The ME30P stores your programmed routing patch in a chosen Bank and up to 15 Banks (labelled 1-9 and A-F) can be held in non-volatile memory, so they're not lost when you power down. All you do is connect the required instruments to whatever Input/Output Channel sockets you like on the rear panel and then proceed to define which Input you'd like to go to which Output using the front panel buttons. This task can be accomplished easily on the ME30P. Now you may be happy to put up with such things, but what's required at the end of the day is a MIDI patchbay that will allow permanent connection of each device and make it possible for you to route MIDI signals from one unit to any other as desired but without replugging anything.Īnd that folks is precisely what the Akai ME30P lets you do.Ĭonfigured as a 4-into-8 programmable device, the ME30P will let you connect a MIDI instrument (usually a 'controlling' unit like a keyboard or sequencer) to each of its four Input Channels, and let you assign them to any of its eight Output Channels (normally connected to 'passive' MIDI devices like expanders, digital delays, sampler modules etc). And when you wish to reconfigure your set-up to make another keyboard the Master instrument, you're faced with unplugging all of your MIDI cables. It also prevents you from using any device in the chain not fitted with a Thru socket (unless it goes last of course). This method, however, generally results in the dreaded 'MIDI transmission delay' whereby those instruments furthest down the chain are slightly out of sync with the others. the (Master) instrument's MIDI Thru socket connects to the second's (Slave) MIDI In, and the second instrument's MIDI Thru to the third's MIDI In and soon. MIDI equipment is conventionally connected in a simple Master/Slave daisy-chain manner ie.
After all, MIDI is all about 'control' and any MIDI patchbay can only expand the control you the user have over your system. At £99 (inc VAT) however, Akai's ME30P patchbay is well within the financial grasp of most musicians and the benefits it can bring to even the most sparse MIDI set-up are certainly worth having for that sort of money. A MIDI matrix box/patchbay has artificially been seen as a non-essential item in the past primarily because of the relatively high selling price of existing units. You certainly haven't considered buying something that generates no sound of its own like a patchbay, you simply haven't got the cash.ĭoes this therefore mean that the potential market for Akai's new ME30P is limited somewhat to studios and better-off musicians? I think not. If you are a musician with perhaps one MIDI keyboard, an expander module and maybe a MIDI drum machine, then you don't necessarily require the facilities offered by a programmable patchbay - you can get away with connecting equipment up directly, right? And one thing's for sure, your next income is already going on that new sampler or sequencer, tape recorder or even a MIDI effects unit. Well, read on and all will become transparent. 'What is he talking about?' I hear you ask.
You have to hand it to Akai, when it comes to marketing their new ME30P patchbay, they have definitely got their heads screwed on the right way.