So AKAI now have position sensing on their new pads. Not really doing MPE with it (unlike for example the Ableton Push 3) but it offers expressive possibilities in the MPC context so I thought I may as well post about it here anyway.
At its most basic theyve used the feature to effectively make each pad something of an equivalent to 4 pads, via ‘4 quadrants’ (and they also have lights to indicate each quadrant). But they do have some other modes where the x and y position of finger on pads are modulation sources.
I doubt I will get to try this for myself as last time I tried a modern MPC, aspects of the UI and workflow hurt my brain. And I am a very happy Push 3 owner. But I still like to follow such developments.