Why thank you! It was very fun to do, esp. since the goal was not to precisely match the original.

Right! The Thriller vibe does generally fall within the "beat maker" category (Linn drum machine), so it makes sense that Key 61 might be a good tool for the song. However, I am pretty convinced that you could throw any style at this machine! Check out my cover of Stevie Wonder's Isnt She Lovely. Vocals, everything was done on the Key 61. I wanted to see if it could replace an entire computer based DAW.

Awesome! Taking a stab at Thriller was fun. Quick and dirty of course, but I wanted to experiment to see how the process would unfold. I'm really impressed with the keyboard. I think that we underestimate the power of music tools that make songwriting, composing, etc. easier and more fun!

Hold up, These stock sounds? cause if so thats all i need to know

@@DETERMINOLOGY not all are stock. The Fabric XL library has most of them.

@@dccarsonmusic ima have to check that out

Yep. Just stock sounds. As a matter of fact, there are tons of other great sounds I could have used, but I wanted to see how quickly I could do this so I wasn't terribly selective.

Thanks! Of course one could spend many hours on a production if the purpose was a master quality recording, but I wanted to see how quickly this could come together without butchering it. 😂 I'm sure the video part took way longer.

Here are the presets: Acoustic Kit TL Pimp Live Kit, Percussion Kit Cowbell Agogo Kit, Percussion Kit Conga Kit, Odessy Classic Bass, Hype Analog Brass, and Fabric XL Edge

Great idea and thanks for mentioning! As I mentioned, I am very new to the MPC world so I am just figuring things out as I go. I've only used the MPC software version a couple of times, but I am noticing a search tool there. Maybe someone in the MPC community knows more about that.

Thanks for the encouragement! Load time is not an issue for me since I am mainly using sequences just for composition. For live use I have just been loading up a few tracks with go to keyboards- grand piano, pad, strings, rhodes, B3.... Instant switching back and forth. I made a few drone pads as sequences which is also pretty cool. Using this thing live with some percussion etc. sequences is cool too.

Thank you! Oh, if you mean the intro music, that's just one of the demos on board the keyboard. I haven't looked at the MIDI tracks or patches, but the music itself is super simple of course.

Glad to hear you're enjoying it! I agree- the organs are very nice. I like the fact that the drawbars are accessible on the touchscreen. When playing live, I have multiple sounds set up on individual tracks, and consequently haven't found a way to get to the organ drawbars quickly enough.

@@davidcoate8946 Hmm, Did you try by hitting Edit because it takes you straight there Also you can create a shortcut as well. It's on KZfaq👍🏽

@@puresoulg . Yes I know about the edit button, but that's one too many steps with my live setups. I didn't know about the shortcut idea- I'll check it out. Thanks!

Wow, great questions! I remember those keyboards back in the day. I would think so since it has such a vast library of sounds, modern and old school. Akai is of course known for sampling, although I probably won't get to that for another year. Hahaha! Controller. Hmmm.... The keybed is not stellar, although its not too bad. What I have noticed is that the vertical excursion of the keys seems less than other keyboards although I mainly play weighted 88 key systems which is an unfair comparison. On the other hand, this 61 key keyboard flys with fast B3 runs. Actually, I am using it as a controller because it fits nicely under the production desk which is a game changer for editing on a DAW. Hope this helps!

Nick, your comments are spot on and so helpful! As you know, MPC has been around for a long time and much of the institutional knowledge and evolution of this keyboard appears to revolve around beatmaking, hip hop, and related genres. Even just the addition of a keyboard (ergonomically) thrust it into a sea of new possibilities of sounds and styles of music. So yes, it would serve the broader music community better if designers approached the concept of the Key 61 with this in mind! That's one of the reasons that I have been attempting to throw many different styles at it to see how flexible it is. In one sense, it is super flexible because its a sampler, but by the same token I want to make music quickly without fooling too much with technology. :) Your example of creating drum parts in your iPad is a perfect example. Almost anything played on the Key 61 pads will sound drum-machine-like, and not like a real acoustic drum kit part. My guess is that the fastest way to do this would be to create an audio (wave) file of the drum part and then import that into the Key 61. iI imaginie that others have more to say on this subject. Thanks again for reaching out!

@@davidcoate8946 like you, I generally want to get to sounds quick and not have to jump through hoops to get to the creative process. Because the longer you hesitate, the easier it is to lose the magic in your head, that originally made you sit down and want to record. So, through the MPC Key PC software that came with the keyboard, you can easily create a batch of sounds as if it is a sound pack. A gentleman on KZfaq that creates videos, has sold me a few of those sound packs that he has created from high-quality instruments that he’s recorded. I have a great pack of studio drums, acoustic/electric basses and acoustic/electric guitars that he sent me that are incredible. Perfect for rock. It’s nuts how good they are. The problem is, I lost his contact info to figure out how he creates those sound packs. Because, if I knew, I would create a bunch of my own. as I have a ton of East West sounds that I bought years ago, that sound better than anything I’ve ever heard. They were recorded at Abbey Road Studios and have a variety of real instruments recorded, that I would love to import to the MPC Key. Not to mention, there’s a guy on eBay that I bought a bunch of sounds from that does nothing but copy all of the sounds from different keyboards. Their entire sound set, that I would love to copy over. The good thing about the MPC key is that you can save projects as templates. Which means, you can load up the best drums, keys, bass, guitar and any other instrument that you use to make a song… Save it out as a template and have it load when the keyboard turns on an empty sequence with those sounds loaded up. Which makes a very quick way to start writing and recording music. Not only that, the sounds will save with the EQ/effects that you attached to them in those templates. So you can make them sound as perfect as you want… essentially master those sounds, so that when you record, that recording is going to sound perfect from the start. Meaning that there will be less work on the back end. Like you, I want the easiest way to start recording that sounds great and takes the least amount of effort to start on that creative process. Because, as you know, the ideas seem to disappear as fast as a appear in your head. Lol. In any case, it’s great talking to you about this stuff. If I find out how to make those sound packs, I will let you know. I’ve been diving in deep to learn this keyboard inside and out lately. It is an amazing piece of tech. It just takes a lot of time to learn it’s intricacies. Once you do, you realize exactly what they packed into this little keyboard.

Great information! Thanks. I didn't know about that template idea. It would be helpful to have KZfaq videos on this sort of thing because so many of them are geared to just beat making and not necessarily taking full advantage of this incredible machine!

Good to know! I haven't used clip-based sequencing yet on the MPC Key 61, but I'm sure others like you have. Sounds like your setup is amazing!

@@davidcoate8946 Akai MPC Key 61 does not have the clip-based sequencing. Only the Akai Force has it and it is super easy to use! The Force blows the MPC Key 61 away when it comes to creating songs.

@@manofsound9098 MPC has clip launching on tracks in rows of four. In the track view in the main window, look to the icon to the left of MIDI in track type.

One would think so right? I haven't looked at the specs but probably the only notable difference is a smaller keyboard. I prefer the 61 keys for live playing but kudos to Akai for providing a small alternative!

Thank you! Well, as I mentioned in the video my goal was expediency and not to try to duplicate the original. Just enough so the music would be recognizeable. The muted Strat part that I played is similar to Paul Jackson Jr's track, but it was just one of the stock patches on the MPC. So for example, I could have plugged my Strat into the MPC but instead went for expediency.

Very cool!

I know, right? Hahaha! Apparently I don't have enough attention span for my own video productions. I'm more of a music production guy anyways. 🙂

Thank you Allen. I'm definitely having fun with this keyboard! It's not perfect, but Akai has checked off so many boxes with it. Plus, as I mentioned, I am new to the MPC workflow which others have been immersed in for years. The touchscreens are Acer. They are relatively inexpensive, and I selected them along with Presonus Studio One for a "virtual console" approach. Over the years we have had huge hardware consoles in here and I used this more minimalistic approach which is also more future proof.

Hello accidently came across this. Nice job on the track. I don't have the keyboard but do have mpc live 2. I use it to create eveything from blues to metal to new wave to ballads. It suits me more than a DAW and I use it exvuldivly for production and record my instruments directly into the mpc.

@@DarminDeflern Very cool! Thanks for sharing this.

Very true! The sample loading time can be a real problem. As a workaround for live playing, I'm just loading up various presets on tracks and then muting individual ones as needed. Pretty cool in conjunction with sequences also loaded up in the same project file!

The problem is the mpc converts the loaded 16/24 bit samples to 32bit float to work on it efficiently in the memory. I don't think it's possible to do this on the fly.