Ultros wrote:are we moving too far away from MPC's natural work flow?
Yes, they are, however, they had no choice. They'd be irrelevant if they hadn't evolved in that direction - and I do think that the natural evolution of these devices.
Right now, MPCs are just a collection of form factors. Internally, it's just a weak PC running the MPC Software as Firmware with a UI befitting the form factor of the device in question. It's an Appliance, like ATMs that ran OS/2 or Windows. Those are just PCs, too, like these MPCs.
The issue is that people are
increasingly not using appliances like MPCs as a hub for their hardware-based studios the way they were expected to in the past. These days, most users' studios are digital. They don't buy walls of hardware synths. They buy V Collection. They don't buy racks of hardware FX. They buy FX Collection, or Softube, or Universal Audio, or Plug-in Alliance, or Waves, etc. The vast majority can't even afford that stuff.
This is the only way for a company to make devices that can sell at reasonable prices and grow their marketshare.
This is why Akai had to pivot with the MPC.
I don't see anything wrong with it.
Honestly, most legacy users have too much familiarity bias to really be objective about these things. You really have to court at the grass roots to get some useful feedback about changes like this. Legacy users generally will be averse to most changes they haven't personally ask for.
