But Akai has upped the game by bringing what looks like a high-quality controllerat a very affordable $269.
“Hardware is just ‘hands-on,’ plain and simple.
Our fictitious musician is just building up to a climactic point in the song.
Akai
The audience is going nutstheyre totally into it.
Its time forthe drop.
With the latter, they might as well be doing their taxes.
Akai
These controllers allow you to play your parts and give a performance instead of drawing in notes.”
The MPC Controller
The upsides to dedicated boxes are manifold.
Unlike apps, the buttons dont move.
That volume knob is always at the top left, and you might grab it without thinking.
And hardware is often less screwy when it comes to reliabilityhardware crashes, but software crashes more.
But its alsoby designlimited.
A computer program can be expanded, and reconfigured almost infinitely.
Thats where the hybrid approach comes in.
This has been possible for almost as long as weve had music software.
MIDI keyboards and controllers can be hooked up to most music apps, including those on your phone.
But these require configuration, and can be flaky in terms of reliability.
A kind of musical cyborg, if you will.
If nothing else, todays musicians are utterly spoiled for choice.
