Pads

The 25 SL MKII has 8 soft rubber drum pads, which are a massive improvement on the old plastic ones.

That said you get what you pay for and these pads aren't really that good. There ok if your just mucking around sketching out a beat but your not going to be doing much else with them. nice little add on though.

LCD display

No if you owned the 25 SL MKI you might have noticed that the MKII has lost a screen.

Well your right but Novation have made up for the loss of the second screen by having Automap pick up the slack, which to be honest is a hell of a lot better than an LED screen anyway.

The remaining screen is big but slim and stretches across the top of the knobs to show what value is and what it's assigned to. Handy for quick reference. There's also a page up and down button next to the screen which was useful.

Mod stick & XY pad

Now down to the fun bit. The 25 SL MKII has a mod/pitch stick and a XY pad for adding that extra touch when performing.

The mod/pitch stick is a little bit like a XY pad but is controlled by a stick instead of your finger. It doesn't have to be used to control pitch or modulation as it is completely assignable in Automap, making it very handy to create some weird effects. The stick is spring loaded so it snaps back to the position shown in the picture but there is a switch underneath the keyboard that releases the spring and lets it rest anywhere freely.

The XY pad is positioned just below the mod/pitch stick. As far as XY pads go it is quite large and responsive to touch.

Transport controls

The 25 SL MKII has dedicated transport controls positioned just below the faders. Nice little touch for controlling a sequencer or DAW but the transport controls also double up as assignable buttons in midi mode.

Automap Pro

The 25 SL MKII comes bundled with the pro version of Novation's excellent automap software. The pro version has a few extra functions the free one doesn't have including support for multiple devices, XY pad assigning, keystroke assigning and a GUI that only shows when you touching a control.

If your unfamiliar with automap then here's a quick run down. Automap is software that allows the user to assign knobs, faders and buttons to CC#'s or parameters quickly via the popup GUI. Automap runs all the time and can be opened using the view button on the 25 SL MKII. Automap will also pop up when you touch a control giving you easy to see what controls are assigned to what. You can edit the min & max value, name and how the device functions of each knob, slider, pot, button and even the XY pad and mod/pitch stick from the software.

Automap uses pages to allow the knobs etc to be assigned to more than one parameter. For example a soft synth that has lots of knobs. Once you've run out of knobs and buttons you can start a new page and reassign all the knobs again without effecting the other ones. You can then switch between pages to have every parameter mapped to a knob, button or slider. The 25 SL MKII has pages buttons at the top of the unit on either sides.

Automap can control many plugins at once by using groups. The groups are, FX, mixer, instruments and user and have corresponding buttons on the 25 SL MKII that make navigating through them easy. Once you select a group automap pops up and lets you choose the plugin or instrument you want to control from a list of open ones.

Plugin manager

Automap has a built in plugin manager which runs through all your plugins and automatically maps the parameters to the 25 SL MKII. It then creates an automap version of the plugin which has a little wrap around GUI border around the plugin showing the learn function and the value of a parameter when you roll over it. Be warned this basically doubles your plugin list in length, a small price to pay.

Using an automapped plugin will then add it to the automap groups and it will be automatically mapped to the 25 SL MKII. If you don't like the automapped layout you can always reassign controls and save over the default one. This does save a lot of the time and effort involved in creating presets and maps for all your plugins.

Learning parameters

Learning parameters from plugins and resigning is very intuitive in automap. You can even do it from the controller without having to use a mouse to much. Just turn on the learn mode by pressing the learn button on the 25 SL MKII, select the parameter with your mouse and the turn the knob, slider or button you want to assign it to. Turn off learn mode and your done. Easy.

Conclusion

IN conclusion the 25 SL MKII is a great piece of gear and an outstanding midi controller. It excels over it's competition mainly due to automap, semi weighted playable keys and touch sensitive knobs, buttons and faders.

I found it useful when controlling my DAW but more useful when controlling soft synths, as the layout of the knobs, buttons plus the inclusion of the faders gives you control over most synths in a natural way. Editing synth patch's was a dream compared to using a mouse and almost makes them feel real.

The real thing that sets the 25 SL MKII apart from other midi controllers is automap. Assigning, editing and controlling multiple soft synths, plugins and your DAW is a dream and easy to manage. I don't get confused or forget which controls do what or have to load new presets or banks every time I wanted to add another plugin.

All that praise said I did have a few little complaints when using it. The knobs, buttons and pots on the left hand side are spaced quite close together so sometimes I hit the wrong button or caught another control when tweaking. The faders are quite short and it can be difficult to do very fine adjustments. Automap doubles your plugin list but that said you could always delete or move the non automap plugins elsewhere. The drum pads are not great and could probably have been left out and something a little more useful added.

All round great midi controller. Very fun and easy to use. Excellent software to back it up.

Zander

Akai MPK25 review

Published: 15. 05. 2008     10 comments

We take a look at the Akai MPK25 midi controller, the smallest of the Akai MPK series of midi controller/keyboard/MPC drum pad/trigger. This is a feature packed controller and promises a lot but does it live up to it's creators repretation?