Akai Professional MPK Mini Play MK3 - MIDI Keyboard Controller with Built-in Speaker and Sounds Plus Dynamic Keybed, MPC Pads, Software Suite and Native Instruments Sound Package

This is a wonderful instrument. I love being able to sit anywhere and experiment with sounds and chords. The range of the keyboard is limiting but it forces you to think more simply when creating, but that is what makes the keyboard extremely portable. The octave range buttons somewhat make up for limited keys. If I were to buy again, I would probably get the 37 key version, although it would make it less portable. Decent sounds that can be altered to your liking with good built-in speaker. So much fun.

This MPK Mini Play MK3 is tiny and fits in my small overnight duffel along with a sustain pedal and stereo monitors (plus clothes and travel stuff)... amazing.I've owned many expensive full-size keyboards (like RD2000), and the synth sounds from this AKAI are surprisingly good and a reasonable General MIDI selection. Pianos, E-pianos, clav and harpsi are all good; organs are limited; basses are fine; string ensembles good but violin/viola not useful to me, drums are adequate, etc. The reverb is nice. The drum pads work while the keys are being played, so we've had two people playing on this tiny device... very fun. The keys are velocity sensitive (not weighted) and work fine for a 2-pound instrument. The joystick is very clever: push left to modulate volume (fade in, or volume dips for brass), right for vibrato, up and down for pitch shift.The octave transpose is essential (get the bass into the right register, get to the high strings) and designed just right. Too bad there isn't a chromatic transpose: for such a short keyboard, it would be nice to transpose on a song-by-song basis so we get the most of the keys that are here.The sustain pedal I like is item B08NSZFGC1, labeled Sovvid for $13. It works perfectly and is extremely lightweight. Most of my sustain pedals are very heavy, which is great for staying in place on stage but for travel this one is ideal. It is even lighter than a small footswitch. And it works with both electrical standards (normally open / normally closed).The lightweight speakers I carry are item B09PFGJ94L, Pyle 5.25" woofer 2-way active, though many other models (including active PC speakers with subwoofer) would work fine. Rated 300 watts (skeptica), these are plenty loud enough for a living room and they sound fine (but lacking deep powerful bass, as expected). Plug in the AKAI keyboard with a 3.5mm 15-ft stereo cable like Startech item B004G3WCNK $8. These Pyle speakers need a length of 2-conductor speaker or lamp cord to connect the passive speaker to the active one. In a pinch, the AKAI keyboard could be connected to a television analog audio input. The keyboard itself has a tiny speaker, but it's very limited.

Bought this for my 5 year old niece to see if she likes piano or synths. She loves it! It’s great that it’s battery, has speakers, has knobs, and a drum pad.The first one I got had a broken key (wouldn’t trigger) so I had to go through the return process but that must have been a fluke. I also wish the drums were louder on the internal speaker. They’re weirdly quiet unless you turn off the touch sensitiveness

Really awesome! Just wish it a) had full sized keys and b) using anything other than usb type-c (it has the usb printer cable port) in 2025 is kinda pathetic, and super duper annoying. Bought a printer to type c cable and it works fine, but should've been able to use on of the many, many type c to type c cables I already owned. That being said, it has a speaker and built in synths while being midi compatible, so I really do like the thing, great for duolingo

The media could not be loaded. There aren't many options when thinking in midi controllers, built in sounds and built in speakers, AND portability.While most modern Casio or Yamaha personal keyboards got USB and can be used as midi controllers, none are as portable as this is. Except for the PSSA50 from Yamaha, which is the other one I was considering, but the lack of reverb and knobs made me move away from it.So I decided to give this akai a chance, and when I got it, I realized it is exactly what I wanted:-Super tiny and portable-Built in speaker (mono, yes, but good enough for playing around)-Built in very good quality sounds (many are really nice. The synth pads and brass are among my favorites)-4 knobs for tweaking with 2nd function each, you get 8 parameters that can be modified on the fly. This includes Attack, Release, equalizer for highs, eq for lows, amount of chorus effect, amount of reverb effect, filter and resonance, being these last two the most fun to use.-Arpeggiator. While it doesn't have a chord option, you can set amount of octaves, playing direction (let's say: random notes, notes up, notes down, up and down, exclude or include border notes.-I'm using 4 Epoch AA 1.5V lithium USB rechargeable batteries, they are quite new in the market but I can recommend them, I haven't had to recharge them yet and I'm using the keyboard on max volume for hours now.I'm still getting familiar with it, but first days with it surprised me quite a lot. I can recommend this keyboard if you want everything it sports.