Key Of Grey

Photo courtesy of Akai November 18th, 2009 - Some of you may have read my irritated Twitter posts about the Korg NanoPad I bought this summer. Granted, most of those were about the terrible seller I got it from and Korg's inability to help me, but the fact of the matter is that if the NanoPad had not been faulty, I wouldn't have had to jump through any of those hoops. The NanoPad only triggers 2 out of the 12 pads, and even ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Synthesizers May 7th, 2009 - In the interests of increasing my productivity, I've been looking at pad-type controllers. Or at least that's how I justify it to myself. The two out there that I believe provide the best value for the money are Native Instrument's Maschine, and Akai/Ableton's APC40. (Read this Synthtopia post for release information on the APC40) The reason why I am looking at these two over say a Monome, is that I don't have a copy of Ableton ... Read More

Photo courtesy of The MPC 2000XL Flash Drive Team May 5th, 2009 - I'm not sure who creates a business around only two products that are the same save for their aesthetics. I'm serious...literally two products. I have to give the entrepreneurs respect for going after a very specific niche market: 4 gigabyte "custom flash usb drives for hip hop producers". All the website sells are 4 gigabyte flash drives in the likenesses of an Akai MPC 2000XL and an E-Mu SP1200. Granted, the ... Read More

November 15th, 2008 - Ok, the title may be technically incorrect; you blow the EWI. No, it's not a musical breathalyzer, it's a MIDI controller that works off the power of your lungs. This supposedly gives you better control of your synth and sampler instruments. I've seen someone play the "flute" using a Yamaha breath controller to recreate Bolero using an acoustic modeler, and while it sounded a lot better than most sampled wind-powered instruments I've heard, it still sounded a bit off. ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Akai August 15th, 2008 - The Akai MPC has been the "must have" piece of gear for the hip hop producer since its introduction in the 1980's. With it, you can sample and sequence a whole track. Sure, these days there are plenty of software based samplers to allow you to make a great beat in your favorite music software, but there's something organic about putting something together in real time and actually "playing" it. Not surprisingly, many performing producers ... Read More