MPC Thread : MPC Live - MPC X - MPC One (Part 1)

The Lounge Other Gear
#2689

I’ll be keeping OT for sure to use with Live + other hardware when I’m at a my main setup. Live more as a portable box for sofa etc to then bring ideas straight in to Daw. Tho the mpc will also get used a lot for stuff when I’m at my main setup too.

I don’t see that much crossover between OT and mpc tbh. They kind of tick the boxes that each of them is missing. Akai ‘could’ make it much closer with a few well chosen updates but for now I’d miss stuff like scenes + p-locks etc and the OT workflow/results too much to flip it :wink:

1 Like
#2690

I have an mpc 1000 I use along side an octatrack and for what I use it for I think I can easily replace it with the Digitakt. It covers all the simple things I use the mpc for without the stuff I don’t use it for. And it would force me to focus my sample library a little.

#2691

Cool :slight_smile: Everyone has different needs/wants/tolerances etc - I’m hyped to have have a larger/unfocused library in the Live! And polyphonic samples with timestrech is a big part of what I do. I miss that on my Elektron boxes/op1 and have kept the Microsampler around for it, prob sell that if Live is what I hope it is…

And linear sequencing, excited to have that in a box. I never work in ‘patterns’ in Daw and I much prefer the freedom of long, linear flowing compositions. With Elektron box patterns thrown in too :wink:

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#2692

Don’t talk me into changing my mind again!

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#2693

That’s how I feel each time i see a DT video :wink: Would love one to mess with, looks a lot of fun and sounds nice, but doesn’t tick enough boxes for my setup/budget/needs atm.

#2694

I think @darenager & @Callofthevoid are spot on citing the shitty Akai demos.

On paper, DT has very little that gets me excited. I’ve owned an OT so I sit here thinking “whats the big deal with something that feels more limited?”. Then Cenk’s demos come along and blows that out of the water. They really were excellent and didn’t feel like the usual Dataline vibe to me which pulled me in further.

Andy Mac did a good job with the Akai’s showing stuff off but they didn’t build on it. It was just video after video of the same generic shit.

In reality, the power and usability of both is in the eye of the beholder. I’ll never be as fluent on Elektron’s as Cenk is nor know the Akai’s inside out like Andy.

Gut feel is that the DT will end up having the same quirky workaround shit that all of the Elektron’s have to some extent and I’ll struggle to deal with that (the A4/K is probably the least “awkward” of their boxes I have owned so I get on with it better). The Live probably fits my needs/expectations better. But that other thread about battery packs and an OT genuinely has me massively interested - just a shame 2nd hand prices seem to have shot up a little in the UK for OT’s.

2 Likes
#2695

Agreed, akai dropped the ball massively with the promo/vids. They’ve shown practically zero ‘creative’ use of the box. Just someone going through the fundamental and obvious stuff… Over, and over, and over, and over again… Will (hopefully) be a different story once it gets in the hands of some musical weirdos :wink:

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#2696

I think people get fooled by videos showing cool sounding music being made, and Cenk demos are no different. You can make cool sounding music with any gear, that is up to the talent of the user and how well they know the gear. It’s easy to get seduced by that, but reading a manual while a photo of the thing is front of you is a much more dispassionate way to assess something and how you’d really be able to experience it doing the kinds of things you expect to do in your workflow/style. People buy new gear all the time only to realize for the hundredth time it’s their own strengths and weaknesses that affect their output not the gear. The gear only nudges you slightly in one direction or the other, and opens up or limits the possibilities (both of which can be good or bad, depending), or with synths can give you a slightly different color for your palette.

But anyway I feel people making their decisions based on demo sessions of another musician are making a mistake.

9 Likes
#2697

the last DT video was pretty horrible so if you need to be deterred, watch the gearslutz vid. Simon is not a bad presenter but the sound is so low and he rarely expands on what he’s showing. honestly, I think Cenk is just a magician lol.

I do really like the idea of the new MPC’s but they are really pricey in Japan. The live is about 1300. I just can’t afford that if that atm. The live is a great and I hope it’s a rock solid super star!

#2698

I saw thw Digitakt at Superbooth and had instant GAS! However I already own the Analog Rytm and tried to justify to buy the Digitakt. However I realised that it would not give me that much advantage and that I could achieve the same results with my Rytm which has analog overdrive, filter and compressor on top. I think I got fooled by Cenks magical presentation

3 Likes
#2699

I think Cenk naturally digs messed up stuff leaning toward more experimental/dark/glitches. Which is a great set of boxes to tick in a hardware demonstration. It’s kind of the total opposite of the music/sounds Andy Mac seems to dig from his demonstrations. Instead of focusing on how much you can mess stuff up on the Live he seems bent on showing how ‘look, you can make really normal stuff inside this box!’. Not very inspiring :wink:

Edit - tho when I think about it, the Live does so much that to cover it all AND then show how weird those things can be, it’s probably going to take longer than most ‘demos’ allow. In that respect the simplicity of DT is both its strength/weakness.

#2700

Not a chance

#2701

The live is almost twice the price of the digitakt in Canada so that’s also a big deterrent in my case

2 Likes
#2702

I’m a bit scared of selling my Octatrack for the MPC Live… and although I can’t afford both, I’m thinking of selling other gear and spending some money on top to be able to have both, and decide later wich one to keep.
I have the feeling that MPC Live might be better for my production workflow, but maybe for a live enviroment the Octatrack ends up beeing better… I’m just a bit reluctant about the MPC for live performance - then again, I won’t know until I get one and play with it extensively…

I understand that some people get thrown off by the menu diving, but if you think of it, Octatrack has quite a lot of menu diving too - it’s just that we’re used to it… and it’s also a super small screen!

the voice in my head that DO wants to sell the octatrack instead of keeping it thinks that for heavier/weirder sound manipulation I have the iPad, wich has a lot of potential for this… of course the workflow/result is not the same, but still…
and considering the Live will implement Ableton Link in the future (or so they said, as far as I remember), it sounds like a really powerful match

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#2703

Yep, using Link to sync with iPad apps will open up a huge number of possibilities - assuming they actually put it in. Patterning…

I wish mono MPC keygroups had a legato/glide mode. That would be absolutely killer.

Don’t have an OT, but that crossfader looks very powerful. Can’t help but think that the OT would be better suited for live mangling. The main (live performance) draw for me with the MPC is live pad performance, looping, clip launching, and hopefully some mixing and basic effects if they sound good enough, though already got some decent outboard boxes that will do most of that job.

Hope the Live actually ends up dropping in the next few weeks, very much looking forward…

1 Like
#2704

I’ve had the OT packed in it’s box for a few months now since I rediscovered Maschine, so I’m now in a bit of a pickle, keep the OT, sell the OT for the MPC Live, wait and see what NI has in store (if anything)…

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#2705

Octatrack plus mpc equals sampler groove box heaven. Plug the 4 outs of the mpc to the inside of the octatrack and voila! Add some crazy bass lines out of the octatrack and some crossfader acne and plocked effects! So good I might have to hold on to my 1000!

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#2706

I rediscovered Maschine recently too - hoping the Jam I bought off ebay is waiting for me this evening… I’m still super keen on the Live but do I really want Maschine on one side, Push2 in the middle and a Live on the other side?! Seems like complete overkill and a waste of space. I do wonder what NI might have down the road though. I doubt they will go standalone but some sort of new controller surely will appear.

Maschine is incredibly attractive as a groovebox centre feeding Ableton though. Adding a Kontrol was also considered… Then I won a Deepmind 12 auction haha! Arrives in a week or so.

So I need to have a monster sit down and think about what I want. Head says get rid of my AK but heart says no!

#2707

As attractive as a stand-alone box feels to me, I really don’t want to go back to the awkward MPC no-patterns-everything-is-a-sequence model.

The way Maschine allows you to quickly switch patterns has been an excellent way to quickly come up with variations and to try different arrangements.

And as cool as editing step sequences on a touch screen will certainly be, I am a bit afraid that the lack of physical “mode” buttons on the Live is going to slow navigation down.

I’m saying this as a former MPC 1000 with JJOS owner. For me, Maschine has always felt more like using hardware than the slightly awkward navigation and menu-diving on the MPC 1000 ever did.

#2708

You can use the 16 pads to switch patterns/sequences on mpc live right? Same as Elektron etc.

And you can use the pads to select steps in a sequence. There isn’t really that much you’ll ‘have’ to use the screen for once you have knobs set up etc in a project template :wink: Screen is kind of just a bonus option most of the time from what I’ve seen?