Yo dude, im an amateur too, since like half a year?
Anyways i wanted to get some hardware you know, tired of tapping that flimsey computer keyboard.
So i bought an mpkmini, yet it only gave me head ache -.-
After days of searching and doing pointless shit over and over again, i finally got it.
I myself use cubase, this is how i do it;
i grab my groove agent, load it with (mostly drum)samples (thats 9 tabs of 4x4 pads)
i assign groove agent to channel 10, as 10 is standardly used in mpk mini for the pads
the rest i leave @ channel 1.
then;
you noticed you can tap the buttons called ehmm.. something 1 and something 2

in my case i used the something 1 for the bottom 2x4 pads and the something 2 for the upper 2x4 pads.
use the 1 through 4 buttons to assign the first 4 tabs of groove agent to each individual pad of the mpk mini.
For tabs 5-9 i use the iPad which is similiar to the NanoPad.
With the included, or downloadable Akai software, you can program your mpk, deciding which octave to start at.
Apologies in case of any grammar FAILure, im dutch you see, well actually french, living in holland xD
edit;
btw i remember running into mpk mini ableton live presets during my quest for the cubase tutorials xD
http://www.soundware.co.uk/news/2010/11 ... on-live-8/