Total beginner - MPC mk3 no sound from MPC beats.

I have decided to learn to play music as I approach 60 years of age. I did some research and bought the MPC mk3. I downloaded and installed all the software. When I open MPC beats and press the keys I see some action at the top right of the display but there is no sound. I did a search for common faults and found the help page for no sound https://support.akaipro.com/en/support/solutions/articles/69000864243-mpc-beats-i-can-t-hear-any-sound-when-using-my-midi-controller.
At part 3 for "input" I can only see "microphone", not "Realtek audio", I don't know if that's a problem.
I also found a page discussing changing settings in Windows 11 for audio control but that didn't work.
Then i tried opening "essential keyboards", I got a little sound out of that but not with every key - if I mouse-click on the keyboard I get sound but if I press the midi keys I see the keys moving on the screen but there isn't any sound. Any help greatly appreciated

I submitted this last night after hours of frustration with my Windows laptop. This morning I decided to try it on my Macbook pro though I had really wanted it to be able to work on windows. Exactly the same issues, I could only get some form of sound out of it by activating the tubesynth plugin, the basic keyboard that everyone else seems to get when they first connect it doesn't work.
When I opened garageband however, everything works fine.
I would really like to be able to use it on both laptops with the same software. being a beginner, I certainly don't want to use two different programs.