You can also use the Akai Pro Fire to adjust levels and panning for FL Studio’s channel rack which contains your sounds, synths and loops, and mixer which contains the Master output as well as your effect inserts. Once you get used to it, it is much faster than clicking steps with a mouse and, admittedly, a heck of a lot more fun especially when you’re adding 16th note hi-hats. If this is your first time using a step sequencer interface for plotting notes (or steps), it takes a bit of time to wrap your head around it: each step key corresponds to a 16th note by default, so you’re seeing one measure or bar of music at a time. Holding a step pad down while moving a rotary encoder lets you change its parameters including velocity and panning. The pads are responsive and it’s easy to see when you’ve entered a “step” because it lights up – the brighter it is, the higher the velocity of that step, and the dimmer it is, the lower the velocity.

In the past you had to use a mouse or trackpad in order to do that, and that process is the main thing that the Fire seeks to replace. This step sequencer interface is what you use to input drum hits, one shots and synth notes. The Akai Pro Fire has 4×16 backlit RGB pads arranged to look like FL Studio’s step sequencer.

Akai fire fl studio