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

The Lounge General Discussion
#122

I will be getting a MPC Live after it is released and confirmed to be solid. As an MDUW, Octatrack, and Rytm owner, Digitakt does not interest me much.

I want the MPC for drums and sequencing, I don’t care about the DAW type features. The pads, linear sequencer, and ability for layers and round robin samples makes the MPC most useful for my current needs.

I’m planning on most likely getting rid of the Rytm once I get the MPC since I pretty much always use samples, but I quite like conditional trigs, so I could see myself getting a Digitakt for that down the road… perhaps to even sequence some MPC sounds.

#123

Does the Live have round robin? Confirmed? That’s a major plus if it does.

#124

Yeah I think confirmed. Also has LFO layer cycle.

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#125

Afternoon chaps, Motson here. I’ll update the scores once I wade through the other new “commentary” in the thread and pick actual new numbers out - please just try to put your buying position in here -there’s a couple of other energetic threads for you to talk about match statistics, fitness level, team loyalties and the offside rule (in the box or out of the box etc.) cheerio.

2 Likes
#126

The MPC Live will absolutely be a creative beast! Probably more so then most other samplers in the market, with the exception of the OP-1. People seem to forget what makes samplers creative, its their ability to sample with ease! The MPC Live seemed to nail that function down the best. The sample to pad option is sick AF. Don’t get me wrong the DT is dope also. The way you can get a sample to do gymnastics looks fun but the the fire power the MPC Live brings to the table, plus the ease of use will be just as creative at least for me.

2 Likes
#127

So you can round robin the 4 layers of each pad?

#128

One thing’s for sure, there are a few great options out there right now. If the Digitakt doesn’t have some sort of a song mode, I’ll happily pick up an MPC Live.

#129

Adopted a DT pre-order.

Make a note Trev!

#130

Digitakt 17

MPC Live 17

Both 3

Looks like the latest action from superbooth has caused a flurry of activity to the Swedes benefit, they’re now neck and neck with still time to play.

4 Likes
#131

i’m surprised its been so quite from the akai booth

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#132

From what I’ve read yeah, you can go crazy with layering, and with round Robin options. You have velocity or lfo layer cycle and also have ‘simultaneous play’ option. Where one pad/sample auto-triggers others… So in theory you could have one pad triggering a ton of other pads, and all of them with 4 layers each, 4 x different fx per pad and different layer cycle speeds etc. Guess kinda like a crazy web of a ton of trig conditions, all triggered from one pad/one step…

Dunno how/if it’ll work anything like that in practise but that’s one of the things I’ve been imagining playing round with…

Then you could resample a few bars of that pattern, slice and/or use it to play insane chords/polyphonic rytms (with or without timestrech per chromatic note), automate fx, do same again, then throw that on a clip launch pad and go nuts on other tracks for stuff to go on top etc etc… Plenty ways to get weird on the MPC, just totally lame demos so far…

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#133

If I had to pick I’d buy a second Octatrack :smiley:

3 Likes
#134

Definetly MPC.
I own a AR and OT… no need for a third one… MPC looks promising and tons of easier in…
a) playing with cool pads (and chopping up samples)
b) long patterns or full stems (sometimes a real mess on the OT)
and thats all i need for a good song :slight_smile:

beside that… nothing can really beat the Elektron sequencer… Still the superpower-tool on the market… wouldnt give any of these elektron beauties away for an MPC… but in the mix… hell this will be fun :-))… lets see if it arrives in the middle of mai…

2 Likes
#135

Digitakt 17

MPC Live 18

Both 3

Looks like the latest action from superbooth has caused a flurry of activity to the Swedes benefit, they’re now neck and neck with still time to play.

#136

Probably MPC Live :joy:

#137

well… if i wouldnt have an AR (which has somehow 80% of what the digitakt is capable of)… i would really think about the new swedish baby too… :-))
soo: good luck to elektron and their new series of tools!!!

#138

After briefly dabbling with a tricked out MPC 2500 (which is now for sale in the Lounge, by the way), I decided the interface and sampling capabilities weren’t for me. Everything took too many steps to do. Granted, the sequencer and sampler engines are capable and powerful in their own right–especially with the JJOS–but there were too many button presses between idea and execution. The MPC Live looks to have addressed this with the touchscreen and other workflow changes. Assuming the thing works as advertised, I’ll most likely be getting one. And if it can timestretch/beatmatch as well as the Octatrack, it just might end up being my only sampler.

The only reason I would buy a Digitakt would be to free up more tracks on my OT. Since the MPC has way more than I’ll ever need, no reason to get a Digitakt.

#139

Digitakt 17

MPC Live 20

Both 3

#140

Motty, y’ol’fool, you’re re-submitting an earlier match report!
:wink:

1 Like
#141

  1. Pre-ordered both.

  2. I write many different genres of music and the MPC suits way more for some of them and the digitakt for others (and both are great for live performance). I also think that they serve VERY different purposes, but with some obvious similarities.

I’m open to keeping both, selling both, or keeping one or the other and selling off the one I don’t like. But given the level of intense research I’ve done on hardware of all kinds within the last year, I’m fairly confident that if both of them work as intended (a big ‘if’), I’ll keep both. I feel really spoiled because my major complaints with hardware back 10+ years ago are basically all gone now. Hardware is finally better than a computer (for me at least), and the synth makers are also finally doing an excellent job as an industry–I especially love all the creativity in the world of boutique manufacturers.

I feel like we’re living in a golden era of hardware and there’s no way I’m going to sit on the sidelines.

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