By KaoticShock
Wed Feb 23, 2022 5:27 am
SuperKonquer wrote:Just a thought, or maybe a hope and prayer.
I think Akai is going to go all out on the Ep's and Piano plug ins. Velvet has become one of my favorite vst's over Lounge Lizard. I don't think Velvet is too process intensive to be brought into the MPC. I think a lot of the new plug ins will be rompler type enhanced with fx.
I don't see any reason why they couldn't make amazing sounding instruments with a hybrid approach. Akai, although some disagree, is no fool. They understand what they are competing against and what the user expectation is. My only fear is that non-keyed units won't see all the new plug ever or at least won't see them until a year or 2 down the line.
I already have 2 MPCs and a Force and can't justify buying a new unit just for the plugs. But if there was some kind of new interactivity between the other units and the new keyboards, assuming they sound great, I could see selling my Montage and picking one up. But I'll really need to be impressed.
All This. I completely agree about the hopes and prayers for quality plugins. If you like Velvet, how do you like "Electric"? I found them to be very similar, and your right, they don't take up much CPU or RAM. They definitely can make amazing sounding instruments, Akai is part of InMusic which means they have access to the developers of AIR Structure, Xpand!, Hybrid, The Riser, and MiniGrand. SoniVox is also owned by InMusic which is why we got Solina and the MelloTron. I don't think they'll release the firmware update months or years after the MPC Key 61 comes out, it wouldn't make sense to ship a piano style instrument with only the HYPE Piano as the main Piano sound. I think it will be simultaneous, like when the MPC Studio 2 came out, we got a firmware update. I still can't figure out why the AIR plugins (Xpand, Hybrid, The Riser, Loom, Velvet, MiniGrand and VaccumPro) have Touch UI's in Controller mode, but they haven't made them available for use in standalone. I'm not a software developer, but I would assume that it's easy to make those plugins work. If they really want to compete, we should get 14 new plugins for a total of 22. 7 from the AIR Touch UI, and 7 of the teased new ones from the April 2020 leak (FMX, FMinisynth, Keyboards, Pop Brass+Woodwinds, Piano, Organ, and Strings) All of those would actually make sense for a $1499-$1799 MPC Keyboard. Also, I doubt that it will be priced more than the cost of an MPK261+MPC Live II, which is $1798.
What's really interesting is to compare the features of the Roland FA-06 to the Yamaha MODX61 to the Korg Krome 61 key. They each have unique features that make them attractive to different styles of keyboardists/performers/Producers. I think that the MPC Key 61 will definitely stand apart from the competition with the large velocity sensitive pads and powerful sampling engine.
