Akai Professional MPK Mini Play MK3 - MIDI Keyboard Controller with Built-in Speaker and Sounds Plus Dynamic Keybed, MPC Pads, Software Suite and Native Instruments Sound Package

This MPK Mini Play MK3 is tiny and fits in my small overnight duffel along with a sustain pedal and stereo monitors (plus clothes and travel stuff)... amazing. I've owned many expensive full-size keyboards (like RD2000), and the synth sounds from this AKAI are surprisingly good and a reasonable General MIDI selection. Pianos, E-pianos, clav and harpsi are all good; organs are limited; basses are fine; string ensembles good but violin/viola not useful to me, drums are adequate, etc. The reverb is nice. The drum pads work while the keys are being played, so we've had two people playing on this tiny device... very fun. The keys are velocity sensitive (not weighted) and work fine for a 2-pound instrument. The joystick is very clever: push left to modulate volume (fade in, or volume dips for brass), right for vibrato, up and down for pitch shift. The octave transpose is essential (get the bass into the right register, get to the high strings) and designed just right. Too bad there isn't a chromatic transpose: for such a short keyboard, it would be nice to transpose on a song-by-song basis so we get the most of the keys that are here. The sustain pedal I like is item B08NSZFGC1, labeled Sovvid for $13. It works perfectly and is extremely lightweight. Most of my sustain pedals are very heavy, which is great for staying in place on stage but for travel this one is ideal. It is even lighter than a small footswitch. And it works with both electrical standards (normally open / normally closed). The lightweight speakers I carry are item B09PFGJ94L, Pyle 5.25" woofer 2-way active, though many other models (including active PC speakers with subwoofer) would work fine. Rated 300 watts (skeptica), these are plenty loud enough for a living room and they sound fine (but lacking deep powerful bass, as expected). Plug in the AKAI keyboard with a 3.5mm 15-ft stereo cable like Startech item B004G3WCNK $8. These Pyle speakers need a length of 2-conductor speaker or lamp cord to connect the passive speaker to the active one. In a pinch, the AKAI keyboard could be connected to a television analog audio input. The keyboard itself has a tiny speaker, but it's very limited.

This is a wonderful instrument. I love being able to sit anywhere and experiment with sounds and chords. The range of the keyboard is limiting but it forces you to think more simply when creating, but that is what makes the keyboard extremely portable. The octave range buttons somewhat make up for limited keys. If I were to buy again, I would probably get the 37 key version, although it would make it less portable. Decent sounds that can be altered to your liking with good built-in speaker. So much fun.

Someone always asks “Is there a midi keyboard that has its own internal sounds?” Yes. The MPK Mini Play. “How many notes of polyphony? Is it velocity sensitive?” 32 notes. Yes, it’s velocity sensitive. “Does it have a looper or a sequencer?” Nope. It would be amazing if it did. “How are the sounds?” They are adequate You can modify them to some extent and it has some effects. “Who is this for?” Whoever wants a really small keyboard that makes sounds, takes batteries, and has its own built in speaker. It also can be used as a midi keyboard. “Aren’t there other small keyboards like that?” I have a Roland boutique with the optional keyboard in the picture next to the MPK Mini Play. It’s a bit larger, it can make a lot more different sounds but it costs a lot more. “Should I buy this keyboard?” Absolutely not. “What?!?” Alright. You should buy it. It really needs a sequencer, though. You could run it through a looper pedal, so you could make a drum beat, then play another instrument on top of it, but that costs as much as the Mini Play. “Dude, buy or no buy?” I really like the drum pads on this thing. The display is small but looks good, better than the dated display on the Roland Boutique. This thing is a couch synth for the casual player. Sometimes that’s all you need. If you need more, get more. It’s not a “real synth”, meaning you can’t design your own sounds from scratch. You can’t add any samples. But I paid $150, not $500 or $1000. Manage your expectations.

Works great standalone and as a midi controller. Unfortunately one of the keys has already stopped working :-/

There aren't many options when thinking in midi controllers, built in sounds and built in speakers, AND portability. While most modern Casio or Yamaha personal keyboards got USB and can be used as midi controllers, none are as portable as this is. Except for the PSSA50 from Yamaha, which is the other one I was considering, but the lack of reverb and knobs made me move away from it. So I decided to give this akai a chance, and when I got it, I realized it is exactly what I wanted: -Super tiny and portable -Built in speaker (mono, yes, but good enough for playing around) -Built in very good quality sounds (many are really nice. The synth pads and brass are among my favorites) -4 knobs for tweaking with 2nd function each, you get 8 parameters that can be modified on the fly. This includes Attack, Release, equalizer for highs, eq for lows, amount of chorus effect, amount of reverb effect, filter and resonance, being these last two the most fun to use. -Arpeggiator. While it doesn't have a chord option, you can set amount of octaves, playing direction (let's say: random notes, notes up, notes down, up and down, exclude or include border notes. -I'm using 4 Epoch AA 1.5V lithium USB rechargeable batteries, they are quite new in the market but I can recommend them, I haven't had to recharge them yet and I'm using the keyboard on max volume for hours now. I'm still getting familiar with it, but first days with it surprised me quite a lot. I can recommend this keyboard if you want everything it sports.

My son loves music and making music and really wanted to add this to his growing collection of electronic music equipment. This is his favorite! It works awesome and he uses it every single day! Very easy to use. Worth the money! He bought the case to go with it and keep it safe wherever he goes. The design is cool and just right to have a wide variety of sound but not huge and bulky.

This is a great little MIDI keyboard I really like everything about it except for, MCPB Is a digital audio workstation made by a car that you can use to make beats on,. The regular mini version of this the dials control some of the controls on the program but on the play version the dial will not control anything on that program so you have to use your mouse and control the dials on the PC, instead of doing it from the keyboard itself, that kind of bothers me I don't understand why they couldn't have made at least some of the dials control the couple main controls you would use, I mean I get this is a little different but I still think those dials should be able to control some of the things on MCP beats but besides that, it's probably not as big of a deal as it sounds because you can still adjust that just fine on the software itself but overall I miss this very nice. If I had it to do over again I think I would have just bought the regular mini and not the play for that reason, I thought I was going to use the built-in speaker a lot more than I do, but generally if I'm going to play it I'm just plugging into the computer, Everything about this is great and works perfect except for those dials don't work on The MCP beats digital audio workstation or DAW, whatever you want to call it But again you can still adjust them with your mouse

The Akai Professional MPK Mini Play MK3 - MIDI Keyboard Controller with Built-in Speaker and Sounds is exactly as described and lots of fun. It is very lightweight. It functions great. The key sensitivity feels great. It plugs into my laptop and connects to my DAW without any problems. I especially like that I don't need to connect it to my computer or my DAW to make a little tune. It is well worth the money. I will buy it again if this one gets damaged.