AKAI Pro launch the Advance Keyboard Series for VST, AU ...

[PALU]

After I was disappointed with NI keyboards - this looks really promising.

What caused the disappointment, just out of interest?

Deep integration with Komplete and not anything else. I own Komplete Ultimate, but to be honest I want to use all other plugins with my main controller and control my DAW (Reaper).

I don't need many functions - like scales, chord memory - that seems like one of the main selling points. I'm not an expert keyboard player, but I know my scales

And then there was the aesthetic side - totally subjective - I don't want to look at it while making music - the lights above the keys...

And last and not least - I was afraid that it would go the Kore route at some point.

As far as Advance Keyboard Series goes - I used Zen (on which I believe the software side of this Akais is based) and it worked really well.

[rentboyrenton]

I already have all Air instruments. And I am sure nobody will take it in to consideration and give us any kind of credit or discount...

someone mentioned we could sell them maybe ?

kind of a pain in the ass if yo u ask me, i mean they are selling these as "advanced/pro" keyboards, shipping them with synthesizers is kind of silly

at least NI offers their hardware without any plugins even though they were still overpriced

[Echoes in the Attic]

The software looks good. If they make a controller with a more reasonable amount of knobs for large VSTs, I'd consider it. 4 banks of 8 knobs? What VST has 32 controls? Even if it has multiple sets of 4 banks (which seems like it would get confusing fast), that's a lot of paging.

I'm also curious if here is an effects only version of the plug-in and if you can load effects within the instrument version and how that all works.

[Novalis]

This looks promising.
I hope the keys have the same quality as in AKAI's MAX controllers, which have the best keys I have ever seen in a controller.

But really, why only 8 knobs??
And no faders at all?
Even my Arturia Analog Experience The Factory controller (32 keys) has 11 knobs, and 4 faders!

One company should get this finally right and release a keyboard with 16 knobs and 8 faders.

[beely]

One company should get this finally right and release a keyboard with 16 knobs and 8 faders.

Not even that, but a control surface optimised for general synthesis use - ie, a well designed interface with dedicated controls for various oscillator functions, filter functions, envelope functions, LFOs and so on and flexible enough to cope with a decent amount of individual plugins' implementation of these.

We don't want access to 100% of the parameters, modern synths are too complex to scroll through thousands of pages of parameters via a small hardware window - we can get to obtuse ones via the instruments GUI anyway when necessary. But something that puts the core important parameters in our hands would be really useful. Im' convinced it could be done by a company that has the will...

There will always be instruments that are too complex to meaningfully use entirely from a simple knob interface, but most synths have similar features (one or more oscillators, osc pitches, some form of waveform select and possibly waveform modification, detune, sync, pwm, filter type/cutoff/res/env amount, two ADSR envelopes for amp and filter). Get me 70% of the way there for 70% of my instruments without requiring manual tedious mapping and I will be 200% better off than I am now...

[noiseboyuk]

Should have 88-key version, too.

This.

Well in truth all I really want is a m-audio keystation 88 built properly with quality components. No hideous weighted keyboard either - a Fatar semi-weighted is the one. Someone stick it in a box with proper mod and pitchwheels already.

The control on these kinds of keyboards never goes far enough, so I'm happier keeping the controller part separate.

[Big Tick]

As far as Advance Keyboard Series goes - I used Zen (on which I believe the software side of this Akais is based) and it worked really well.

Yes it is based off Zen, but an enormous amount of effort went into improving it. So it works a lot better than the original Zen. Faster, more reliable, ... and of course the UI is so much better.

[quote="beely"']Not even that, but a control surface optimised for general synthesis use - ie, a well designed interface with dedicated controls for various oscillator functions, filter functions, envelope functions, LFOs and so on and flexible enough to cope with a decent amount of individual plugins' implementation of these.[/quote]

This is actually a really cool idea, and I will pass it over to Akai. In my opinion Advance / VIP is more designed with performance / playability in mind.

[beely]

This is actually a really cool idea, and I will pass it over to Akai.

Thanks.
I've been banging on about it long enough..!

In my opinion Advance / VIP is more designed with performance / playability in mind.

Sure, I like the potential of this and what they are doing is cool. But, as yet, however clever it is (and it's certainly looking better than previous attempts at this) it's currently another generic box with a small amount of generic knobs that can control a small selection of parameters that I can no doubt manually order plugin by plugin - and I have enough other things that already do that.

Get me a flexible synth layout, and it puts software synths back under my hands, with labelled dedicated controls always in the same place, and enough control that I can feel my way through synths osc/env/filter etc. Of course, these controls can also be used for other things when controlling a non-synth plugin. A more expensive controller would have some system of labelling controls through displays instead of panel graphics and this would be even more flexible.

I guess some kind of layout somewhere along the lines of a Roland JP8080 (bit less busy perhaps) and where the issues surrounding flexible handling of various plugin implementations/architectures have been considered and some decent solutions made. It's not a trivial problem, but I think it's one that can be done with some acceptable compromises - and a lot less compromises than 8 generic rotaries we currently get now.

I've had this in my mind for a while, and while I haven't thoroughly solved the problem of course, there are lots of ways of tackling this and I have some solutions lurking around. Things like having physical controls for one oscillator, and an oscillator select button - now we have a set of controls that can handle an arbitrary number of oscillators. The controller would know how many oscillators a given plugin has and configure itself accordingly.

It's not like we need physical controls for everything, but the layout has to be labelled, *be consistent across plugins*, and make sense. My filter cutoff, resonance, envelope, oscillator levels and so on should always be in the same place, regardless of what plugin I use. There are solutions for lighting up active controls (in a similar way Roland's System1 does it) and lots of these kinds of things - I'm convinced there is a viable product here if it was really thought through and implemented well.

I shall await Namm 2016

[bungle]

Wait.. $399 in the US but £469 in the UK for the 61 key, what are they sniffing at Akai ?

[rentboyrenton]

Wait.. $399 in the US but £469 in the UK for the 61 key, what are they sniffing at Akai ?

where are you getting the US prices from?

that can't be true because that would mean brits (and all other europeans most likely) would pay $711

[Jace-BeOS]

So, since this is based on Zen, will users be able to migrate back to Zen when this product fails on the market like Kore and all other "everything in one" proprietary systems?

Big applause to Big Tick for the Akai contract, by the way. Zen had my interest since Kore died, but I'm still pairing down my setup, dumping PC VSTs into my otherwise unused Receptor B (those that will work, which isn't all), and figuring out what I'm going to continue upgrading or stop throwing money at (I'm poor).

It says it can load "all VSTi" and I find that terribly unlikely. Receptor fails at it. But I guess the Akai software is native, not WINE based. What about VSTi on Mac? Is it loading only Mac VST into the AU environment, or is there indeed emulation to get Windows VSTi plugins to run under the AU plugin host?

[Jace-BeOS]

PS: I must admit I've been emotionally averse to Akai ever since they and Alesis were bought out by inMusic and the Akai SynthStation software's GUI was so poorly engineered (as a sales tactic to get people to buy the hardware, which failed to be built robustly, according to most reviews, and was doomed to failure when deciding to have it mount the perpetual moving target hardware of iPhones; bad decision).

But this new product has my attention. If only I didn't already have an M-Audio Oxygen 25, Korg Kontrol 49, Korg nanoKey 1, and an Alesis Fusion 8HD in my studio area. (I have a lot of abandoned product don't I?)

[Echoes in the Attic]

One company should get this finally right and release a keyboard with 16 knobs and 8 faders.

Not even that, but a control surface optimised for general synthesis use - ie, a well designed interface with dedicated controls for various oscillator functions, filter functions, envelope functions, LFOs and so on and flexible enough to cope with a decent amount of individual plugins' implementation of these.

We don't want access to 100% of the parameters, modern synths are too complex to scroll through thousands of pages of parameters via a small hardware window - we can get to obtuse ones via the instruments GUI anyway when necessary. But something that puts the core important parameters in our hands would be really useful. Im' convinced it could be done by a company that has the will...

It totally depends on the soft synth. Anything drawable with the mouse wouldn't be mappable, like multipoint envelopes, but anything else should be able to be mapped to hardware. However it depends on whether the developer has exposed all the parameters to be visible (ie. for automation). Plenty of modern synths are 100% mappable and many others would be if the developers would expose the parameters.

And I've said it before but the technology and design to have as many pages of parameters as you want is already out there but it's split between two platforms - Nektar and Novation. Automap let's you set the ranges of the parameters and resolution which is much needed, however you can't jump directly to a page, you have to hit up/down several times to change pages. This right there kills it for anything big. It's so simple I don't understand why nobody realizes it. If it could use a combination of buttons and a dial to go directly to a page, then you could have as many pages as you want. The craziest thing is the Novation keyboards already do this for the regular midi mode. That is, you can jump directly to a template by hitting the buttons, and the LCd screen even displays the template name. Automap needs the same function, where you hit a modifier and see all the page names and select the page you want. With the buttons available, that gives you instant access to 24 or even 32 pages. Need more? Hit the up/ down button for banks of pages. Nektar has a dial that lets you at least scroll named pages of parameters which is very cool, so it's doing something along those lines (at least you can see page names), but I still think hitting a button is better than scrolling back and forth through pages. The nektar is also nice (with DAWs that it's made for) because there is no wrapper.

So yes 100% control is totally possible and already almost exists. I wish the industry would get it's head out of it's ass and and make it happen, and understand why Maschine was so damn successful, and do the same for instruments. People want 100% control, but it has to be easy. Not endless page scrolling, not partial mouse use and partial knob use.

By the way, some synths that can be100% controlled from hardware: Sylenth1, Poly-Ana, Spire, impOscar, Minimonsta, Oddity, Diva, ACE, Bazille (almost!), Electra2, Gladiator, TAL synths, Dexed, Arturia's new Matrix 12, Korg Polysix and Monopoly, Largo, Axon, lots of Reaktor synths. These are just ones off the top of my head. Things even allow automation/mapping of things like arp steps and modulation matrix source and targets.

[bmrzycki]

Wait.. $399 in the US but £469 in the UK for the 61 key, what are they sniffing at Akai ?

Pricing over at Gearslutz puts the 61 key at 600 us dollars:

Advance 25, Advance 49, and Advance 61 will be available in early 2015 at retail pricing of $399.99, $499.99, and $599.99, respectively.

[bungle]

I stand corrected, and even though it looks great, i have much better things to spend £470 on lol
I shall wait until they are half price next year