This one looks wider than the other MPC’s, and that has to count for something.
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Spolier: They won’t in the MPC line.
Possibly. I wasn’t mainly against the structure so much as the fact that the workflow felt much start - stop, apart from the actual playing and recording. I felt constrained and I did give it a fair shot, so it’s not that the MPC isn’t amazing for those who click with it, it’s just that it didn’t work for my brain. It felt similar to the daw experience I always get when I try it. It’s all there, I like each part, but the overall way it’s stringed together just stops me in my tracks.
If the little tweaks along the way and this hardware design has resolved that, then perhaps. I am a keyboard player, I’ve never understood the convoluted design of modern workstations, and my dream kit is a keyboard production station that sounds like a Prophet 12, samples like the blackbox and applies Chase Bliss FX.
I’m okay with going for outboard gear every once in awhile to get that extra touch I can’t find elsewhere. But my current workflow means I reach for multiple kits all the time just to do anything, since I hear a very specific sound I my head all the time and know how to find it on the kits I have and the MPC never came close to helping me get there.
But it’s a bit painful to have to fire up the entire chain reactor just to get a bass line going, sometimes.
Right, which makes it doubly irritating (to me) that they used MPC as a platform for their keyboard workstation and not the Force.
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Almost nobody gives a damn about the Force.
Yet is has macros which are extremely powerful, MIDI clip launching, global LFO assignable to anything, … all missing on the MPC platform. Obviously you don’t know you ever needed all those until you use them once…
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The Force is an ergonomic abomination 
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*The Force is a pure abomination
And the MPC series barely have any buttons for quick function access, save from the MPC X. It’s an ergonomic desert…
Sales very well with new models coming out every year.
Price has even gone up.
and now even a Key version is out.
The existing Force hardware is something I’ll never use because of the ergonomics, and of course the MPC has a much larger existing following (and I have no desire for this conversation to devolve into console war-style bickering). Just speaking for myself, not having some kind of timeline arranger on the MPC Keys is a dealbreaker. I think it looks great otherwise.
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You barely have to touch the screen with the X. It has buttons for almost everything.
And for the others, at least you can reach the screen without breaking your arm 
Yeah for sure, I hope they include the Force goodies on the MPC line as well.
Until then, you can always go the ”Hackai” route 
*honestly, I don’t even understand why they branched the OS. But I have no idea about the technical aspects
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When I used my Korg M3 61 workstation more, I recorded its audio straight to DAW (Logic, then Ableton) almost all the time. I only used its internal sequencer a handful of times.
From one perspective, I didn’t use it to its full potential as a workstation. OTOH, from our bandleader’s perspective, all we needed from it were decent piano and organ sounds, and it delivered just fine in those roles.
I’ve been thinking about getting a Yamaha YC-61 for its organ tones but the MPC Keys seems to offer organ too, plus plugins like OP-4. In this country, the two are priced about the same.
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1000%
But a tilted screen would change my opinion…
Just sayin Akai
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Toothpick arms often break when reaching 2 1/2 inches past the pads to reach the screen.
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dunno why I didn’t notice before that the panel is tilted, in relation to the keyboard.
I guess my eyes just skipped over this pic on the official product site.
Ok let’s try… Wait for NI when it releases their version. 
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Pretty infuriating, honestly. I own the plugin, I’d like to use it on both devices I own.