad combo. but I was going to sell it because I hated the pads so much. As a control surface, the MPD32 is fantastic. Everyone should try this if they use an MPD32 or MPD24. I even can lower the sensitivity and up the threshold in my MPD32 (I had lowest threshold before and max sensitivity and the pads STILL sucked before modding). my god, it's like the PadKontrol (which has perfect pads). I cut them into little squares just about the size of the circular rubber pads which push against the sensors, and, layering the tape up 4 layers on most of the pads (2 layers thick on one row, which is all it needed)- the sensitivity of the pads is DRASTICALLY improved. except using electrical tape instead of the tape he mentioned. I did something similar last night with my MPD32. Ok, so back to me and my ultimate success with the MPD32 modification. Save your sanity and connect an external powerpack and use the MIDI port instead!." It will crash your system and/or it will exhibit erratic MIDI timin'g when the system gets even moderately busy.
PS: The USB driver for this thing is total crap. Now I have an actually useful gadget that is actually doing what I expected of it in the first place! If any pad appears not to be operating any more, press each side in gently, as it may have temporarily jammed on the case frame that happened to me putting the unit together. Now the unit should respond to the lightest finger tap. When you have all 16 sensor pads covered, just rub a sheet of paper over the whole thing to make sure that the rubber tape is pressed down firmly, then replace the pads on top. The tape will sit without sliding around. Anyway, all you do is cut squares of this tape, about the size of the outer border of each sensor, and peel off the backing tape, then place the smooth side of the rubber tape (one side is textured, the other is smooth) to face the sensor surface. I think it's also known as amalgamating tape. Most hardware stores should have this it is black rubber tape that is just under an inch wide and about 1/32 inch thick, and it has a peel-off plastic backing. You need a roll of pipe repair tape for the trick. Also, as a modification, it's totally non-destructive, no glue or anything like that. This means you have to give the rubber pad a fair old whack before you get any kind of a MIDI event out of the Akai.Īnyway, after a little bit of thought, I came up with a cunning plan which ended up working brilliantly. But it isn't actually quite touching the sensor pad. Looking at the rubber pad sheet, there's a convex dome underneath which makes contact with the sensor pad. Tap these and, hey, it's really quite sensitive. there's a circuit board with black square sensors, covered in mylar film. To do this, remove all the screws and gently pull the fader knob off the front, then just lift off the lid and the rubber pad assembly just peels off. Let's pull the lid off and see how those big rubber pads do their thing. Since it's sat on the shelf for two years, it's sure out of warranty. I sulked back into the studio and glared malevolently at the Akai.īut wait. This was a big disappointment, and it only felt worse the other day when I played with the Korg Pad Kontrol and realised how much more sensitive its pads are to the Akai. It was easier to use the keyboard for drum parts. After playing around for a little while I just gave up and put it on the shelf. However, the pad sensitivity isn't really very good and a very firm finger tap is needed to trigger it. "I imagine quite a few people bought one of these planning on tapping out rhythms in Sonar. it all started from this post I saw on the Cakewalk Sonar forum, which I wanted to quote here, and add to. Hey guys, I hot-rodded an MPD32 recently, and wanted to detail the steps on how and why.