Thoughts on the APC40

APC Demo @ dubSpot 2/19/09 from dubspot on Vimeo.

One aspect of Live I find most interesting is the variety of ways it is used - Live is a true swiss army knife of audio applications. A tool with which users of all levels can perpetually learn new techniques and workfows. I consider myself a pretty advanced user and I'm constantly picking up little tricks and workflow enhancements from different people.

Akai's APC40 marks the first time Ableton has officially put it's name on a control surface. Ableton's philosophy towards Live is that it is an open ended application, and is used in many different ways. So, when I heard the announcement of the APC40 along with Live 8 I was a bit surprised, to say the least. Is Ableton changing their philosophy behind their flagship app? Are they trying to standardize the way people use Live? Or is the APC40 as flexible a control surface as the application it was designed for?

This past week i had a chance to play around with he APC40 and I have to say that it is intuitively laid out and if you understand the way Live works, it's a breeze to get to grips with. I think its safe to say that the APC40 is designed to take advantage of Live's versatile workflow instead of limiting it. The controller is housed in a metal casing and feels very sturdy and with its Its 100+ glowing LEDs and encoder rings looks like a cross between the console on the Starship Enterprise and Live's session view. The faders are nice and chunky, and are easy to grab and maneuver in a dimly lit performance setting - something i can't say for many other MIDI controllers. Aesthetics aside, The APC looks pretty open ended to me, and seems like the controller might even help shape the evolution of the application. Also, with Max For Live arriving soon, APC40 users will be able to basically use it in ways the Ableton's have never thought of. I for one can't wait to see all of the lovely mods that the Ableton community comes up with - but for now we'll have to wait patiently until this super poweful controller hits the market.