I have an Octatrack and a Live 2, and I’d definitely keep the Live 2 if I was forced to decide.
And I’m the same, I have the other Elektron devices (AR/A4/DN/DT), and find the OT is my least used and probably is the ‘least me’… all the others will work well with the MPC too, especially now you can add a usb interface to the MPC (if only the MPC had a cross-fader and scenes though…
).
One key point to bear in mind if thinking of trading OT for MPC is that MPC midi clock is pretty poor, on the OT you can sample loops from midi synced gear with no hassle, no jitter.
On the MPC you can’t sample or record audio whilst it is synced to midi clock, and if you sync the other gear to the MPC for sampling the clock is jittery, meaning that the loops will fluctuate in timing. A workaround is to record the loops without using midi sync, matching the tempo, but it is a bit of extra work and hassle.
I wrote to Akai about it and they are aware, but they don’t seem to have any interest in fixing it and suggested I used a DAW 
Although not the MPC desktop DAW, as that has the exact same issue.
MPC is good for some stuff though, but not a OT replacement IMHO.
For me it’s a total replacement if I have music in mind that’s based around parts longer than 4 bars, and I want sample/midi polyphony, and I want more than 8 parts.
It comes down to this for me;
MPC approach if I want to fully dictate where a track is going.
Elektron approach if I want to be kept within a set of sequencing limitations (really fkn good ones that I love).
So, different beasts… if I had to have one, luckily I don’t… but I’d take the MPC for how much more open ended it is.
@darenager on the midi sync thing, does it work fine if the MPC is the master? Just when it’s being slaved and recording it freaks?
When synced to an external device it won’t even record audio, well just a tiny blip then it drops out of recording.
If syncing a device to the MPC the midi clock is all over the place, so for example if you were to record 2 identical loops and play them back together they will be flamming/smearing against each other.
To be clear, the internal clock of the MPC is pretty good, so if you are using one shots sequenced from internal samples, then you won’t notice any timing discrepancies.
BTW you can record longer than 4 bars on Elektron gear, just chain patterns, you can record across pattern boundaries - upto 64 bars if you want to.
Never say never, but I’m not holding my breath for arranger on the MPC - at least as it’s implemented on the Force, because it’s too tied to the 2D track / clip model and having the 8x8 grid at your fingertips. You can’t use the MPC’s sequence / track model in its place, because sequences can have independent BPMs.
I think they’d have to develop and maintain a separate arranger designed around the workflow of the MPC, and I’m not sure it’d add a great deal over the existing tools and modes. I’d say long, streaming audio tracks would bring more to the MPC but, as always, I’ve no objections to Akai proving me wrong here…
I agree overall, but there’s also some gaps I’ve run into as I learn my MPC.
For example you can’t delete a track, you can only clear what’s on them. Making it so that you can’t easily reorder tracks. It’s not a deal breaker, but feels off to me. I guess it’s the same on Elektron hardware as you don’t “delete” patterns, you reorder them by copying and pasting.
A related one is that in stand alone there is not a way to reorder the effects.
You can’t access the internal drive via computer is another one.
As I recently sold my OT and went to MPC, I also miss the arranger on the OT. It was very clean and capable, I guess it’s a “grass is greener” situation 
As I’m writing this, it’s reminding me of this thread:
I don’t have a Force or know it’s UI/workflow… I just know it’s an Ableton style clip based unit.
I’m guessing Arranger in the Force is like in Ableton, so recording your overall performance/mix of clips…?
Now we have the usb audio added, isn’t the MPC equivalent to stream through your usb audio device straight into a DAW, Overbridge style, if you want to take that route?
isn’t the mpcs muting far more capable than the muting on the octa, with track mutes, pad, mutes, mute groups and solos, also next sequence feature, and on top of that the muting is recordable itself into patterns?
I would have thought you’d have the opposite impression but I don’t have an octa?
it’s worth trying though, cause there are toooo many people doing it successfully , you can see many videos
I tried a lot of gear, but never got the results I was looking for, I tried on the new update too and audio recording still won’t work when MPC is not master clock. It isn’t a dealbreaker for me as I can work around it, but it is a bit of a PITA.
I really like the MPC, what it does well is great, the new update is pretty awesome too.
Yeah, it’s very similar to Ableton. You could stream to a DAW, but of course being able to manage things on the hardware is one of the modern MPC’s big attractions. You do have song mode, which is probably the correct way to handle this on the MPC. The Force arranger is very much based around the concept of having multiple clips for each track (live Live), all under a global tempo. The MPC’s structure of sequences and tracks doesn’t really map across - I can think of a few ways to address that, but they all seem clunky and problematic (assuming the same arranger setup as the Force). Of course, smarter minds may already have solved this and moved on to other things.
I’d think of programs/keygroups as instruments, tracks as clips and the sequences as scenes.
It’s not a 1-to-1 mapping but it sort of works out still.
To my understanding, Akai sort of “promised” us a convergence between the Force arranger and the MPC workflow by version 3.0…at least that’s what I remember seeing/hearing somewhere at some point lol
Probably that’s the reason this update is numbered 2.10 
Sounds good to me. All the new additions are great. Not too stoked on the stutter. It’s kinda cheesy. But the rest is really nice….I think anyways.
Put it in controller mode first and you can
Are you sure about that? On MPC Live 2 you can’t copy files to the internal SD drive, or copy files out of it. This only works if you plug in your own SD, USB drive or SSD, then yes you can access those, but not the internal SD drive (even in controller mode).
I think they are doing that to stop people from copying the content out.
midi clock jitter = “natural swing” 
I wish I could delete most of the factory content…
And yeah, accessing drives only works for your own drives with your sample libraries , not the drive with the OS and factory content.
IIRC there was a way to delete original content but it could mess up the OS so I didn’t look further into it.
Any recommendations for a SATA drive for the Live 2? Any with known issues?
I might pick one up off Amazon…
My mistake. I missed that bit about internal.