AKAI

APC40

Live is a great performance tool – and the APC40 looks set to revolutionise the way you interact with it. Hollin Jones plugs in.

KEY FEATURES ■ Designed

specifically for Ableton Live ■ Unique clip

matrix system ■ No drivers

required ■ Bi-directional

communication ■ MIDI via USB ■ Transport

controls ■ Multiple rotary

encoders and faders ■ Crossfader ■ Two footswitch

inputs

APC40 Manufacturer AKAI Price £400 Contact Numark 01252 341400 Web www.apc40.com Minimum system requirements PC 1.5GHz processor, Windows XP, 512MB RAM, QuickTime 6.5 Mac G4 1GHz, Mac OSX 10.3.9, 512MB RAM, QuickTime 6.5

Ableton Live takes a unique approach to the task of recording and producing music, and version 8 brings some great new features. Something else it has gained is support for the APC40, a new hardware controller created by AKAI and Ableton and designed specifically to control Live. The pairing is a logical one, with AKAI having years of experience designing tactile controllers and sequencers (first with its MPC series and, more recently, the MPD and MPK products), while Live, arguably more than any other DAW, cries out for a realtime controller, emphasising loopbased, spontaneous music creation.

Even in its earliest days, Live was favoured among DJs and remixers for its ‘punch-in and out’ workflow. Now with many more features and the new APC40, it is aiming to be the best on the block for performers.

Look and feel The APC40 is solidly built and follows AKAI’s family in terms of its looks. Around the back you’ll find power and USB ports, plus two footswitch inputs. All MIDI is transmitted via USB and you’ll need to use the supplied power unit, as the 380 LEDs draw more power than USB supplies.

There’s no real setup involved and you don’t need to install drivers. We simply went into Live’s MIDI Preferences after plugging in the APC40, selected it as a control surface and everything worked as advertised. It ships with a special Lite version of the software, which can be upgraded later if you decide you need the full version. Live 7 with the latest updates will apparently also work with the controller, so you won’t necessarily have to upgrade to version 8.

The pads in the 8x5 grid are not, as they first appear, regular MIDI triggers as on a drum machine, but rather clip launch buttons that correspond to the tracks and slots in Live’s Session View. When you connect the controller, a red outline appears, showing you which banks and clips the pads will currently control. These work in sets of five and by using the Bank Select cursors you can move the focus around to select different sets of pads. By holding down the [Shift] button while doing this you move five at a time. The pads are colour-coded to show you which slots have content in them, whether they are active, stopped or recording.

Underneath each of the eight tracks is a Clip Stop button for muting the clip and a Track Select button to give focus to the track. Beneath these you’ll find buttons to activate, solo/cue and recordarm a track, plus a dedicated fader. Running down the right-hand side of the grid are five Scene Launch buttons for bringing in whole scenes, a Stop All Clips button and a Master button to jump straight to the master track.

Controlling a set using these pads is remarkably easy and intuitive, and despite there being no data display on the controller itself you’ll find that it’s not difficult to keep up with what’s going on if you just keep an eye on the screen (and do your preparation if performing). Live being the program it is, the loops stay in sync, so even just being able to launch, mix and control clips and scenes in this way already makes this a

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The sturdily built APC40 controller is stylistically reminiscent of other AKAI products. On its rear panel it features two footswitch controls alongside the power and USB ports.

powerful DJ tool. As you might have expected, though, there’s rather more to it than that.

Take control At the top right of the APC40 is the Track Control section. For whichever of the eight tracks is currently selected, you can alter pan and send A, B and C levels. The endless rotary encoders display LEDs to show you the settings you’re making and, like everything here, communication is bi-directional, so changes you make in the software will

both, switching between them using arrow buttons. Then, when you switch to another track with different effects, the controls instantly map accordingly and the LED lights change to refl ect the new settings. In use it’s seamless and encourages you to get hands-on with sound-mangling. It’s also great for changing parameters on instruments in real time, and although the encoders don’t automatically map to third-party VST or AU instruments, they can still be controlled. In the box that Live displays for an instrument, click Confi gure and

If you want to take better control of your Live system, the APC40 is hard to beat.

display on the hardware as well, which is particularly useful for visual feedback when automation has been recorded.

Next there’s a Device Control section with eight encoders. These are assigned dynamically to any effects or instruments inserted on any track you select, and mapped to important parameters on that plug-in. So, for example, one track might have a reverb and a compressor applied, and you would fi nd that the eight knobs controlled the major parameters on

move the controls in the interface. They are then remembered by Live and mapped to the APC40’s controllers.

DJ-feel Moving further down, you can toggle between Clip and Track Views, mute or activate effects or instruments on a pertrack basis, activate MIDI overdub recording and bring the click in and out. There are also Play, Stop and Record controls and a crossfader to toggle between tracks when they are set as A

These pads are clip launch buttons rather than the regular MIDI triggers they resemble. They correspond to and control tracks and slots in Live’s Session View.

MEASURING UP

Since the APC40 is designed specifi cally to work with and control Ableton Live, it’s rather short on competition. The alternatives would involve taking a regular MIDI controller and using a MIDI map or programming it to control the software, as has been the usual approach in the past. Behringer’s BCF2000 (around £125) is much simpler and has fewer controls. The Mackie Control C4 (£350) doesn’t have faders but is designed to integrate with virtual instruments as well as effects and has 32 V-pot encoders with LED lights. AKAI’s own MPD32 (£250) is more generic than the APC40 but it has MPC pads for note input and sequencing, faders and an LCD display.

or B tracks using Live’s crossfader section. This is a great addition and adds an even more tactile DJ feel to this combination of software and hardware.

The APC40 is the fi rst hardware controller designed specifi cally for Live, and it’s clear that a great deal of thought has gone into it. Setup is practically nonexistent and the unique Grid View, offering an overview of 40 slots at a time, provides an excellent way to understand a complex set at a glance. And when you move focus to other banks of tracks, the unit updates itself automatically. Since the APC40 is as likely to be used in a club environment as in a studio, the backlighting is very welcome and provides clear, accurate feedback even in low-light conditions.

The focus on Session View tells you this is very much a performance tool, and attention has certainly been paid to the needs of the live performer or DJ. It’s hard to imagine a better controller for Live, and you don’t even really miss having a display, so easy is it to use. It’s also great in the studio, providing a solution for jamming and improvising as well as automating instruments and effects and recording the results. If you want to take better control of your Live system, the APC40 is hard to beat. MTM

SUMMARY WHY BUY ■ The ultimate performance companion

for Live ■ Very well-designed and robust ■ Simple to learn and use ■ DJ-style features ■ Seamless integration between software

and hardware ■ Automatic mapping of controls ■ Unique clip matrix system

WALK ON BY ■ Can program other DAWs to recognise it,

but MIDI maps aren’t available from AKAI

VERDICT A live performer’s dream. Powerful and flexible yet still easy to use, the APC40 is the perfect companion for Live. ★★★★★★★★★★

METHOD SPOT The APC40 isn’t designed to be a generic MIDI-trigger device and as such its pads are not velocity-sensitive. They are simply on/off switches and therefore aren’t really suitable for playing MIDI notes. One interesting workaround for this is to load up samples or drum hits, for example, into cells and deactivate audio warping and looping for those samples. What you can then do is use the pads assigned to those cells to trigger the samples as if they were hits on a drum machine or regular sampler.

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