Modern music production has become accessible to the masses, enabling numerous artists to break into the scene. Consequently, many plugin and hardware companies have emerged to meet the demand for the bells and whistles these emerging markets expect. Yet a significant portion of this community, having been around long enough, understands that most of these flashy new devices and plugins don’t enhance your ability to make better beats or write better songs.
This is why many beatmakers from older generations bypass the latest production trends, choosing to keep their toolkit minimal and their workflow efficient.
That’s the prevailing wisdom, but when Akai Professional teased a new MPC keyboard, all bets were off.
Producers of every caliber—new, seasoned, amateur, and professional alike—turn their attention to the brand that pioneered it all, eager to see whether their latest offering will revolutionize the game as previous iterations have or if Akai Professional has written itself out of the now-saturated market. We received early access to the Akai MPC Key 37 for review and discovered many features to enjoy in this potentially all-in-one workstation. However, no piece of hardware is without its flaws, so let’s delve into this knitty-gritty review of Akai Professional’s latest release.
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What’s The Big Deal With The MPC Key 37?
The Akai Professional brand has been at the forefront of some of the most significant tech advances in music production, hip-hop, and beat making, especially for decades, dipping its toes even into the roots of electronic music. MPC series revolutionized music production in the late 1980s, offering a combination of sampling, sequencing, and beat-making in one device. This innovation brought along entirely new genres and broke through some of the most significant glass ceilings of creativity, enabling the creation of complex compositions without requiring extensive studio equipment.
The MPC Key 37 builds on the rich legacy of its predecessors, such as the iconic MPC60 and MPC3000, which were instrumental in shaping the sounds of the genres above, like hip-hop, electronic, and pop through its sleek and new-yet-familiar interfaces and powerful sampling capabilities. By incorporating a keyboard, the MPC Key 37 extends the creative possibilities for musicians, allowing for a more expressive and immediate interaction with music, blending the tactile feel of playing an instrument with the cutting-edge production technology Akai is known for without having to be bouncing back and forth between device and laptop screen.
However, the MPC Key 37’s fundamental importance also lies in its response to the evolving needs of modern music producers.
Today’s artists require tools that are versatile, portable, and capable of standalone operation while offering deep integration with digital audio workstations (DAWs). It shows that Akai Professional is doing whatever it takes to continue to be a champion of innovation, keeping the brand relevant in a rapidly changing space, but let’s dive into whether it accomplishes this goal or not…
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Build Quality On The MPC Key 37
A few other workstations could potentially match the MPC Key 37 and give it a run for its money. The Roland Fantom series or even the Push 3 Standalone all instantly crossed my mind, but both units are twice the cost of the MPC Key 37. So that made me wonder how Akai Professional got the price point so low while claiming to offer so much. How many corners were cut…
Turns out, at least from a tactile and design perspective, not many, but let’s back that up with some insights.
The Outer Casing
Despite being made of plastic, the outer casing, which is sleek and eye-catchingly red, feels durable and high-quality. I’ve reviewed other units that cut corners with cheaper plastic casings whose degradation in quality could be felt almost instantly. But that is not the case with the MPC Key 37. There’s not much more to say here exactly without diving hard into the science of the material composition and such, and you probably don’t care about that when there are other bells, whistles, and features that are far more fun to discuss.
So let’s keep pushing forward here…
While discussing the casing, it’s also worth noting the slight tilt of the upper half of the device. This allows for less glare on the LED screen and better ergonomics for longer production sessions.
While some may deem the single color option a bit restrictive, I think it makes the workstation more unique and gives Akai Professional a bit more flexibility down the line to release collectors’ editions and limited-run collaborations with artists like KRK did with Scott Storch. Granted, I’ve heard nothing from the Akai Professional team on whether they’re considering it, but we can all dream, right?!
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The Encoders And Modulation Points
This is a big one for me, as all too often, synth and controller designers try to cut corners on the quality of the encoders either by making them of cheap plastic or just generally making them so delicate that they pop off of the knobs and become detached after only a few months of wear and tear.
Luckily, the quality can usually be recognized quickly by a quick jiggle, giving the encoders a bit of tug. Poor quality ones typically have a bit of give to them, belying their fragility. But the MPC Key 37’s encoders, while feeling lightweight, also held solid and securely fastened to the keyboard, which made me confident enough to use and abuse them during some of my automation passes!
All in all, Akai Professional knows these knobs are responsible for most of the fine-tuning of sounds and parameters as well as simply navigating through the myriad of menus and options in the device, meaning they get used a ton over the years of using a product, and they’re made to meet that lasting need.
The Keys
With any more high-end keyboards, there’s a fine line they have to toe, especially the ones with aftertouch. Some producers like the feel of a more realistic felt-like piano vibe, with a healthy amount of give once the key has started approaching the keybed. Conversely, others prefer a lighter key feel without as much give, more akin to the budget MIDI keyboards they likely learned to produce on and have used for years since.
I certainly fall into the latter half of these producers and I was stoked to find that the keys were responsive and fast-acting but didn’t feel like you were pushing them down into a bed of cold peanut butter whenever you wanted to use the aftertouch effects and expressions.
The keys themselves have a bit of a glossy texture to them, which I’m not the biggest fan of, but also, I admit I’m likely in the minority here as it seems almost industry standard these days for MIDI keyboards to be made with a similar feel.
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What I Liked Most About The Akai MPC Key 37
The Touchscreen Is Incredibly Fun To Use
I’ve experimented with several iPad-based synths, and while they’re enjoyable to play with, they don’t quite hit the ‘professional’ mark. This often comes down to their cumbersome integration with DAWs, and even when they do connect, they struggle to match the capabilities of in-the-box standards like Diva or Omnisphere.
However, the MPC Key 37’s full-touchscreen LED, prominently positioned at the front of the device, was a game-changer for me. Not only does it simplify menu navigation (which we’ll delve into shortly), but its actual value lies in modulating system and machine parameters. The intuitiveness of adjusting filters, ADSRs, micro tunings, and more, all through touch, to instantly record and integrate them with numerous other finely-tuned instruments is remarkable.
The touchscreen alone outperforms and feels superior to nearly any other device in its category on the market.
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Despite Being Complicated, It’s Easy To Navigate
This thing goes deep, and that’s not just a buzzword. It’s essentially an entire DAW with samplers, sequencers, mixers, effects, and many synths and instruments. And like so many outboard devices that seek to accomplish this level of complexity, it requires a fair amount of menu diving.
And where other devices, like the Roland Fantom series, for instance, make you feel bogged down and out-of-the-moment, usually during the exact moments when you need to feel completely lost in said moment, the MPC Key 37’s interface and layout make browsing and calling on patches and sounds a breeze.
It accomplishes this by a tasteful mix of rotary knobs, buttons, and the touchscreen I was praising above. I won’t lie; it did take a few days to feel completely oriented into the MPC’s ecosystem, but that pales in comparison to the weeks and months it takes to feel like you’ve got a handle on the more menu-divey instruments like the Syntakt or Fantom keyboard (though I should note, both of those products serve completley different purposes in a studio more often than not).
I really enjoyed the fact that all of the main buttons you’ll be using most often, such as the Menus, Sounds, Track Selection, and more, are all located front and center, directly below the LED screen as well. It’s a simple design choice, but it helps keep your direction and focus on where it matters the most.
The Sampling Potential Is Next Level
An MPC core product wouldn’t be complete without a wide range of sampling functionalities, and the MPC Key 37 delivers in spades.
The MPC Key 37 has two 1/4″ inputs, allowing for stereo sampling, which brings a modern take on sourcing samples that all too often only allow for a mono input or two RCA cable inputs, which I’ve always found imports slightly unreliable quality of the sounds and songs I want to flip.
Once imported, the sampler and sequencers allow powerful ways to flip and rearrange samples. And again, I want to stress here the importance of much of this functionality all being handled on the touchscreen and knobs instead of having to click through the slices like you would on a DAW. I know this will not be a massive surprise for those familiar with the MPC ecosystem, but I will say that it’s incredibly intuitive and utterly inspiring for those looking at this line of products for the first time.
The Suite Of Tools Is Inspiring
There are a TON of sounds, synths, and kits built into the MPC Key 37, and you can get a bird’s eye view of all that’s packed onto this workstation just by scrolling through some of the default projects on the loadup screen. While some of these sounds are a lot more usable than others, it does show Akai Professional is trying to break out of its hip-hop-dominated niche they’ve worked themselves into and is moving into being a serious player for producers of all genres and all skill levels.
There’s obvious potential right out of the box, but as is typical for any line of MPCs, the more you bring your sounds into the MPC, the more unique you’ll be able to make it sound. Over time, as you’ve cut and chopped various drums and built up a massive library and unique-sounding percussion hits, you start to replace the cheaper-sounding Drum & Bass drum kits and the like and begin having a one-of-a-kind production station accessible only to you.
Any tech sheet about this workstation will tell you that it comes with 32GB of storage, tons of instruments (plus a voucher for an additional freebie), and more, but when you see how much stuff that storage spaces gives you access to, it’s pretty damn awe-inspiring.
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It’s ‘Well Connected’
This is a bit of a riff, but mostly as a way to say that it has about as many different connection types as you could ask for. There is a USB-MIDI port, five-pin in and out MIDI ports (though a through port is missing), CV gates and other things to control outboard hardware, inputs for sustain pedals…. the list goes on and on.
It can even connect and sync via Bluetooth and WiFi, an excellent quality-of-life feature. Granted, the unit ships wholly updated and ready to rock and roll right out of the box, a seemingly rare “quality of life” feature many similar devices seem to lack. I hate having to jump through firmware updates and hurdles just to start playing with my shiny new toys, and the fact that the MPC Key 37 booted right up and let me go to work was fantastic.
What I Wasn’t Crazy About
It’s Got A Learning Curve
I hinted at this above, but the MPC Key 37 can appear to be a tricky world to break into. If you’re used to working solely in Logic or Ableton, the entirely new layout with multiple menus might seem daunting, no matter how well-formatted the interface is and how accessible the knobs and buttons make its navigation.
This being said it’s far from impossible to learn. Even I, who was only lightly familiar with the MPC world before diving headfirst into this workstation, could get up to speed and start making music efficiently and effectively in just a few days.
But it is something to note if you’re looking for a device for your kid who is just thinking about music production or beat-making or if you prefer to work in familiar environments and experience a bit of mental friction whenever you need to refamiliarize yourself with new creative flows and spaces very quickly (to be fair, I usually consider myself one of these guys, but the MPC Key 37 proved my self-assumptions wrong).
There’s No Battery
Taking this out of the box, all signs pointed to this keyboard being on-the-go friendly, allowing you to make beats in the park, on the subway, or at a friend’s studio without additional cables. However, I was surprised to see that running requires constant power.
Having recently attended NAMM, I know full well that mobile gear, speakers, and more are all the rage in 2024. Many portable speakers have multiple inputs to amplify devices like the MPC Key 37 with a mic, guitar, or whatever so that you can easily host and perform intimidating shows or gigs without just a few devices. I was looking forward to this being a powerful performative tool for pop-up creative expression. I will admit that not being able to operate without direct power was a bit of a disappointment.
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Final Thoughts
In wrapping up, the MPC Key 37 not only pays homage to the legacy of its predecessors but also sets a new benchmark for what modern beatmakers and producers can expect from a standalone workstation. This device simplifies complex production moves and workflows, making music creation more accessible and enjoyable, a testament to Akai Professional’s understanding of the modern musician’s needs.
However, the journey with the MPC Key 37 isn’t without its challenges. The learning curve represents a significant hurdle, especially for those new to the MPC ecosystem or transitioning from a purely DAW-based workflow. Yet, once handled, the possibilities for creativity are virtually limitless.
But these can easily be seen as small gripes in the hands of the right producer, and it was hardly enough to slow down my enjoyment of such a powerful iteration of one of the most innovative product lines the production space has seen.
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What Everyone Else Is Saying About It
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
