Akai Professional APC40 Ableton Performance Controller

Bought to explore more into music production. Soon to be replaced by Maschine.

I like to use it because the launchclip part of my Dj set

Perfect for simply play Livesets

MIDI Maps automatically to Ableton Live, it's a good way to familiarize myself with external controllers in general, my first one and (for now) my last...it suits all my needs, plenty of knobs and faders to map to.

Special intuituve for studio or live performance. No latency problems.

I'm not sure where to begin with expressing my love for this controller. Build quality is a good start, I am thoroughly impressed with Akai's attention paid to engineering solidly built controllers. With the APC40 MK1 you get 16 solid knobs seperated into two groups, One for track adjustments (panning, sends, ect) The second for device racks within ableton. It truly is a software controller that absolutely has the feel and structure of a hardware device.

Live Midi controlling

This controller is replaced by my Ableton Push controller

Working with live, this mixer gives you plenty of control with the features of more than a mouse click!

I mainly use this as a controller for when I'm mixing something in the studio, but since I sometimes bring my Mac with me to shows I also use it to trigger the samples I have during my sets. It's very intuitive and straightforward. It's not as good the Ableton controller, but it works.