Been meaning to get these photos up for a while. I told Michael from MPCStuff that I'd nab some photos of the finished product with my friend's DSLR and send them to him (that's why there's a logo in some of them) Not affiliated with MPCStuff of course, just wanted to throw him some promo material in exchange for being a cool cat. My slider caps were out of stock when I ordered and he offered to ship the rest of my order and then send me the sliders when they came in, instead of making me wait. When the package showed up, there was an extra packet with the slider caps included. He managed to get his hands on some last minute and made sure I got my set on time with the rest of the order. So yeah biggups to their customer service, Mike's a pretty nice, accommodating guy.
I ordered a Fat Pad set in Carolina Blue, black knobs, black sliders, and a black button set. Kinda weak now that there's gonna be the MPK 261 released in a few months that fixes a lot of issues, but whatever. Everything was pretty simple to install. After unscrewing the billion screws on the bottom of the keyboard, you gotta pop the knobs off and take off the nuts that hold them to the faceplate. If the keyboard's facing you, right side up, you pull up on the back and slide the faceplate forward a bit until the front edge is free, and then flip it over towards the back. Careful not to yank on the ribbon cables at the rear. For the pads, you need to take off the sensors, including the brackets on either side so the ribbon cables aren't in the way. Not sure if the 49 and smaller keyboards have these brackets but my 61 did. Pretty simple to swap the pads and put the sensors back down. Pull the little rubber pegs through the sensor sheet holes, might have to pick at them with your fingernail until they pop through enough to grab em.
For the buttons, you gotta pull the PCBs out. As long as you're careful not to yank anything it's really simple. The buttons themselves are just a peg with two little pinch clips on either side. It's obvious which buttons go where, even without the front panel to look at. Just pinch the two wings holding the button in, snap in the fresh button, simple as that. Screw all the boards back in, make sure the screws holding down the ground wires are snug.
Just put in a few crucial screws on the backplate at the corners and midpoints, and test your pads. It's a pain in the ass to take out all those screws if the sensitivity still isn't to your liking. I ended up re-opening the case and putting one layer of tape on the backs. Pretty happy with the response now. More sensitive than I had gotten with the stock pads and loads of tape, and the fat pads feel a bit better to hit and are more reliable. I find they pick up feather touches well but also have an accurate velocity range. I can smack full 127 or lightly tap to get about 6. I might still try another second layer of tape and fuck with the sensor thresholds to try and get an even lighter touch but it's not a high priority. They're definitely far far into the realm of useability for someone with a really light touch like me.
- [+] 
 


Wasn't exactly sure before ordering how thick they'd be when installed. Let the record show they're "bout 3 pennies" thick.


The LEDs shine really bright through the smoked buttons. I wasn't too worried about that myself but if you're gonna want to perform on stage or something, the LEDs will still smack your eyes in the face.


Chea biggups  