Why People Trading MPC Key 61?

I'm shopping for a workstation w/ linear sequencer, audio recording, and vocal effects and the MPC Key 61 seems to fit the bill. But it bothers me that so many owners are bailing out of them. For example, Guitar Center currently has 56 used for sale! Some under $1000. Not to mention 12 37s. What gives?

bldn10 wrote:I'm shopping for a workstation w/ linear sequencer, audio recording, and vocal effects and the MPC Key 61 seems to fit the bill. But it bothers me that so many owners are bailing out of them. For example, Guitar Center currently has 56 used for sale! Some under $1000. Not to mention 12 37s. What gives?

I'm assuming US as its dollars, is that total for the entire USA stock because that doesn't sound that many for the entire population that is so heavily hip-hop orientated? What are the other workstation numbers like that you've been looking at?

Also worth checking/trying to find out, do Guitar Center get refurbs/Bstock from Akai to sell 2nd hand? It happens with other brands here in the UK.

This is really common for gear that is marketed towards teens and non professionals. They buy it because of the marketing, dont know how to use it, then sell it to fund the next product they see on tictok. It has nothing to do with quality etc.

This benefits you though. Scoop up a used one (I guarantee it probably wasnt used but like handful of times) and save some cash!

bldn10 wrote:I'm shopping for a workstation w/ linear sequencer, audio recording, and vocal effects and the MPC Key 61 seems to fit the bill. But it bothers me that so many owners are bailing out of them. For example, Guitar Center currently has 56 used for sale! Some under $1000. Not to mention 12 37s. What gives?

56 and 12 used for an entire national inventory is TINY. As of the date of this post, Guitar Center still operates over 300 stores in the US. Also, the Roland TB-303 and TR-909 spent their second life at pawn shops and on clearance. Try not to judge an instrument by these metrics.

its cause the key61 is a bit of a gimmick.. in the newMPC workflow.. Qlinks are everything.
it just doesn't feel very "flagship" to only have 4 qlinks like the 61 has. you can get so much more power out of a Force or X with a real separate Midi Controller.

Yes it was a huge gimmick. 56 people are too smart and caught on to the big grift. Never change mpc world. Goofiest online user base

The lack of a SD card slot is pretty disgusting…

kaydigi wrote:The lack of a SD card slot is pretty disgusting…

And the lack of SCSI, where am I supposed to plug my external zip drive?

DellAtreides wrote:

kaydigi wrote:The lack of a SD card slot is pretty disgusting…

And the lack of SCSI, where am I supposed to plug my external zip drive?

Don't the forget the lack of Smartmedia cards. Doesn't Akai know MPC users love vintage shit.

Lampdog wrote:Q-links are the main reason I don’t use Key61 as much as I could/should.
I’m spoiled on X’s 16 right then and there, X is OUTSTANDING in this regard.

No tilt screen is a reason I limit my time on Key61, neck and back feel it after a while.
X is OUTSTANDING in this regard.

X’s pads are right there in your face, demanding to be pounded…
While Key61 keys sits there waiting to be touched and told it’s still a good girl, it is.

Why did I buy Key61, cause I wanted it. I gets what I want.

Everything else is good.

“I gets what I want”

jaymack wrote:Yes it was a huge gimmick. 56 people are too smart and caught on to the big grift. Never change mpc world. Goofiest online user base

Because of the keyboard that is just awful to play. The last thing you have when you can’t use the MPC is to play piano. But you can’t play piano because of this shit plastic shit. Akai named it « professional keyboard ». Have you ever made a gig with an MPC 61?

I believe the next thing to come out in a few months/weeks will be a force keyboard that will mimick the mpc keyboard and I think the price of used mpc keys will go up from the hype.. I think now is a great time to buy a used mpc key 61 as the used prices are unreal... Crappy feeling keyboard or not..

The 4gb matters!! And the only way you can get it is by paying close to two grand for the SE, the keys 61 is a steal for a little over a grand

Thanks for all the comments, good and bad. This is logical anyway but I do gather that most of you are MPC users, not necessarily keyboard workstation users. I am coming from THAT direction, and I still am not coming across instruments that have the features I want for <$1500. I would suspect that, for the sake of convenience, the Key 61 is not going to have the greatest keyboard, greatest sequencer, greatest sounds, greatest vocal processing, greatest storage and connectivity, etc. but what in one box for a thousand bucks used does? It actually gets decent reviews for those attributes. I'll add (don't laugh) that I'm currently working w/ a 1989 Ensoniq workstation.

And for enochlight, FWIW there are currently for sale at Guitar Center 21 Fantom 06s, 16 FA-06s, and 7 Korg Krosses. 56 is a lot for a relatively new instrument.