Akai APC40 MkII

Sources split lopsidedly. The large majority — every editorial reviewer and most owners — describe the textbook plug-and-play case: Live sees it with no drivers, every control lands on the matching part of Session View, the clip buttons show your clip colours, and it becomes 'an extension of the software'. A smaller camp runs into the other side of that design: the MIDI assignments are fixed and there is no official editor, custom MIDI mapping can misbehave, and there is no screen, so knob pages and device banks are guesswork unless you build racks with labelled macros. Outside Live, Bitwig ships its own APC40 mkII script, which owners describe as deeper than Ableton's.

The least argued-over part of the unit. Moving the eight pan/send knobs from the right-hand block to sit above each channel is called the key improvement by nearly every reviewer, and the dedicated mute, solo, record-arm and crossfader-assign buttons on every track mean no Shift-button gymnastics mid-set. The knobs have LED rings and pick up where they are, so banking causes no value jumps; reviewers and owners describe the faders as damped and accurate. Recessed clip-stop buttons and a transport moved to the top reduce accidental presses. The consistent reservations: no motorised faders, so a physical fader can disagree with the software until you move it; heavily damped knobs that resist fast moves; and, for one owner, a Stop All button placed too close to the master-track button.

“This is possibly a masterstroke as it gives easy muscle memory to controlling the pan, or send control over the appropriate track.”

Darren E Cowley · DJWORX

“The faders have good damping and are accurate and have a reasonable amount of throw.”

Amazon verified owner

“Although this makes them feel higher quality, it does make them somewhat resistant to fast changes.”

Simon Sherbourne · Sound On Sound

“if you need motorised faders, the Mk2 isn’t for you.”

DJ TechTools

Sources split on what the grid is for, not on what it is. Everyone agrees on the facts: 40 RGB buttons in an eight-by-five grid plus five scene buttons, reflecting clip colours and showing loaded, playing and recording states, and not velocity- or pressure-sensitive. For the majority that is exactly right — colour-coding means you can launch clips without looking at the laptop, the slim rectangular buttons are easy to hit, and they have a positive feel. For the minority it rules the APC out of half of a set: no drumming, no playing notes, a deep button travel, and only five rows where an eight-by-eight grid would mean less banking. DJ TechTools adds that a playing clip only pulses gently, which is hard to read in daylight.

Sources split into two clear groups, and the dividing line is time. Reviewers in 2014–15, with fresh units, found the new plastic chassis lighter and less tank-like than the metal original but sturdy, stiff and free of wobble — DJWORX gave it three months of gigging and reported no damage. Owners writing years later tell a different story: whole groups of buttons stop responding and sometimes come back, faders and crossfaders start sending ghost values, knob caps work loose. A widely shared r/ableton guide traces the button failures to the two ribbon cables between the circuit boards being pinched by the honeycomb backing plate; reseating or replacing them — a part costing a few dollars — has revived many units. Akai's own copy promises reinforced faders.

Mostly a strength, with two qualifications. Against the original APC40 it is a big step: no power brick (it runs entirely from the computer's USB port), a flat, boxy shape with nothing sticking out, recessed faders that are less likely to snag or bend, and a size that fits a large DJ laptop bag. Reviewers treat that as a real gain for gigging. The dissent is about what 'portable' means today: bonedo.de found it draws too much current to run from an iPad, where the smaller APC mini and APC Key 25 work, and an owner points out it is still roughly as large as a Push 2. Several owners recommend a hard case or cover for travel, which feeds into the build argument.

Minimal and computer-centric, and mostly judged adequate for what it is. There is one USB port that carries both MIDI and power, a quarter-inch footswitch input (which in Live can drive session recording, handy for hands-free looping), a power switch and a Kensington slot. There is no 5-pin MIDI and no power input, so it cannot drive hardware without a computer in the middle. MusicRadar was pleased the port is a full-size USB connector; one Thomann owner found the USB socket, along with the faders, fragile over time.

“We're also happy to report that they all use proper, full-size USB connections.”

Martin Delaney · MusicRadar

“the footswitch, which now works in conjunction with Live's session record, is a lot more useful, too.”

Daniel Petry · Resident Advisor

“Produit qui remplis parfaitement son role mais qui est très fragile au niveau des fader et de l'entré USB”

L'ami du bon · Thomann owner review (FR) — 'does its job perfectly but is very fragile at the faders and the USB input'

A conventional bundle, lightly covered. It came with Ableton Live Lite, AIR's Hybrid 3 synth, SONiVOX Twist and around 5 GB of loops and sample packs; the two reviewers who discuss it are mildly positive, with bonedo.de singling out Hybrid 3 as the genuinely useful part and noting that most buyers of an Ableton controller will already own Live, which blunts the Live Lite licence. Retailer listings show the extras have changed over the product's long life, so check what the current box includes.

“Viel schöner ist allerdings die Beigabe des Hybrid 3 Synthesizers, ein Plug-In, das wirklich üppig ausgestattet ist und außerdem noch ziemlich gut klingt.”

Felix Klostermann · bonedo.de — 'far nicer is the inclusion of the Hybrid 3 synthesizer, a plug-in that is really lavishly equipped and also sounds pretty good'

“The package includes a USB cable, and a registration card for the software bundle, which includes Ableton Live Lite, 5GB of loop content, and the Hybrid and Twist soft synths; all of the range has roughly the same extras.”

Martin Delaney · MusicRadar

Sources split, and the split tracks when they were writing. At launch the case was simple: $399, a full $200 below the original APC40 and $200 below Ableton's Push, for the most complete clip-and-mixer surface available. Later voices are cooler — a Launchpad plus a knob controller now does more for less, the durability record undercuts the price, and during the 2023–24 shortage used prices ran as high as $650, which made it plainly poor value. The shortage is over: new units are back at about $349, but that is barely below launch price for a ten-year-old design, and Akai's own touch-strip APC64 now sells for less at some retailers.