Overall, this is really good news. Akai moves to the right direction in my opinion. Here is my feeling about all these enhancements:
- Multi-MIDI : yes! we are finally rewarded for our patience. And sincerely, it goes beyond my expectations. I mean, 32 devices is a loooooot. I guess we will not force to use a USB hub to connect two USB MIDI keyboards but just use the two inputs ports instead. They still keep a way to set a master device, which is a good idea. And we can rename the ins/outs! Now, the MPC Live can truly be called MPC "Live". By the way, the track inspector of the main page as well as the track view mode will really be good for something

- Perform mode : yes! we now can use perform pads without being on the perform page. And the feature of creating our own progressions in standalone is a great addition (the way of doing seems clever)
- Workflow enhancements : for me, it's the best things and it shows that Akai listened to some of our suggestions. The main + pad to change track will be dope. The pad perform icon on the main page instead of a dedicated mode is welcome (the shift + 16 level shortcut too). Copying pads/pad range/banks between programs is also important. Drum mapping will be very useful too. I just hoped we could create presets but maybe it will be added later. The on/off button on the TC window is great too, as well as the "click" shortcut on the track view mode and both shortcuts "shift + TUI metronome/TC" to enable/disable click/TC
- Retrospective record : very unexpected addition! When Ableton Live added this feature 2 years ago, I thought... well, so what? But now I use it all the time. So I'm very happy to see this on the MPC
- Q-link overlay : someone suggested that feature last year, and sincerely I did not believe Akai will implement this, but it's very welcome. I wish we could disable the option if we want. Another great thing would be to auto-focus the q-link function when touching the screen in some modes (program mode, mixer mode, etc.)
- Send MIDI track to another track : quite surprising feature but I guess it could be useful, if only to create synth layering. And it is chainable, working like MIDI thru sockets
With all of that, it will be not surprising that Akai implement class compliant USB audio interfaces, disk streaming and some other workflow improvements. Look forward to the next week
