Spitfire Audio and AKAI Professional announce partnership

Spitfire Audio and AKAI Professional have formed a new partnership, marking the first formal collaboration between the UK-based virtual instrument developer and the global music technology group.

Announced during the NAMM 2026 Show in Anaheim, CA alongside AKAI Professional’s new MPC XL, the partnership brings together Spitfire Audio’s instrument sampling expertise with MPC’s ecosystem.

The first release of this collaboration will see Spitfire Audio’s Originals Intimate Strings library available within AKAI Professional’s MPC hardware. This library captures the warmth, emotion and detail of a small string ensemble, transforming into a performance-ready instrument. Recorded at AIR Studios, this partnership combines Spitfire Audio’s quality to the intuitive MPC workflow.

Whilst this collaboration begins with the Intimate Strings library, further information on what future instruments will be available will follow in due course.

Commenting on the partnership, Paul Thomson, founder of Spitfire Audio said: “The brands that form the inMusic family have been with me for most of my professional music career and I’m incredibly excited to be partnering with Akai to distil our approach to expressive, performance-led instruments into a focused, standalone experience. Whether you’re writing or performing, this collaboration gives you the power for intuitive creation and I look forward to bringing more of this to the industry as this partnership grows.”

Celebrating the shared goals and values Andy Mac, brand manager at AKAI Professional said: “We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with Spitfire Audio bringing Intimate Strings MPC Edition directly into the MPC ecosystem. By giving producers access to these legendary, expressive sounds at their fingertips, we’re unlocking a new realm of emotional depth and musicality in beat-making and music production empowering creators to blend cinematic richness with the intuitive flow of MPC.”