It has a “Vintage Mode” said to emulate the sound “character” of the MPC3000, MPC60, and other units. The MPC Renaissance is a larger controller with integrated audio and MIDI interface. But we’ll see if the MPC can win over those same folks with greater flexibility, as an apparent concession to the reduced development cost and expanded capabilities of relying on a computer for horsepower. With plenty of software tools on the market, Akai was in the eyes of a loyal user base the go-to name for integrated hardware. To many, it may be more the sad end of an era than the beginning of a new one.
The surprise: all three products are controllers for software, not the all-in-one, integrated hardware that made the MPC famous. This week, we get a glimpse of Akai’s strategy for changing that. That isn’t to say Akai isn’t doing well, but ironically, most of the Akai users I run into these days are using the APC with Ableton, or a treasured MPC from some years back. And while it doesn’t have the same mass appeal, hardware from other makers – the Tempest or the Machinedrum and Octatrack – have more street cred these days. Users these days put just as much stock in the MPC as a concept, and the MPC hardware still attracts users, but other products are stealing Akai’s thunder (Ableton Live, Native Instruments Maschine), and the human faces beloved by users aren’t at Akai (from the hacked JJOS firmware to Roger Linn off working on the Dave Smith-released Tempest). Let’s face it: Akai could use a bit of a renaissance. The MPC name and MPC legend are as big as ever. Good news or bad news? We’ll know soon enough. But for the first time, something called “MPC” that relies on your computer.
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