Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I thought that spending $500 on a MIDI controller would mean that I own it, and can sell it, but unfortunately that is not the case. PROs - The biggest pro by far is that VIP will catalogue all your VST instruments, and let you create lists of your favorite sounds. Somehow, nobody in this industry realized that people have tens of thousands of sounds, and no way to create sound sets across all the plugins. - My second favorite is the keyboard itself. It's feels well made, and those big rotary knobs feel plush. It is also very compact which is important to me. The pitch bend and mod wheel are perfectly fine north of the keyboard. The LCD screen is nice - bigger and touch sensitive would be even nicer. CONSs - My biggest gripe by far is the forced installation of iLok on my computer, without telling, or asking. I happen to vote with my wallet, and I don’t buy anything that includes iLok, or any other active copy protection scheme. I like to sell things, and buy the latest stuff, but nobody will want to buy a MIDI controller that is bound to me via iLok - I promise I’ll transfer the keys, please, buy it. Well, it really doesn’t feel like I own what I’ve purchased. What if iLok goes out of business? There are many brilliant people at Akai, but there are also some dumb MBAs who are ruining this company. It’s beyond retarded really, and the reason I originally gave this 1 star. Just state clearly that you use iLok, and I will not even look at your product, ..certainly not review it, but now I have an iLok virus on my computer, and I have to return everything. You both, wasted my time and lost my business. - There are still many bugs in the VIP software version 2. It’s just not thoroughly tested, and you’ll definitely not want to take it to a live performance - so much for Akai “Professional" moniker. - When I first installed the software on the Mac/El Capitan, the VIP would not start. Reinstalling, and skipping the v2 update, made it run. Installing the v2 update again, made it not run. While I understand that v2 update might be for version 1 (it’s not stated anywhere), the installer should make sure that it’s doing the right thing, and not kill the software. Again, bad quality assurance. - Integration with Logic Pro X is silly. The transport buttons rely on MIDI Machine Control, and the mapping is set per project. Not a deal breaker, but Novation Automap is way better (and not without problems either). - VIP plugin made Logic Pro X crash on save. Now, this is scary. Imagine lots of work flushed down the toilet, because VIP. Nice job Akai “Professional". - While I’d said that the keyboard is nice, it’s also not without fault. There are buttons used for moving around a reasonably nice TFT screen. A rotary + push button is used to scroll and select things in a list, and it feels wrong to me. To me, the option to select a sound just by scrolling, or having a dedicated button to push and select would work better. Maybe just a personal thing. - The VIP software on the computer also doesn’t give you an option to just hit the arrow down key and play a new sound. Basically, there is no focus, no matter where you click, so keyboard control is nonexistent. A better approach would be to add focus to every list, when user clicks on any item in it, arrow/page up/down keys would select corresponding sounds. - The VIP software has a search field, but substrings would not match. VERDICT I really, really want to love it, but I hate it. The iLok is a huge problem for me, and I refuse to get stuck with this hardware/software combo. iLok tells me that Akai doesn’t believe that I can be trusted with a serial number, even though I’ve purchased a substantial piece of hardware from them. I understand that software piracy might be an issue for Akai, but treating their paying customers as second class citizens is not a solution that works for me. Also, when iLok goes out of business, what will happen to all the software that people “own”? How will we sell what we “own”? All that said, I don’t care if vendors use iLok. It’s their choice, and they should do what they think is right for their business. Just clearly state that, so that people like me don’t bother looking at your stuff, buying it, wasting time installing and then removing it, and returning it. It's costing us all time and money, and it makes no sense. The software/hardware combination which crashes Logic Pro X on save, is a another no-go. I don’t have time for music making as it is, and the last thing in the world I need is to lose work. Those sitting in the studio all day long might be more forgiving. In conclusion, I hope that somebody (Korg, Novation, Nektar?) will take this excellent idea of VST (+AU, +Logic Pro X?) instrument cataloguing and playback, and do it right. No stores to sell plugins, no iLok, no crashes. A large touchscreen would be nice too. And please, when people buy something, they should OWN IT, and be able to sell it. Would you buy a car from somebody if they were to email you unlock codes after the sale is finalized?