Band: opinion spread · Dot: weighted average
The decision-critical aspect, and the split here is unusual: sources do not divide over whether the pads are good but over which direction the calibration errs. One camp — including the only in-depth editorial hands-on — finds them responsive and surprisingly expressive once you play them, and the large retail aggregates back that up (Amazon 4.4/5 across 5,846 ratings; Thomann 4.3/5 across 294). The other camp reports pads that need a harder strike than they should, costing dynamics and speed, or conversely pads that fire ghost notes on their own. Owner reports describe units arriving at both extremes, and one reviewer found sensitivity varying pad-to-pad within a single unit — which is why this reads as unit variation rather than a tuning that simply divides taste. Note two practical gotchas that recur: pressure (aftertouch) is on by default and can choke sustained hits until it is switched off, and Full Level bypasses velocity entirely for constant 127.
Measured
Akai's spec sheet lists 16 velocity- and pressure-sensitive pads, red-backlit, with 3 banks accessible via the Pad Bank button (48 pads total). Full Level forces maximum velocity (127) regardless of strike force. Critically, Akai's own support article acknowledges the problem and describes BOTH failure directions in one sentence — an unsteady playing surface makes “undesirable play characteristics such as over-sensitivity (double triggers), or under-sensitivity (missed notes)” more likely — and its prescribed remedies are playing technique, a solid desk, and a velocity gate applied inside the DAW. There is no hardware or editor control for pad sensitivity: MIDINation confirms “there is no option to change the velocity sensitivity.”
vs. listeners — Akai states the pads are “designed to be very sensitive” and that no great force is needed, which matches the ghost-trigger reports and contradicts the equally common complaint that the pads need a hard hit. Both cannot describe the same calibration, so the honest reading is that units differ — a conclusion an owner and a reviewer reach independently, and one Akai implicitly concedes by publishing a double-triggering guide for a product it also says is very sensitive.
“The rigidity, when the units are off, before you play them, makes you think they are going to be the usual, insensitive stiffness. But, when you start actually using them, they feel great, while still giving you a feeling of solidity.”
macProVideo
“the pads on the MPD218 are either to stiff (the one they sent me had almost no sensitivity at all, I could not trigger anything but quarter notes without missing beats) or too sensitive. AKAI seriously need to work on their quality control.”
AIHS · Thomann