but it’s eaaaaasy to use
yeah, was referring to the blackbox!
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The MPC is a terrific groovebox and is only as much of a DAW in a box as you like it to be. Same with the touch screen, you can still choose to learn the many button combos and shortcuts instead. I love the MPC Live 2!
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They actually fixed that in 3.4.2! I tested it yesterday and it works fine. It’ll either bounce everything to stems or you can export everything as midi clips if you want to use different synths in Live.
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Haha I’ve gotten used to it for simple drum loops. Don’t mind it now. Shift pad to select a different sample was the game changer for me haha
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I’ve got (or had) most of the units you mention and I also value having a sketch pad groove box for writing with.
Hands down, the best device for this IMO, and it’s not been mentioned here yet;
NI Maschine Plus.
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Yeah spent a minute trying on the XY last night, and while you can set an lfo to the start point I couldn’t figure out and good time stretch type thing. Chopping up a break in the multisampler and laying it down in a grid is kind of time consuming but the result is pretty cool and essentially the same as lfo time stretch, whipped up a bomberman type jungle jam real quick with it and everything sounded good when changing bpm… but yeah sound like you gave XY a go already and it didn’t work for you. MPC really is the obvious choice or going multi device like M8 + XY
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i’ve actually thought about that one yeah. I had one like 11 years ago, not a standalone one. I think the thing that turns me off about it is how many people complain about it and NI in various ways, but might be worth a shot. Thats definitely a mchine that can do a lot
The 404MKII’s timestretch is godawful, but i think its the holy grail for starting tracks with a sample based workflow. I like letting the repitched sample im using to dictate tempo.
I use it to create ideas on the go, i then can put those ideas together in the pattern editor, then plug it into the rest of my gear once im home and flesh it out. Has essentially taken me entirely out of the box, and the workflow’s limitations always feel like they lead me somewhere inspired as opposed to somewhere frustrated (where I wind up with the M8 and tracker workflows most often as well).
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I actually really liked it, I actually still own it, I’ve given it to a friend as a long term loan as I wasnt really using it but still wanted to keep it. The thing that turned me off was the sampling mainly, with the lack of timestretch and also IIRC the samples had to be 20 sec max. And I think also something something sample memory? So as I like to record vocal sketches, it didn’t really seem suitable for me
But maybe need to give it another job cause the sequencing is super fun and the included synths while somewhat simplistic are awesome. And the technique u mentioned with chopping could also be a workaround. U definitely can do a bunch of things with samples to mess them up
Push 3 Controller is my favorite groove box type thing at the moment. It’s super fluid and you don’t have to mess around recording into Live after you build something you like.
SP404 is also pretty great as a lil sketchpad. It’s super cheap and easy to use.
Maschine is also super fun, but the sequencer is not very exciting and user file management is basically useless.
Octatrack is crazy fun, sounds and feels so good, but it doesn’t make a ton of sense if you don’t have a bunch of hardware to feed it. It’s also sort of pain to transfer stuff to a DAW. It’s really best suited for live performance.
Ableton Move could tick all of your boxes. I’ve never tried one, but on paper it seems super dope.
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yeah, thats also my concern with tracker workflows, although i generally like them…i dont find it particularily jammable and inspired, and more deterministic. altho of course u can do all kinds of generative stuff, ur still entering things in a table and copy pasting them around.
the 404 mKII might also be worth a shot, ive just used the 404 like 10 years ago but didnt really compose with it
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I never used the OG 404 but from what ive seen and experienced, the MKII is very good at it, although it certainly has its own quirks.
Making a few patterns on MKII, then resampling to OT for further mangling is a very fun process imo. Takes pressure off the MKII to be the main composition tool/arrranger, and lets both the machines put their influence on a teack in different ways
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Digitakt time stretch is really bad.
Check out the comparisons in the first post of this thread Anyone else disappointed with the DT2's timestretch?
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Yeah, i revisited that topic to see how bad it really was. and the bandcamp examples that person uploaded are so shockingly awful, even a 5 bpm shift produces really ugly artifacts - and not cool sound designy ones, it really just sounds like something is broken lol
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Those BOC patches for the Deluge sound really good. I’m tempted to get one just for that reason alone.
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I’ve picked up my M8 again today and had a lot of fun with it. I wish there was something exactly like it, but with a step sequencer. And time stretch lol.
I guess the polyend tracker is exactly that, a tracker but with an additional step sequencer?
But maybe the M8 is just the answer. I’ve bought an used Deluge as well, cause that kind of seemed to tick my boxes the most, wish me luck
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Akai Force ? To me, it’s the ultimate MPC
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The only standalone grooveboxes that have good timestreching imo are the Push 3, MPC Live/Force, Maschine+ and the OT, which I don’t really consider to be a traditional groovebox. None of them have great step sequencers, but the Push 3 has the advantage of being able to load M4L sequencers. I would say stick with the Push 3 or give Maschine+ a shot. I do not like the workflow on the MPCs at all. YMMV
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