AKAI MPK MINI PLAY MK3

Nothing says Christmas getting repetitive like family carols around the piano. Tired of the same old singalong? Remix the Yuletide tunes with Akai’s mini music maker. Barely a foot wide, this portable plaything features 25 keys and an eight-strong array of illuminated drum pads.

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The setup is sensitive to the speed of your fingers, so you can tinkle as quietly as a mouse or drop hard like a Home Alone bandit. A bank of more than 100 sounds means you can make like DJ Shadow, while the built-in speaker delivers the EDM ditties when you tour to your nan’s.

Hole ’n’ the head

Ports on the back include a 3.5mm headphone output for private jamming plus an input for the optional sustain pedal.

In the MIDI

Connected via USB, it’ll also work as a MIDI controller for software synths. Its four encoder knobs can be assigned to suit your workflow.

Tweak like me

Keen to wobble things up a bit? You can set the Mini Play’s fun-size joystick to work as a modulator or pitch bender.