A lot of us use midi controllers with PD, and so I thought to post the following warning here...several well known brands have now been acquired by the mega-company inMusic Brands and the quality is going down down down...I just had a horrible experience with a new M-Audio keyboard controller from the AIR series (and their customer service was total crap as well). Let the buyer beware...I post these things here to try and prevent someone else from falling into the same trap as I, and also to suggest a fix for one common problem that Akai controllers have (Akai is now part of this same mega-company,and their controllers have a well known flaw the the company has done nothing to remedy)

Warning: be VERY careful before purchasing any new M-Audio products...in particular anything that says "Air" on it...lots of false advertising there, totally inaccurate and incomplete documentation, and stuff that just plain doesn't work at all. The user forums evidence this to a degree, and my personal experience confirms it, unfortunately. Further, the "support" staff provide no help, and it seems even impossible to get a refund, especially if you buy the product in one country and live in another...To make matters worse, it getting difficult to avoid these people do to corporate manuverings: M-Audio rather recently became part of inMusic Brands (sounds super cool, eh?) check out who else they own at http://www.inmusicbrands.com
. You can see there many other companies whose former standards of high quality (Marantz, for example) have fallen...also companies selling products with known design flaws (the Akai keyboards, for example, which although great have been known for years to have these really weak USB jacks that snap off at the slightest breath- yet no improvements have been made). In light of slum lords like this buying up the suppliers of electronic music equipment, maybe its time to return to building one's own gear...probably a good idea for creativity as well, as its good to know how the mechanics of these instruments work, and since we are in part governed by the packaged functionalities (presuming they ever functioned in the first place, which in the case of some of this m-audio trash is doubtful).

here is a link to a good fix for an Akai LPD if you have a broken jack - but also somewhat confirms how ubiquitous the problems are (http://www.jaredqpittman.com/akai-lpk25-fixing-a-broken.../
)...a simple search on this problem, or ANYTHING concerning M-Audio Air series keyboards will also reveal a wealth of false advertising, and a total lack of functionality on even the most basic levels (like the ability to send or receive midi data, or even communicate with other m-audio products and software)