New toys out there

Hi everybody,

The Akai Advance Keyboard series seems to be availabe. Has anyone already got one? If so, how does the connection between the Advance and the Ren work? And can the keyboard be recommended, considering the high price? I read some good reviews, but would like to get a user's opinion.

Peace!

Mine showed up yesterday. Got around to getting all the software installed but haven't really had a chance to dive in completely.

VIP is it's own separate VST. It will show up in MPC as such. The good part is that it is mostly a VST Wrapper for any VST, so you can mix and match your existing VST patches into multis.

The hardware looks actually kind of bland, but one it is powered up, it has a better "presence". The keys feel much better than the MPKs, the pads are velocity sensitive but have a bit more play than most MPCs.

I'm probably being thick, but what would this give me that I can't already do with my MPK?

(Use MPK as midi controller, alongside MPC DAW/MPC Studio)

It looks lovely, and it's the sort of thing I'd like to justify to myself, hence the question!

The Advance is just a MIDI controller, similar to how the Ren is a glorified controller.

The VIP software is the lynch pin here. VIP handles the heavy lifting of a VST wrapper and give you the ability to control your VSTs natively versus having to program CC# messages.

I bought it simply to organize my messy collections of VSTs. This is where VIP shines. I can pull patches from multiple VSTs on the fly. Plus it organizes patches by type, timbre, and a couple other filters.



THIS IS WHERE I'm GETTING MY MONEY's WORTH!

i cant wait to be able to grab the 49. hey mike let us know how it is on your cpu. and how or if it lets you separate instrument for mix. well and how thats being done in our rens.

thx

Running about 7% CPU with Kontakt, Omnisphere and Firebird linked into a multi. My CPU isn't top-tier, so I'm impressed. You do get a small spike with the more voices but it is on par with the MPC software.

Yes, you can adjust the volume of each VST you put in a Multi.

Thanks for the input. On one side I agree with Mink's question, on the other side I am really curious about the VIP software. So it's like I thought, I guess: If you work with a lot of VSTs this ones the right choice, otherwise one could also be happy with an MPK, right? I heard the keybed should be better than the MPK's and I already loved that.... Aah, decisions, decisions...

Well you would be correct...

It would not take much to be better than the keybed of the 1st gen MPKs. Those damn things were AWFUL! I do know that the keybed feels much better. Not a fan of the mini-keys, they are quite compact.