Today Akai Professional introduced the Akai Fire, the first dedicated hardware controller for FL Studio. Created in collaboration with Image-Line, the software manufacturer of FL Studio, the Fire controller is designed to speed up the creative workflow and enhance the overall user experience.
Debuting shortly after the launch of FL Studio 20, Fire comes just as FL Studio becomes available for use with the Mac OS platform, creating a hands-on way to interact with the DAW for both PC and Mac users alike.
Featuring plug-and-play integration, Fire boasts a 4×16 velocity-sensitive RGB pad matrix. Users can quickly input patterns on the Step Sequencer or switch over to Performance Mode for live playing and recording of notes and launching patterns.
Fire includes four banks of four touch-capacitive knobs, enabling the user to quickly see and adjust parameter values, enabling a ‘mouse-free’ intuitive workflow with extensive control over channel, mixer and user-assignable parameters.
Akai Pro FIRE Features:
- Plug-and-play integration with FL Studio
- Quickly input patterns along the timeline in the step sequencer
- 4 x 16 Matrix of Velocity-Sensitive RGB Pads
- Expandable up to four units, creating the potential for an 8 x 32 Matrix
- Record notes in Performance mode
- Graphical OLED display
- 4 banks of assignable Touch-Capacitive Knobs
- Instantly navigate the Channel Rack, Browser, Tool Bar and Playlist windows
- Use dedicated controls to quickly browse audio and project files
- Dedicated Transport controls
- USB Bus Powered
FL Studio ‘Fruity Fire’ Edition is also included with the controller, and is engineered especially for use with Akai Fire. The bundled Fruity Fire Edition features everything the user might need in one package to compose, arrange, edit, mix and master professional quality music. The Fruity Fire Edition allows the user access to FL Studio’s piano roll editor and step sequencer, 500 tracks, VST & DXi instrument support, full automation functionality, plus over 18 virtual instruments and more than a dozen built-in effects and processors.
Pricing and Availability. The Akai Pro FIRE controller is available today, and US retail price is $199.99.
For additional information about the Fire controller, visit the Akai Professional website.
I think the 4 encoders should more logically default to volume Adsr, as those are the controls you would most want to access on the samplers. Maybe, secondarily, filter cutoff, volume, pan, shift, etc..
I also think that, for this thing to really be powerful, you would want 16 encoders running along the top, that can be assigned to any of the drop down values in the step sequencer (ie velocity, shift, filter, etc..)
I second this!
A little disappointed. Was hoping for a linnstrument style midi note grid instead of a cheesy mini-keyboard.
The finger drumming looks hilarious on such tiny pads…
Really weird defaults on the knobs too, like high eq, low eq?? Should be ADSR as noted above.
The OLED text must be barely 1-2mm’s tall.
If things are remappable/reprogrammable then it’s a decent buy, buuuut I’ll wait and see how it shakes out.
Yeah, if I could permanently re-map to Adsr per sampler, I’d buy it. Would be useful even just for quick loading, shaping, and sequencing. If I had to link to controller every time I open a new sample, that’s a bit of a hard sell.
I’m guessing they’ve thought of this and I’m hoping there’s multiple ‘modes’ for encoder use that are programmable. Going to wait on reviews for this one though.
You can do this through FL Studio via generic link function, which is really handy. I’m not sure if Akai could do that permanently with all vsts as I don’t think they all follow the same standard for midi cc values when it comes to common features such like ASDR CC, I could be way off base with that (or not giving Akai enough credit.)
Have you ever worked with FL Studio? Try to google generic link paramter…
why does akai think it’s a good idea to have encoder banks selectable by a single button? it’s hard enough to know what they’re doing without a display, let alone when you’re not sure what page of controllers the one you’re looking for is on.
Looks liek they could have done a lot more with this. A step in the right direction but it seems odd, like its lacking the functionality you’d really want with FL studio now, especially since they got further away from the steps and more into the piano roll and playlist window.
Looks fantastic to me! Why should Live users get all the cool controllers?
Really cool to see this kind of stuff happening! First FL Studio on OSX and now a hardware controller.. things are heating up (or the end is near)! As a new FL user I find it a little cumbersome coming from Live but it’s been fun to play around in. A wonderful time to be into music for sure.
As with Push, the real questions will be in how well FL Studio supports it and whether or not it really saves any time or makes it more fun to produce. But they nailed the price at $200 and Akai does make pretty nice controllers when they want to. Will be interesting to see some reviews from the power users out there.
If this has any kind of success (and I think it will) then we might as well expect version 2 to have bigger color screens, more encoders, better functionality, etc. Seems to be the trend with software manufacturers trying out hardware controllers. Might still pick this up on a sale though.
Someone knows if there is a vsti version with this fire fl edition? I would like to know if I could use it with ableton Live. I work with the APC 40 and I would buy this just for the drum sequencing, I like that kind of grid and the size much more than the maschine for performing live (house & techno). If they made it compatible with more software would be cool too.
Novation Launchpad or Launchpad Mini is what you are looking for.
Multi-device mode allows you to use up to 4 of these controllers in a 2×2 configuration, yet somehow they did not solve the problem of the USB jack being on the back of each unit (so you can’t put them right up against one another).
Also: as with previous new Akai products there are no dimensions indicated on the product web page.
I’d like if this could send and receive ordinary MIDI messages, so it could be used with other software. It looks like it could be a great button/LED matrix front end for a step sequencer.
When the maker of the MPC line makes a dedicated controller for you production software, you’re winning. Congrats to Gol and team.
Don’t really use FL anymore but this looks like a handy thing for 200 bucks.
Wonder if it’s possible to set velocity and other variable step values by holding a step and turning the encoder or something.
Jack O’Donnell is not “the maker of the MPC line.” Akai lost all its legacy and most of its good will with consumers a decade and a half ago.
gol is no longer developing for FLS, it’s been a couple years now.