Digitakt v MPC Live: real buyers survey (UK£)

The Lounge General Discussion
#355

I got the Live a few months ago and so far, I’m dissapointed.

On paper, it’s a great machine : lots of tracks, easy sampling and chopping, the possibility to add an SSD, a touch screen … With audio tracks, resampling and track effects, for me it meant building complete tracks in the machine, possibly becoming the center piece of my setup.

The thing is, I just can’t love it. My main issues with it are :

  • The terrible defaults everywhere (effects parameters defaults are not only unusable, but really far from usable settings, samples in a program are always loaded at max volume, …). This could become less of an issue if I make ALL my programs before I start composing, but that’s just not how I work, I tried but on the MPC it feels like a chore (on the MD, I love making kits).

  • The missing features (no automation edition - total show stopper for me, no sidechain).

  • The UI/UX. I don’t know, there’s something about those menus and screens that makes me cringe, loads of lost space on some screens that spawned new screens that should not have been needed, that sort of stuff.

  • The effects quality. I dare to say that’s shitty free VST territory.

  • I miss using knobs for everything. Having to select the field to edit on the screen and editing with the big knob feels clunky to me. I’m used to screens that match knob disposition on the machine, like the Elektrons or the OP1, but using QLinks rarely feels natural to me, partly because by default, they don’t edit the most used parameters.

  • The build quality and the bugs. I only encountered blocking bugs a few times (for example, a couple of my projects became unusable - failed save, and I found a workaround) but there are many annoying bugs still to squash, and I don’t trust Akai with that anymore. The machine also feels like it’s not going to last long (definitely not as long as my MD mk1, still kicking).

I’m in the process of building a live hardware setup that should be based on Elektron’s synced pattern change system, so if the Live can play nice with that and it’s easy to work with, it might stay. Otherwise, it will get replaced by one of Elektron’s samplers, probably the DT as the form factor is nice to me and I’ve heard to many horror stories about the OT’s menus and convoluted workflow.

Overall, the Live feels like an unfinished project and I’ve been thinking that I’ll probably wait a long time to maybe see a firmware version I can use for serious stuff. Then again, Elektron promised Overbridge for the Digitakt “later this year”, and nothing’s out yet :smiley:

#356

I recently picked up a live and after a week I sent it back. It just seemed like a completely under developed and under powered dedicated daw. sure akai is trying to keep fixing and adding features, but really some things should have been there from the start. it felt very rushed imho. i also did not like the xy pad for fx, it seemed very inaccurate.

i did like adding a 1TB SSD and putting ALL teh samples on it…but since I didn’t keep it I guess that didn’t matter :smiley:

i personally feel like akai has a long way to go with this before it’s on par with the OT or something special and unique on it’s own.

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#357

Stings a bit about the ipad doesnt it! I actually bought an ipad just for music stuff and it quickly dawned on me that it could replace the live. Same boat though, I would have liked it as my first box. not that it isnt a professional tool, but its a bit redundant when I already have a 1000, plus an octatrack, and an op1 thats hanging on for dear life. If it had great effects I probably would have kept it. I wanted to replace the 1k really. The redeeming factor of the live for me is the complete integration with the computer, but then ive already got an interface with a ton of io and logic… I think if I was gonna continue down the new mpc road i’d only be able to justify it if I went with the X but theres no way in hell im paying almost 2 grand for mostly features I have on a £30 app. One day the price will drop significantly and then I might bite and grab some external FX

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#358

it shore aint perfect fellas but it does the job. it forces you to boil things down to simplicity… personality needs to be in the source material. its a phrase sampler, not a ‘patch from ground up’ sampler. it makes you think about arrangement. it splits the duties away from sound design. its only functional. like tofu. you need to put the flavor in there or its gonna taste like nothing. but once you add flavor, you can make literally anything lol

it does what any other MPC did at a higher bit depth and has a solid sequencer. firmware 2.05 adds a lot and more fixes will come im sure. i hope it grows into a deep sample mangler patch monster but i wont hold my breath. and dont get me wrong there is a list of stuff id love to see and a few things i would do differently!

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#359

Yeah I’m not knocking it on that, it does what it does pretty well, It just sucks cause I can get simplicity for less. Maybe in the future the updates will hopefully make it into more. Its not that I wouldn’t recommend the live, I just wanted it to be a replacement and it didn’t really end up replacing anything. A bit frustrating cause it’s got ten years on my old MPC but it’s still not got certain features I’d quite miss. The iPad ended up being the real replacement, well more of an addition than a replacement. Can’t beat having a real MPC but really it’s all just for mojo, much like a lot of gear these days. Oh and that op-1 that was hanging on is gone now, it didn’t have £800 worth of mojo for me in the end

#360

Digitakt sold. Loved the sound so much. In the end its lack of connectivity and limited storage left me wanting. It didn’t help there wasn’t clarity as to its further development.

I know there is probably an update around the corner too. Also expecting mono machine in digitakt clothes this year which would have been a cool pair.

The search for my perfect box goes on. To be fair the Live may not last either for more aesthetic reasons.

#361

mmh… often opened topic… i love the electrons for their workflow and sequencer and sound.

but i also like my mpc for:
… the great pads
… the amazing quick workflow from sample, to pads, to sequence… was never that fast before

what i have to live with the MPC is:
… bugs and bugs (sometimes crashes, sometimes hickups… not to often happening at all)
… really kind of shit effects… mostly doesnt sound good (but i do that in my DAW, so no problem for me)
… its not good for “programming DJ-musicians”… programming is badly integrated… however i am a player, so therefore its great fun and super cool.

at all: i like the MPC, because it gives a natural (old school) feeling for playing samples. love to play it… i

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#362

The Live has a beautiful automation available, with complete editing offering option for every sculpting operation. It takes some time to assign the q-links, and learing how this is accomplished is going to have a person ripping out their hair, but once the assignments are made, the automation may be WRITTEN, READ, or OFF.

#363

I am aware of the possibility to use Q-Links, but only having delete as an edition option is clearly insufficient especially compared to Elektron’s plocking system. It might not be impactful for the « beat makers » working with 1 bar loops, but having to work like that for long sequences is crazy. I’m not alone thinking this either, just browse any music forum talking about the Live and you’ll find at least one thread bringing this up. Calling this minimal implementation acceptable, sure, but “beautiful” ? Nah, my standards are not that low…

#364

Just bumping this. I want to know whether; a Digitakt or MPC live 2 would be better for my home studio ( ableton - 2 synths - RYTM2 ( future edrums n band too ) )

#365

It would help if you told us what you thought you were missing and what you want to do. They are very different devices.

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