While I think it's a natural evolution to the MPC line and MPCs now are probably the best standalone midi workstations to exist on the market right now (probabl

While I think it's a natural evolution to the MPC line and MPCs now are probably the best standalone midi workstations to exist on the market right now (probably ever?), I still think that they lack the visceral feel of the prior generations. Maybe it's just that I'm so used to using a computer for making music that the MPC doesn't feel like stepping away from it to something standalone. Maybe the large touch screen that you have to occasionally use on the MPCs and can't ignore makes it seem that way. Then again, I suppose if you're someone that's been using MPCs since the 90s and you just gradually progressed through the newer and better iterations it feels a bit less jarring than to someone who didn't. I don't really know what to tell you about the SP line, though. You are just listing features and how they don't perfectly map to the powerful previous generations MPC. I get that it's not the same or that it has or will ever have any sort of feature parity to even the old MPCs. I still think it's closer right now than the current MPCs, which have endless options and features and power that make them basically just an underpowered laptop with feature updates that come out on the whim of Akai rather than you buying a new VST or DAW for your computer. Admittedly Akai's firmware updates have been amazing and transformative for the MPCs in how you work with them, but I digress. It's definitely too much, while the SP is maybe not enough, but for creative work and as an instrument, the SP is much more inspiring.