MusicRadar

A well-spaced layout means that the MPD32 is great performance tool.

1 of 2 » View in gallery

• Review

With the audio production market now full of control surfaces, Akai is relying on the classic look of its MPC range to make the MPD32 stand out from the crowd. It’s bigger than its predecessor, the MPD24, offers more controls and sports a more pleasing black/dark grey colour scheme.

The DAW control features have been expanded too, but can the MPD32 serve as useful partner for your sequencer and as a drum/MIDI programming tool?

Overview

As with the MPD24, this unit is a USB beast that can be bus powered, although when used in a standalone MIDI mode, a 6v DC supply is needed (though isn’t supplied).

Once plugged in the unit shows up as three separate USB/MIDI devices. This means that 48 MIDI channels can be utilised to create a wide-ranging DAW control, MIDI instrument triggering and program/parameter change structure without having to get too conservative.

Of course ‘wide ranging’ can also mean ‘confusing’, and this is where a well-made menu/edit system can make all the difference - a point that shall be addressed once we’ve taken a tour of the broad interface.

As well as the 16 MPC-style pads, eight rotary knobs and eight faders (with eight lit toggle switches beneath) there are three more input possibilities: rear jack sockets for one expression pedal and two footswitches.

The final controls come in the form of a transport section (record, play, stop, forward and rewind). These can communicate transport information with software via four different protocols: CC number, MMC, MIDI/ SysEx, and a MIDI/MMC combination.

In use

The pads, faders and switches feel just like they always have on the MPCs, though the knobs have been altered as they can now rotate continuously. The controls all feel solid enough to endure a fair battering and the layout is quick to navigate, though the plastic chassis is a little uninspiring.

We worried that it might be difficult to get all the pads, knobs and faders doing what we wanted, but it turns out to be easy. Apart from a few global settings, most of the editing only involves one screen on the backlit display, which is accessed by pressing the Edit button after tweaking the knob/fader/ switch in question.

The pads and switches can be used to send program change messages, while the knobs and faders can be assigned to control aftertouch. All CC ranges can be set (ie, minimum and maximum values), which is essential to prevent overshooting on filter resonance control, for instance, or limiting DAW fader throws to peak at 0dB.

The MIDI programming side of the MPD32 keeps many of the familiar MPC functions. The 16 pads are extended by the four pad bank switches that allow for four sets of pad assignments – this is one of the functions that really helped the MPCs become such renowned performance tools.

The Full Level switch enables you to set all the pads to send velocity at 127, and 16 Levels maps the last pressed pad’s note number to all 16 pads with the velocity numbers increasing up the pads from 7 to 127.

Again, from the MPC side there is the Note Repeat function, which does what it says. The repeating can be assigned to either momentary or toggling behaviours, and Gate and Swing parameters are on the next edit page to make the most of those repeats. Tap Tempo and Time Division switches come into play here too, though tempo can be set per preset (ie, global setup) or to incoming MIDI clock.