Akai MPD24 vs M-Audio Trigger Finger
Recently I picked up a new Akai MPD24 replace a dying M-Audio Trigger Finger. I’ve used the trigger finger for years, but sadly the pads on the right side of the unit stopped responding a couple of weeks ago, and it started to send some wierd junk MIDI data to ableton. A replacement as it turns out was problematic. The product has been discontinued, and the few places still ‘selling’ them online always seem to be out of stock. M-Audio will still service them (cheers to M-Audio / Avid), but the RMA process takes some time, and I needed something in the meantime.
Well, the MPD24 is Akai’s answer to the Trigger Finger, and I’d read a lot of positive reviews, so I thought I’d check it out. I compared it to the Pad Kontrol, and a few others out there, but after playing with them at my local dealer, I liked the feel of the MPD24 a lot more. Frankly the Korg Pad Kontrol has a lot of nice features, but it feels like a toy made out of cheap plastic, and the pads just did not have the right feel or size for me. So I went with the Akai.
Well, my first impressions are pretty good. It’s reponsive, easily programmable and adjus
hard to do. Yes, they might be in different octaves, but in that case you use a bloody number like the trigger finger did. C0 for middle C, C3 for C 3 octaves up, and so on. Why they went with numbers… well, it just strikes me as somewhat lazy, and it does make it somewhat irritating to program as an instrument.
Now that being said, I really appreciated the fact that out of the box it worked brilliantly as a drum controller for Abelton, which is why I bought it. Also the bundled programming sofware was very straightforward and much easier to use than that piece of crap Enigma software that M-Audio provides, which frankly doesn’t bloody well work on Vista or Win7, and doesn’t much care for Wine either. The pads have a great feel and repsonse, and trigger cleanly where ever you strike them, unlike the trigger finger which can be picky if you hit the pads on a corner. I did however miss being able to roll on the pads to get good aftertouch, and the analog style slider for pad sensitivity is something I loved about the trigger finger. The one touch sensitivity operation on the akai is neat, but not particularily useful for live situations.
The construction of it is far better than the trigger finger, but it looses a lot of points for missing features that I’d come to rely on. Still, at the price point that I paid, and the ease of use with my software of choice, I’m pretty happy overall. I’m getting the TF repaired for sure, but this is a great tool to have in the toolbox.
I hope that M-Audio ressurects the Trigger Finger. It was such a great product, and there are tons of people out there that love it still. The MPD24 is a great alternative, but won’t quite replace it for me.