Akai MPC One [ Retired : Search for MPC Thread ]

my Live makes a ‘cracking’ noise as it warms up. sound like the case stretching with the heat. :confused:

I dont really care [ :grimacing: while hoping thats all it is]…just pointing out. maybe that’s the crack you heard. it happens at diff levels of warm. grimacing

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I have a Maschine MK3, MPC1000, R8, Circuit, JAM. None of them make any noise, the pads are solid like a rock.
I think it depends on the design of the pads…
The noise/feeling itself is not necessarily an issue anyway for the MPC One. I prefer to wait and see if the things evolve from other user experiences…

the noise I hear on mine is from the case.

No way the whole case creaking while it heats up would have really concerned me. Mine was consistently in a specific place, some other people reside they had it in exactly the same place and others said nope completely silent. Must have been different production runs. Doesn’t bother some but it’s the sort of thing that drives me nuts

@DaGeek My maschine pads are impeccable and my 1k pads were rock solid and quiet too. Once I’d changed them from the dodgy OG pads that is anyway

It’s just that the circuit boards inside are mounted plastic-on-plastic, so as the ambient temperature changes, the screw-mounts squeak… Nothing to worry about. It’s the same reason why the pads creak and crack every now and then.

Hell, my MPC makes noises sitting idle. I’ve come to embrace it… It’s good company, having a ghost in the room, in the wee hours. :wink:

Cheers!

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You’ve got some real love for the MPC if you don’t consider that flawed design.

See my reply two posts above…

I personally think you’ve overreacted, sending it back. Patience and ponderance. :wink:

Cheers!

Who said it wasn’t a design flaw?

Sure, a few rubber bushings might have solved the problem (if it can even be considered a problem per se). It’s just a noise. The MPC’s are build like a tank otherwise. Everything I tour with creaks and cracks to varying degrees, be it by design or from wear. Regardless, never has this so-called “flaw” disrupted a performance or impeded a production.

When it comes to choosing gear, I pick my battles carefully. If you’re returning your MPC just because the pads squeak occasionally, well… I think that’s a rash decision. For the record, I was mildly concerned when I first heard it, as you would be. After some casual examination of the issue, however, I figured out what was causing it, and never gave it another thought. MPC is holding up just fine.

Cheers!

P.S. I’m willing to bet a thousand-to-one that if you simply loosened all the screws a quarter turn the squeaking would stop altogether. This is a pretty typical oversight in the assembly of these kinds of products. Me, however, I remain unconcerned.

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The crackling pads is not the only reason why I sent it back…

There are few subjective and objective issues that concerned me. I like the MPC One a LOT and probably I will buy it again.

The headphones jack is very loose - not a big issue but an issue

With the MPC in stop, I heard some high pitched noise from the headphones and from the outputs, something under -65db but definitively audible. The noise change when I switched screens, on the track mute page was the most audible. The connections: 2 midi cable, 2 jack input, 2 jack output, usb, mini usb keyboard, and 4x cv outs. I tried disconnecting something but without success.

I never been able to format a SD card from the MPC. Tried with different SD’s, preformatted on the mac, preformatted on the pc. One SD preformatted on the pc, after a format attempt from the mpc the SD was not recognized anymore on the pc, the pc was unable to format the SD, formatted on a mac.

Impossible to read the card from the USB-PC connection… c’mon!!!

No MIDI in/out from the USB-PC connection. really??

No MIDI filtering from the MIDI in cable, whaaaat??
To quickly solve this issue I had the midi in pass through the Analog Heat to receive only the clock signal.

General build quality is not stellar. For the selling price anyway should be acceptable.

There are also a lot of pros:
Sound quality is great
The workflow is smooth, fast, effective
The One is very deep, lot of features, almost everything is easily accessible.
The screen is great, useful, fast, responsive
The cv out are very usable
The form factor is perfect
Sampling, chopping, sample managing is excellent, incredible for a stand alone gear

If Akai will address some issues, I repeat, I will buy it again

there is a solution to the issues you described…

MPC Live :wink:

adding:

  • once you get muscle memory for the shift+pads, its the same as the dedicated buttons
  • and cv solution…expert sleepers FH-2. you get 8 CV :+1:t6:
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yep this is how I get stuff into Amadeus - Blackhole is a newer alternative to Soundflower that’s a bit more convenient

https://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=196579&view=unread#unread

Drum synth is going to be aces

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Going to have to get another at some point. I now regret selling my Live, but happy to be using the Octatrack. I’d just like to access the alternate Mpc workflow when the mood takes me. Think I’ll either wait for the Live II or go the whole hog with an X.

I had an Akai MPC Live and just didn’t gel with it, mainly due to me comparing it to an MPC 1000 with JJOS2XL. Now that I think about it though, the Live was a really good device and I enjoyed having an internal battery. After a series of trades I now have a Rytm, but I am strongly considering getting the MPC One as a companion device. I love the MPC project heirarchy and the timestretching is an excellent addition over the classic MPCs. They largely nailed live audio looping as well, which is super handy to play guitar through. The strong possibility of a drum synth within the hardware is also tantalising.

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Mpc One now in stock at Andertons, PMT, DiscDJStore, etc - in the UK.

Does a sequence on the newer MPCs still have to have all tracks the same length and time signature?
That was one of the things I never liked on older MPCs, so I’m curious if this has been changed?

Mine arrived this week, from PMT :slight_smile:

yeah i noticed your post above & edited my post.

Are you enjoying it?

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Yes, very much.

It’s a great compliment to the Elektron way if doing things, and in combination with the octatrack mk2 is making for some really interesting and creative sounds.

I really like the fx selection and they’re very usable. As it’s early days, there’s a few things I’m not quite grasping, such as playing loops/clips in time. For instance if I play a drum loop on one pad, and say a perc loop on another, and try to get the octatrack to play some loops as well, it’s a hot mess, with nothing running in sync. However if I’m using one shots and creating a track the sync between both is solid.

Looper is interesting. I’ve had no experience of loppers bar the ableton stock one, however this seems like it could be a good way to transition from the octatrack. I’ll need to explore it more.

The touchscreen paradigm is a joy, and with the dedicated buttons, you really do forge your own workflow.

It is very early days, so I’m in the honeymoon period, however I think I’m going to be exploring it for a long time and will be able to really make it into my own thing, which is what you want.

The plan was to incorporate it into my live set up, for both solo and as part of a duo, and at this moment I’m not sure entirely how that will happen. I have an idea on the solo aspect but the duo side will take a bit of trial and error, however I’m confident that I’ll be able to do what I want with it.

Also it fits the IKEA isberget stand perfectly. Just need the wooden sides and Decksaver!

If you want to know anything specific, let me know. I’ll try to find out and it will give me a chance to experiment.

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To answer your first question - the tracks can be different lengths. I set the master to something like 64 bars and then drum tracks, synths etc I can set to whatever amount of ‘beats’ I wish.

I explode the tracks and then move them to ableton for arranging etc.

In regards to the time signatures, I will take a look this evening and report back. I’m not convinced that it can happen, but I’ve only had it since Monday…

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