Glen Darcey worked at Akai, on some of the classic MPCs, before moving to Arturia (and then to ASM). Daniel Troberg knows a thing or two about samplers; I’m not sure how much, if any, engineering he performs, but that’s one hell of a beta tester in house. One of the key features of the ASR (and other Ensoniq sampler/synthesizers) was its poly aftertouch keyboard, which they already have. A lot of the work is already done, in many ways, if you leave the Hydrasynth intact after the filters and replace the oscillators and their mutants with samplers and new mutants which reflect the specific needs of samples (e.g. a granular mutant, a time-stretch mutant, etc.).
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Thank you for the explanation (as usual! :)) – that’s a pretty sick team and it sounds like the stars have aligned on a lot of the core components. And also timing – market is begging for a sampler like that!
Or at least I am. 
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Hydrakey MIDI 2.0 controller. 
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This is also from the ASM Technology page. I like the friendly tone of this. Sounds like they’ll talk to anyone, smaller companies included.
If you are a brand or manufacturer of keyboard instruments, that is looking for a Polyphonic Aftertouch solution for your keyboard product, we are able to offer licensing of our Polytouch® technology. Please use the contact link below.
Cre8audio NiftyKEYZ Poly
Elektron Digitone Keys MkII
ADDED : Actually the Analog Keys Poly-Aftertouch would work very nicely for me.
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Actually given Glen’s connections with AKAI the rumored MPC Key 37 is an outside possibility. ( post ) If so look for the 61 to follow soon after.
A Digitone Keys MKII with PolyTouch would be a drop everything and buy RIGHT NOW proposition for me.
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Me too! That’s actually the ONLY thing that I think could make the original better (aside from maybe double the voices or something. 
) I do think that they’d sell more of them if they put the UI above the keys in a more traditional way. Personally, I like the side keys, but I know it puts a LOT of people off.
I got bored during a meeting.
I went through a few iterations, trying to maintain as much of the original DN muscle memory as possible, also taking a few cues from Analog Keys. I also ended up swapping the trig keys out for full-width 'Takt versions since there was room.
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Perfect!
Elektron! Make it so!
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May I suggest another exercise?
Move mod wheels with transpose to the left of keyboard, extend keyboard to five octaves. Then add diamond like cut at front left corner - they are Swedish after all. 🫠
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Would buy it before the announcement was even over.
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Looks real nice. But you need someplace to put your hands when twisting the knobs, maybe the lower knobs should go to the top?
I would buy one if it was called Analog Digitone Keys