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I have to admit I wasn't too keen on the product but after reading and watching reviews I truly believe this is a nice improvement on the workstation concept. I will be buying one if they release an 88 version with a bigger screen. I am interested to see if Korg will be upping their game when it comes to the workstation concept...

I could totally see an MPC Key X, with an 88-key weighted keyboard, polyphonic aftertouch, the tilting 10 inch screen from the MPC X, and more performance controls.

They could probably charge $2500 for it and have trouble keeping up with demand.

I doubt they will add an 88 note version,with the class compliant USB you can add another Controllor keyboard anyway so if you want a hammer action keybed you can choose your own,plus Akais history of 88 note hammer Controllor has not had the best track record

If you watch the sonicstate preview Andy Mac pretty much tells you that this is the only model they will produce

Have to say I’m very disappointed. It’s core function is that it’s a Sampler, and without streaming keygroups, 4GB of RAM share across the entire system with the OS and sampler is completely outdated. It's also auto converts 16bit samples to 32bit when you load samples, so a 20MB 16bit file gets converted on load to use 40MB of RAM, which is so stupid as that half's the amount of ram you have to work with.

I have the MPC X and the only reason I’ve hung onto it for as long as I have is that AKAI staff said that they were going to be adding streaming to the MPC. Long ago.....

The force then gets this, but not the MPC. Think I will just sell my MPC X while its still worth something and just give up on AKAI.

Sharp wrote:Have to say I’m very disappointed. It’s core function is that it’s a Sampler, and without streaming keygroups, 4GB of RAM share across the entire system with the OS and sampler is completely outdated. It's also auto converts 16bit samples to 32bit when you load samples, so a 20MB 16bit file gets converted on load to use 40MB of RAM, which is so stupid as that half's the amount of ram you have to work with.

I have the MPC X and the only reason I’ve hung onto it for as long as I have is that AKAI staff said that they were going to be adding streaming to the MPC. Long ago.....

The force then gets this, but not the MPC. Think I will just sell my MPC X while its still worth something and just give up on AKAI.

You could also buy those new plugins and add them to your mpc, they cost €150 each or €500 for all 6 of them..

We might have to wait for the upcomming NI komplete X keyboard..

I’ve activated the 9 day trial so I’ve full access to all 6 right now. Truthfully, I can’t justify buying them because I feel that they are way over priced for what little they offer.

Fabric XL is probably the most interesting one of them all, but it’s painfully slow to use. Selecting a preset sound takes anywhere between 1 to 5 seconds before it becomes playable. This gets old pretty fast when you are browsing through the sounds.

For the most part, real-world sounds are not so real too. There are far better third party sample libraries available for in around $30 to $50 each which are playable right away when loaded.

Regards
Sharp.

Thanks Sharp - it's good to have independent evaluations from real users.

The MPC Keys acoustic piano sounds more synthetic than acoustic to my ear - somewhat akin to the tonality of Pianoteq pianos.

Early hype from compensated influencers simply cannot be trusted. Whatever product they're endorsing is second only to sliced bread as the best thing ever. (There are a few exceptions like loopop and Woody who do real reviews not just endorsements).

I give any newly released product at least 6 months "in the wild" to get a balanced perspective of both cons and pros.

No problem. Who knows, 6 months from now maybe AKAI will have addresses these issues.

Seems some YouTuber's are on the mark though. This seems to be very fair and accurate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ9r1Q0kWNA


Regards
Sharp.

Sharp wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ9r1Q0kWNA
Regards
Sharp.

Yes, that's a good video, especially for an MPC newbie like me.

Any idea what is the polyphony for MPC Key? (128, 256, etc.). I don't see it in the Akai specs. The video says you're limited to 8 plugins per project. Does each plugin have its own polyphony?

Synthmaestro wrote:I have to admit I wasn't too keen on the product but after reading and watching reviews I truly believe this is a nice improvement on the workstation concept. I will be buying one if they release an 88 version with a bigger screen. I am interested to see if Korg will be upping their game when it comes to the workstation concept...

I think the pa5x is going to make an impact on the workstation market too. Although it is said to be an arranger the synth engine and some more things (some hidden capabilities that hopefully they ll enable in the future) along with its sound quality and ease of use will put it for good in the workstation market.
From what i know , its sound is better than the korg kronos in most cases (we are talking about the sample engine of kronos of course) and with all these onboard controllers , I can tell that it counts as a full workstation!

bpoodoo wrote:Any idea what is the polyphony for MPC Key? (128, 256, etc.). I don't see it in the Akai specs. The video says you're limited to 8 plugins per project. Does each plugin have its own polyphony?

I think that I saw a number somewhere, and it was big. However, every plugin does have its own polyphony count, and they are all different.

Having said that I don't think that you should be too worried about the plugin count as such. Aside from resampling, you get eight plugin tracks and eight audio tracks and an abundance of drumkit tracks, keygroup tracks, and MIDI tracks. If you run short of tracks you can render things piecemeal and treat them as frozen audio.

https://www.thomann.de/it/akai_professi ... key_61.htm

They write 64 simultaneous voices

bpoodoo wrote:

Sharp wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ9r1Q0kWNA
Regards
Sharp.

Yes, that's a good video, especially for an MPC newbie like me.

Any idea what is the polyphony for MPC Key? (128, 256, etc.). I don't see it in the Akai specs. The video says you're limited to 8 plugins per project. Does each plugin have its own polyphony?

bpoodoo wrote: Any idea what is the polyphony for MPC Key? (128, 256, etc.). I don't see it in the Akai specs. The video says you're limited to 8 plugins per project. Does each plugin have its own polyphony?

afr wrote:https://www.thomann.de/it/akai_professi ... key_61.htm
They write 64 simultaneous voices

64 simultaneous voices may be adequate for beats production. But for other song types, 64 simultaneous voices could be constraining, e.g. for a sequence composed of MIDI tracks with dense layering, long-sustaining notes, and multiple chords being played at the same time across multiple tracks.

I'm pretty sure I've heard other numbers, something more like 192? Over 100, to be sure.

But again, when the device is also a MIDI master that can drive other devices hard, that's a very artificial limit. I can use my Force to drive my Kross and my Krome and my Blofeld and my Pipes and my stack of Volcas and various desktop monosynths at the same time - and then I'm well over 200 parallel voices.