AKAI Professional MPC Key 61

The Akai MPC key 61 is a worlds first true All-in-one Daw or as close as you can get to it. It was a dream coming true for me and I knew once I saw it in use I had to have it.

All my life I've loved working "off-daw" meaning me and Daw systems never got to be too good friends since there was always some kind of limitations even with a 16 core super pc, either Asio drivers wouldn't work properly or the setup depending on a pc would be too cumbersome for me. I like old school instruments that just are there for me when I switch it on - instantly.

I've had it for 14 days now and it's everything I expected and more. To understand my excitement you have to first understand that I was new to the entire MPC universe and I had no idea the MPC series were so versatile, and now it even comes integrated with a keyboard.

Many people who don't own it yet says it's just an MPC one/live/X with a keyboard attached to it - and I can so far from watching 100's of youtube videos + using it myself tell you it's not.

Why? The major difference is the addition of the keyboard, the extra TouchFX ribbon bar that is one of the most versatile Ribbon bars I've ever tried. I have the Yamaha Montage with a ribbon bar and that works entirely differently as it cannot handle several fingers on the ribbon at the same time, the Akai MPC key 61 can - and it gives you the versatility to make special "jumps" and effects placing double fingers various places on the ribbon and with Leds to indicate where your finger points.

Another difference from the entire MPC lineup is that the Direct-buttons for the various functions are quite differently placed and have different shortcuts from for example the MPC Live etc. It was made and tailored specifically for the workflow of a workstation like this.

It also comes pre-loaded with a bunch of plug-ins (25 to be exact) with various instruments available to us, this usually costs like 500$ if you upgrade your regular MPC models if you purchase the Plug-in Bundle, AKAI says it's 1K bundle value. I'm a bit split on the value of that.

But the workflow is nothing short of amazing and finally there's a true sampling / VST / Integrated DAW keyboard for those who had the same dream as me, and it works. I can churn out new musical pieces by the minutes instead of fiddling with setups, midi, multi-track recorders and mixers, and it's a world class sampler/looper just like the rest of the MPC series as a bonus.

The Con's and Pro's:

The Con's:
Remember it's a worlds first, so it's bound to come with some release errors, software flaws and first-edition limitations which I fully expect AKAI to adress in the future. One of the initial bugs that I discovered was that ONE key on the keybed was too loud, like if you had a "stuck" velocity sensor on an older keyboard - fortunately hammering on it fixed that issue and I didn't ever have that issue since.

Secondly, something this fresh from the factory made my entire house stink of chemicals for a week, oh well - I guess that proves it really came directly from the factory after this early release.

The keyboard is a bit "stiff" in comparison to my Yamaha Montage - but WAY better than cheaper keybeds like on wavestate and MODX and similar cheaper lineup of keybeds.

It accepts digital external units such as USB Mixers and USB microphones, but with a caveat - you cannot separate the input/output drivers for these yet, so if you use an USB Microphone as a sampling device it will think that your entire USB Microphone is a sound-card as well, and you'll have to switch back to AKAI MPC's internal keyboard to hear the recording, you can solve this by simply use it as intended - with a regular Line IN 6.3" jack microphone, or an XLR Microphone with Phantom power.

It also lacks some of the functionality of a real DAW like a "Select ALL" function when working with the GRID (Note Sheet), but you do have an individual note edit function and a Rectangular Select function.

For an instrument with supposedly 6000 sound presets, there's still a lack of certain instruments such as FLUTE, upon using the search function there was no such instrument available. But you have an unmatched chop-and-sample function so you can "steal" sounds from other keyboards or use it as a Master-Midi Sequencer for all your synths, and if you hook it up to a Digital mixer or use the XLR/Line in inputs from your analog mixer, you can Bounce (re-sample) the sounds from your external keyboards to use them internally on your AKAI. It has a time-stretch function too, and you can layer up to 4 sounds which can be spread across the entire keybed or drumpads.

Pro's:

It's truly Dawless workflow.

It's super simple to use, you require very little learning to get up and running, you simply press Sounds to select any sound -+ track on the screen below and press either Record or Dub on the dedicated buttons and it instantly starts recording your track. Recording the next track is as simple as repeating the above - NO MENU DIVING at all.

You have near unlimited bars (up to 999)
There's 128 midi tracks which also can be used with samples internally.
You can use 8 VST's at the same time.
The screen is Multi-touch and is super fast and responsive.
You can add an Internal SSD drive.

AKAI mpc keys. What to say and where to begin… it’s a whole sensory and satisfactory experience…
From the moment you start taking the AKAI box out of the fantastic “Thomann” box you can sense the perfection. Like a Christmas, really. That “wrapping” is maybe the best designed box we have ever seen. For a long time, at first we just sat and looked at the package. Screaming sexy Red color on the side, front picture of a synth and photo of plugins on the other side just inviting you in and making you drool like over some good cake or some perfect dish in a fancy restaurant.

Opening up, pulling out little poster printed on a nice high quality paper (that you don’t really get in these days) with the synth picture and basic information. And then a pure joy when you start taking out the keyboard itself. Felt like when our parents bought us our first synth. We have been using keyboards since forever. From Casio vz1 through Yamahas , Rolands, from Korgs T3,M1, 01wfd to Nautilus…Never had felt what we felt when unwrapping this peace of art, before even pressing the power button on. Pure beauty.

We’re not going to write here what the keyboard sounds like, everybody hears it daily on the radio. But being able to quickly get an idea down into the synth’s sequencer, (like in the old days on Korg 01Wfd where some careers have been made) play around, plus record vocals or guitars, mixing on the fly, without firing up the computer and a whole studio chain is absolutely amazing. We’re coming from the 90’s style of hybrid recording, and haven’t been using it much since the computers and daws came into this world, so it’s exciting to kind of a go back to the youth and the way we did it then (just on steroids).

You can finish the whole project right there in the machine or you can just hook it up with your main daw and continue working. It’s also good for my wife not to bother herself or me with getting the computers up and running when she gets an idea for a song or something. Now she can just press a button, and be on her way to creating. We love it.

Vielleicht nicht das Gerät für jedermann, aber jedenfalls genau das, auf das ich seit Jahren gewartet habe.

Pros:
+Sampling at it´s best
+Sequenzer
+"Produktions-Studio" onbord
+Bearbeitungsmöglichkeiten (Sounds, Potis, Synth, Pianoroll, Samples und und und) schier unbegrenzt
+diverse Synth Engines aus denen man unglaubliche Sounds herauskitzeln kann (neben den über 6000 Top Presets, die auch nach Belieben editiert werden können)
+Anschlussmöglichkeit für 8 (!) externe Synths bzw. Modulare Synths
+trotz Kunststoff-Gehäuse sehr hochwertig und stabil verarbeitet.
+Keyboard-Tastatur muss natürlich getestet werden, aber ich war aufgrund meiner relativ schlechten Erfahrung mit der Haptik der Akai Keys positiv überrascht wie gut sich das Keyboard anfühlt und spielen lässt.

Cons:
-kein Phono-Eingang
-kein SD Card Reader
-bedingt Live tauglich für "Standardkeyboarder" (bei den High-End Samples etwas zu lange Ladezeiten und man muss ein wenig darauf achten, welche Sounds man fürs Layering verwendet (Stichwort: Speicher) - - man kann das, je nach Setup der einzelnen Sequenzen, im Großen und Ganzen aber gut umgehen, bzw. an die Bedürfnisse anpassen.

Meiner Meinung nach top für Studio und Live Einsatz geeignet

Live-Keyboard? Kommt drauf an. RTFM. Die Kiste stellt im Prinzip alles zur Verfügung, was man üblicherweise live braucht - mit der Einschränkung, dass man gut vorplanen sollte: Beim Laden neuer Sounds vom Speichermedium werden die bisherigen Sounds abgeschnitten und man wartet ein paar Sekunden auf die neuen. Um das zu vermeiden, kann man sich seine Song-Sets aber so organisieren, dass man praktisch gar nicht neu laden muss. Ich würde es so formulieren: Wer oft spontan mitten im Song neue Sound-Ideen ausprobieren möchte, für den gibt es andere Keyboards mit schnellerem Direktzugriff.

Weiterhin hat das AKAI keine (schnell zugänglichen) Masterkeyboard-Funktionen.

Und das war's auch schon mit den Einschränkungen! Ansonsten (und vor allem im Studio) ist die MPC Key 61 eine absolute Hammermaschine. Ich benutze sie am liebsten, um Klavierkompositionen auf MIDI-Tracks mitzuschneiden, und anschließend die besten Ideen weiter zu verarbeiten. So habe ich oft in weniger als einer Stunde das Gerüst für einen neuen Song fertig, und kann das Gerät mit zur Probe nehmen, wo Bass und Gitarre drüberspielen (Audio-Track-Aufnahme per DI-Box ins Keyboard).
Es ist ein sehr angenehmer und produktiver Workflow, weil der Sequencer so mächtig ist. Bisher ist mir sowas mit meinem Kurzweil Forte, der das ja eigentlich auch "kann", wegen der dort umständlichen Bedienung nicht gelungen.

Momentan sampel ich meine Toontrack-Lieblingsbibliotheken ins MPC, um zum Komponieren mehr Auswahl an "normalen" Drumkits zu haben. Habe dazu eine 2TB SDD eingebaut. Großartiges Ergebnis.

Was mir noch fehlt ist eine Suchfunktion, die über alle Soundsets geht. Wenn ich beispielsweise nach "Clav" suche, dann muss ich das im Prinzip in jeder Expansion und jedem Plugin wiederholen. Das ist wenig zielführend.

AKAI liefert übrigens fleißig neue Betriebssystem-Updates nach. Gerade, im Februar 2024, kommen die "MPC Stems" hinzu, googelt das mal...