MPK25 akai controller

[jaydee]

Hi,

I have an MPK25 Akai controller that I cant get to work with Cakewalk. Unfortunately, I cant find any new drivers for it.

The strange thing is when I disconnect it, Cakewalk recognises this and offers to re-route the midi controls. So it is recognised, but I cant get it to play with any instruments or midi tracks.

I try it with garageband and at least the keys work )no knobs though).Is it worth perservering with the old controller, or should I just purchase the more recent Akai mpk Mini instead? All the guides suggest the Mini works fine with Cakewalk.

Thanks for your advice.

JD

[jaydee]

I still haven't found a solution. I'm still looking.

Looks like I'll need to buy a mini instead.

I'll keep you updated.

[bitflipper]

Looks like nobody around here uses that controller. That doesn't mean it won't work, though, and I wouldn't advise fixing the problem by buying another controller. Certainly not another from the same manufacturer, since it'll likely be functionally identical to the one you've already got.

I assume you're trying to play a soft synth. By default, the output of a soft synth is muted except during playback. To hear it in real time, you have to explicitly tell Cakewalk to let the synth send audio to your speakers. That's controlled by the Input Echo button, as described here. Have a read through that article and see if any lightbulbs go off. If that doesn't help, or isn't the information you're looking for, come back and we can give you some troubleshooting tips.

[John Vere]

Akai does not supply drivers as far as I can tell. I have a little Akai Synth Station 25 which looks like it is very similar in design. Yours just has more knobs. I bought it for travel. It doesn’t have a midi driver it uses a class compliant windows driver. 
Generally it works fine. But the biggest problem is Cakewalk won’t register it unless it’s all plugged in and running before you boot up windows and cakewalk.  
The keyboard and joystick part works but I’ve never gotten the pads or even the volume to work with Cakewalk. 
My Roland A series came with a midi driver and I can plug it in with a project open and Cakewalk recognizes it right away.

So to me, any midi device that uses class compliant drivers is going to cause problems from time to time. Best to check before you buy on a manufacturer web site and see if the device your going to get comes with midi drivers. 
I think the issue is class compliant drivers both midi and audio, work perfectly fine on a Mac. So manufacturers cheap out and don’t put any money on development of proper drivers. 
 

Would I buy another Akai- no. 

Edited August 8, 2021 by John Vere

[azslow3]

If MPK25 is not broken on hardware side, it is not worse than other controllers. And it is more capable then Mini.

But with any generic controller, some time has to be invested into setup. In short:

• windows device manager should be used to cleanup all midi devices, specially duplicates (even they are not currently connected, any connection to different USB port creates new device)
• when in doubt, Cakewalk MIDI configuration INI file should be deleted (and later all used MIDI devices enabled again in Cakewalk preferences).
• the device should always be connected to the same USB port
• all devices should be connected before starting Cakewalk
• the device should be properly configured (see its Reference manual and configuration editor)

All these topics (except the last one) was discussed on this forum, you can use Google to find related posts.

BTW devices with special drivers can be worse then class compliant, f.e. when manufacturer "forget" update the driver rendering the device unusable with new Windows version.

PS many troubles with audio/MIDI/other devices come from the cable or particular port/hub. Try to use another cable, connect to hub, etc. Note you need to repeat the first two listed operations after changing the port.

PSPS for device configuration... note MPK25 is represented by 2 different MIDI devices (ports), current configuration tells which messages send to which device. Disabling external MIDI synchronization,  configuring controls to use port A and set CC modes for knobs is a good start. When Cakewalk recognize MIDI device, you can see small icon in the Task bar. If you see "LED" on it blinking when you use controls, that is a good sign (doesn't mean they send what you want, but at least something...).

[hockeyjx]

I have the MPK49, and there are no drivers, just different versions of MIDIQuest/Vyzex download. I think you may be able to download that and set it up: https://www.akaipro.com/mpk25 . Mine works fine with Sonar Cakewalk by Bandlab still.

 

 

Edited August 9, 2021 by hockeyjx