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WWW, July 2021 - With
9 faders, 24 rotary knobs and buttons,
here's the Akai Professional Midimix: in
total 69 different, completely assignable
options to control your DAW on a deeper
level than just with a mouse. A review of an
affordable DAW controller that will please
the producer of Dub. For
mixing Dub, it's quite an improvement when
instead of having to use your mouse you can
move sliders, turn knobs and press buttons.
Mixes will become more intuitive, they are
and therefore sound much more lively,
resulting in a much more pleasant result for
the listener. And, after all, that's what
you want as a Dub Producer. More vibes,
better!
So, what
you need is a "DAW Controller".
Connect the thing to your computer by using
an empty USB port and operate the console
(plus other devices) in your DAW. Over here
in the Dubroom, the choice was made for the
Akai Professional Midimix as the best value
for price.
A search at
Thomann's revealed how most DAW controllers
have an enormous amount of (assignable)
buttons, but very little (if any) sliders
and knobs. You need sliders and knobs to
turn channels on and off and add effects
through the auxiliaries to make Dub from
your multitracks way more than knobs. The
first that came up was the Akai Pro Midimix.
The next one that is comparable is about
double in price, and that's the Novation
Launch Control MK2. It has some more
features and fancy flashlights, but not worth
the double price. Both devices also ship
with a license for an version of Ableton
Lite, by the way...
Back in the
days, there was a term called "Plug and
Play". It meant that when you put
hardware in your PC, it should work. In
reality, many used the term "Plug and
Pray" because some serious tweaking was
necessary for the devices to work, in many
if not most cases. The same for this device.
Although it is claimed that the thing is
"Ableton ready", we did not check
that over here. To get the thing working in
Reason took a while as well as the Midimix
Editor software that can be downloaded from
the Akai website. (LINK)
But hey, tweaking is a must in the studio as
well.
After all,
creating your own set up is a big part of
your own sound!
Now, let's
take a look at the Midimix
 The
Midimix has 8 channel strips, each one
having a fader, three knobs, a mute/solo
button and a rec arm button as well as a
master fader (see
picture). The fun part is that this is
basically a normal console setup suggestion
because every knob is assignable, and you're
not restricted to the suggestion.
And why
should you?
For
example: what use is there in assigning a
fader to your master fader where you can
also assign it to a channel when you can use
the fader as controller for standard your
Dub echo (explained
to the fullness here) as well? At least
that was done over here.
Also, the
Mute/Solo buttons. Press "mute"
and you have one function, press "solo+mute"
and you have another. You can use the
buttons to temporarily open op an aux out at
a set level, for example. You can even
assign Midi notes instead of Control
messages to these buttons and use them to
trigger certain notes on a drum computer.
The knobs,
as well. Sure, it is very nice to be able to
control three auxiliaries but do you really
need that on the bass channel, for example?
You can use some knobs to control an effect,
too. For example, the speed of an
echo/delay.
Three
unassignable knobs as well: "Bank
Left" and "Bank Right" which
did not have any effect in Reason as fr s we
could tell, and a rather handy "send
all" when you've made your setting and
want to send it all in one time. Kind of a
panic button, but not really.
The rotary
knobs have a reasonable distance. Tweaking
on the buttons does not necessarily lead to
incidental moving of neighboring knobs. The
faders also have a pleasant resistance,
enabling subtlety.
We couldn't
get the lights working. As shown in the
picture, there are red and blue lights but
for for some reason they don't work in
Reason 11. They'll probably work in Ableton,
though.
All in all,
a very good value for price. We paid 88
Euros for a device that is really a great
step forward from using just a mouse. It's
well worth your consideration when you want
to mix some Dub music. Eight channels are
very decent, and given the fact that the
Midimix has three rotary knobs per channel
which is rare since most DAW controllers
only have buttons and an occasional rotary
knob, a great choice.
Because you
want to turn buttons more than press them in
a live Dub mixing session.
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