Drawing the same kind of crowd at Messe as it did at NAMM is the MPC Renaissance. The demo unit (and demo) were the same but - news just in - thanks to comments from Akai's legion of users who checked it out at the NAMM show, Akai is changing the design of the pads to - you guessed it - make them even more like those of the original MPCs.

Currently, the Renaissance has clear pads with a silver silk screen print on the top. This allows the side of the pads to be clear and give a strong backlit glow.

However, it seems that this glow was too much for some hardcore users and is being reined in, with only the bottom mm of the pad being clear on the production model (not on display), with a full, solid grey MPC rubber pad on the top. Sounds like good news to us.