Akai ProfessionalMPX8 - Portable Sample Pad Controller With 8 Performance-Ready Velocity-Sensitive Pads, MIDI Connectivity & On-Board SD Card Slot

Great basic MIDI controller and sampler for home studio and live applications. I use mine at home for basic beat production/finger drumming, for which it works great. The pad sensitivity is a bit hard to get used to, but nothing ridiculous. The drummer in my band uses it on stage, with a drum pad MIDI controller triggering samples on the Akai. It works great for this as well, and allowed us to add samples and electronic drum sounds to our live set without adding a laptop or more expensive drum module to our live rig.There is quite a bit of negativity surrounding this sampler, but I think it's misplaced. The comparable 8 pad MIDI controller (no on-board samples) from Akai is $60, so the sampler portion that everyone seems to have issues with is really only $40. Yes it's limited to 16-bit mono WAV files, loads large samples slowly, and has a somewhat clunky interface. But if you need more flexibility and better performance, you should be looking at something like an Electribe or MPC. That simply doesn't exist in this price range.

This device continues to be a fundamental tool in my live presentations, you just have to understand a little how it works and know how to prepare the audio files for it to work correctly, even though it was launched a long time ago, it is still professional, useful and resistant. I am happy with this unit

I was looking for something to play sound effects during live gigs. Rain, chimes, thunder, intro clips that i make up. Fun and interesting add-ons and background to go along with my percussion. This does that. Simply. It loads .wav files from the sd card and easily assigns to a pad. It does not have to connect to a computer. Plays through a monitor or PA. There are enough functions for what i wanted. There are some limitations to file size. Because it is basic and simple, the interface is a bit clunky and possibly outdated, naming files takes some patience with the dial.I originally purchased an Akai pro miniplay but after struggling through the learning curve, i came to the conclusion that the miniplay was not going to do what i wanted. The miniplay is a midi controller for making beats within music software. i just wanted a standalone tool to load and play effects. Similar to a drum trigger pad, but compact and holds more sounds. The MPX8 was the right choice. Learned and set it up in about an hour the day of a gig. A good add-on.

I've never owned such an awful, worthless, and unreliable piece of gear as this thing. Every time I turn it on I want to smash it with a hammer. It takes forever to load files so it's of no use for playing multiple samples on the fly. The pad sensitivity can't be adjusted so the volume level is never consistent, and it keeps adding a bunch of horrible sounding reverb or panning it one side. It's not user friendly and built like a plastic toy that should've cost $20, not $200. Honestly, this thing has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and if I hadn't discarded the box, I'd be returning it. Really disappointing that Akai, which used to be a good name, would make something this amateurish and terrible. Stay away from this so-called sampler, it's utterly worthless.

Wanted this to be great because the idea of a portable sampler with this price is amazing. Just falls short is so many ways. Its clearly a product that hasnt been updated in quite some time and comes with a slew of bugs and hardware defects.

Excellent beginner sample player. There isn't really anything else at this price range that lets you load your own sounds onto a card and output to a speaker or you can use it as a simple midi controller. I saw some complaining reviews about having difficulty loading sounds but everything is laid out in the instructions and it's very easy to do so they just didn't bother following them. If you genuinely can't figure them out that's a you issue because there's nothing really easier out there.

Works as expected easy set up and easy transfer of audio samples. Sometimes when using Audacity to sample causes an error at end of trigger gives a horrible screeching noise. Used Ableton Lite to create drum loop. Easy to export as .wav file and load up without any errors.