I've seen little kids having a great time with one finger on an arranger..! They need no more training than using a beat box. And I'd argue that, to create music that YOU hear in your head (rather than just triggering preprogrammed beats that someone else already created) is actually HARDER on an MPC.

The thing is, for triggering clips, you don't really need fancy pads. An iPad works fine. Quite honestly, I think you can replicate almost the entire MPC workflow on Koala or other tablet clip apps.

$5 vs $600 is still a scary jump in price, let alone up to $3000 for the latest greatest..!

As I continually try to point out, it's not about getting the best, most expensive tool you can. It's what you can do with what you WANT to spend. I could argue that, at our age, spending anything more than what Koala does is a waste. Plenty of other things that would make a MASSIVE difference to your music (better mics, software like Keyscapes, quality plugins for mastering etc) could be got with that $600-3000 💸💸💸