Are these plugins worth $500 to you?

In this video I'm checking out the new paid plugins from Akai that shipped with MPC 2.11. I'm not deep diving into each feature, it's more of a sampling of the presets and making a quick beat with the stock MPC plugins. Finally I end with a discussion on pricing and looking at it from both sides of the coin.

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Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:29 OPx4 sounds
06:35 Let's start a beat
08:53 Quick drums with DrumSynth
10:48 Let's checkout StagePiano
15:01 Grabbing a bass from FabricXL
18:03 How's StageEP sound?
19:34 And the Organ?
21:10 Studio Strings
23:15 Jamming with the Organ
24:52 Some final thoughts on pricing

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#mpc #beatmaking #musicproduction

[monsirto]

Akai has left me with an overwhelming sense of gratitude over the last few years. MPC is up there with the OG Circuit with regards to the value that has been added after I purchased it. Very rare to see such generosity and after purchase care. Maschine, we are looking at you ; ]

[powermix]

AKAI has made the Best MPC to date and software updates are really on point, But $500 for those I don't think so. They Could have charged $250 for MPC users and that's still a tall order to ask. The kicker is it's $500 for a limited time as they cost $900, that's laughable.

[spectre.garden]

My suggestion would be for Akai to price the plugins low or free and charge a much higher amount for the presets and sample-banks than they previously charged for their one-shot/melodic libraries. Content takes time to produce. Good content necessitates both time and experience. So that cost/time checks out. I get the impression that $500 is reasonable if the MPC is your main kit. But $500 will buy quite a few interesting small hardware synths both new and used. And a sampler allows you to stretch those little instruments further than they could have gone on their own.

[StrosBHos]

Man I jumped back into the mpc world after years of pc production. First thing I did was spend $250 on Jura, Flex, & Fabric XL.

[BrentODell]

My two cents: First, $500 for the whole collection is... steep. I paid something like that for FL Studio with all the bells, whistles, and plugins('Producer Edition', I think it's called), and that software is CRAZY powerful. That said, my computer is currently dead, and I've been wanting to spend more time away from the DAW anyway, so I've been working on using my MPC Live 2 and some other hardware to create music. In that context, the cost is easier to swallow. I'm not sure where I'd even start looking for this range of sounds in a hardware/standalone unit for that price.

As for the new Akai MPC Keyboard, I think it looks SICK. I don't really play keys worth a damn, already have the above-mentioned Live 2, and don't really have that kind of desk space, but I think for keyboardists it's a great option.

[danoteck]

Great and fair video! I think the price is fair with other standalone software in the market compare to Roland and Ni standalone stuff. TIP: Use “locate preset” button on the top right of the sounds browser to find the sound you’re one instead of going back to sounds.

[alexwestconsulting]

straight up, hell no these are not worth $500. And that's the "half price" price. What a joke. It's worth $200. And Akai is just going to end up screwing over its loyal, early adopter buyers when they lower the price to something reasonable. This is a brutal misstep. And where's the disk streaming already?

[Morenoo]

Like always, enjoyed the video! And I really enjoyed today's guest! Looking forward to see him more often...

[daveother]

Yeah, expensive for sure, but I'm packing away to grab em.
Demo'd on my OG Live, they sound great, aren't as bad on resources as I'd feared, and most importantly, are inspiring to me.
Lots of cool presets, I know it's not up to par with all sorts of other options, but I live in my Live, almost totally standalone, with controllers and other doodads.
Bottom line: Upgrading to the keys is too much, for effectively more RAM as an existing owner.
Will pay the 500 now and wait for the Live 3 someday for the next upgrade cycle.
Oh, and totally agree, the Flavor effect is GREAT.

[dawidsidor]

They sound interesting, but not $500 immediate buy level. I'm hoping for some good sales as I'd like to have them on my MPC One, but simply can't justify them at this price. If they dropped to 250-300 for the bundle, that'd be a very different story.

Current pricing seems to be set up in a way to convince people that the new MPC Key is a great value, rather than actually reflecting the perceived value of these plugins in the market.

[Drrolfski]

My real problem is that Akai might be starting a trend here where you buy a future MPC, only to find out that its sounds and fx are only barebones. And that you have to pay another half on top of the hardware investment you just made to get the full deal. That's just a horrible customer experience.

[hostilesavage]

MPC X owners should be given the new plug ins for free as we spent just as much for the X as that wack a$$ keyboard costs... make it happen Akai...

[Marco-ekwu]

I would label these instruments as on par with iOS apps and should be priced as such. Not for me at current prices although I do like the idea of having a few more instruments in the box. I agree we can’t expect Akai to keep rolling out updates based on the original hardware sale but an online shop built into the software would be the way to go. Selling synth patches, samples, keygroups, instruments and expansion packs. Even expand to community stuff that can be uploaded and sold where akai take a commission.
As for the keys 61 - I can just plug my Live 2 into my Roland fp30. Same thing with a larger/better keybed and I’ve got a speaker and battery. Then I just unplug and finish working on the track somewhere else.

[WyattLite-n-inn]

I like your closing views on the price . Rest of the video was super, too.

[Nothingspeshalwaysfresh]

Love the plug-ins but sadly they aren't nearly as affordable as I would like them to be.

[Avegas]

As I person who bought the Force when it first came out I can now say its worth the money....just had to wait years to be able to re order tracks.... the pluggins sound great and def going get the Keys and organ (onsale right now) maybe the OPx-4 too. I agree though the price is a bit high, I don't mind paying say$50 per pluggin but not $500! They should make a cheaper version that works only in the machines and a more expensive one if you want it to work as a vst, then at least they know they made the money off the hardware when ppl buy the $50 one.

[straighttalk]

This is totally crazy to go from DAW to inferior DAW (dawless hardware) and then buy inferior plugins for the inferior dawless system.

[carl]

10000% love the new look! Daddy tefty! 😍😍😍😍

[koraamis]

Now finally could test the plug ins.
to have in consideration:
Fabric: Lots of decent sounds, but not covering all the basics; no woodwinds!
Some presets are recycled from Hype, at least I could find some choir, strings and bells that sound basically the same as in hype.
Almost no articulations going on, even thou, the fabric engine can in theory handle it, there are even a few guitar presets with harmonics, slides or muted articulation on notes with velocity 127. But it would be so much better if we could construct our own presets with articulations, let's say a fingered bass on layer 1 and slap bass on layer 2, and switch between them with a foot switch or something, could not do that in a easy way (it is possible to record an automation turning layers on and off, but not switch between them).
Compared with keygroups, Fabric has layers 3 (two melodic multisamples and one percussive layer as shown in the video) each layer has an unknown number of velocity layers that can't be edited, it has embedded effects, better GUI, but no custom samples. Keygroups are more basic, but velocity layers can be edited, and they can use your own samples.

Fabric Piano has the same sounds as stage piano, and also similar presets can be found in the normal fabric, still fabric piano sounds better the the normal fabric.

Stage piano, seems to have more velocity layers than fabric piano (but in general the same samples). It has additional controls for piano parameters, hammer noise and so on, that makes it sound much better, it could compete with pianos from other hardware flagship synths.

Similar story applies to the EPs.

In general the Fabric, technically speaking does not match other synths like the kronos, fantom or montage, those would offer more velocity layers, and articulations. The dedicated plugins like the Stage Piano, Stage EP, Organ or Studio strings, could eventually compete with those.

Studio strings has some interesting legato algorithm thing going on, but I think they should have added more articulation power to stand out.

The organ, seems nice, the type of control would not be found in fabric or easily emulated on keygroups.

The opx4 is quite powerful for an 4 operator FM synth, when compared to other FM synths, it tends to stay on the harsh side of FM thou. But it offers a lot of parameters to be modulated or automated. A bit niche, but if you like FM beyond some classic sounds, it can't be replaced by keygroups.

I would say, the bundle is only worth for standalone users, as there are better value VTS. Moreover, considering that there is a lot of overlapping, and to some extent it can be replaced with some good keygroups, for those who know well what they need, cherry-picking only one or two plugins could be better than the bundle (or wait for other plugins to come out or sales).

[mikebush]

Yea, I think I'm just gonna get the Fantom-08 😏