Akai has been crushing the small controller game with their AMX Serato hyper-portable mixer and AFX effects and cue/loop/Flip controller . At Musikmesse no surprise to see them coming out with yet another low-cost portable controller, the MIDIMix – this time focused just on a multichannel mixing layout.
For DJs and producers who perform live with a DAW, this is an awesome new piece of kit because it’s simple and straight forward – you get to avoid all of the additional features and clutter of a controller like the Akai APC 40MK2 and have focused controller for EQs, effects, and channel volume.
There are eight channel line faders and one more for the master level. Each channel has three control knobs – 24 total – and is mapped 1-to-1 with Ableton Live (a Lite version is included with the controller).
Below the knobs are two banks of buttons on each channel – allowing mute, solo, and record arming to be activated quickly.
One of the hard parts about MIDI mixers are the confusing moments that happen when your on-controller button/fader levels don’t line up with your software’s current state – and Akai hopes to solve this with a simple button to send the entire current state of the controller to your computer in one press. It’s labeled simply “SEND ALL”. It’s a pretty basic but clever solution for a controller that’s priced far too low to ever involve fancy fader motors or anything like that.
The Akai MIDImix will be available in June for $99 – but we suspect the actual street price might even be lower. We’ll be carrying them on the DJTT webstore, so if you’re keen, sign up for notification as to when they’re ready to preorder with the red button on this page.
