I don’t quite understand, what’s the difference between a pattern and a sequence? I thought these are essentially the same 
Yep, same thing AFAIK. Elektron call em patterns. Akai call em sequences.
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apologies if this has already been covered, but does anyone know how this thing works when it comes to the arrangement stage? i thought i read somewhere there is no song mode
i.e. a linear sequence page like on the previous MPCs?
you can see it here
On the Ni forum, people say they already saw maschine standalone…
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thanks for the clarification. good to see there is a song mode!
I might consider Maschine if they make it standalone, do you know if anything was announced or if it’s just rumours and wishful thinking ?
It’s a total rumour. Even folks on the forum doubt it.
I’d be surprised. Maschines strength is with integration with Komplete - now if a standalone did happen and it ran Komplete vsts then that’s a big deal. But seems overkill when a small laptop would suffice.
it’s a user DIY modification basically he associated computer parts with maschine to get it standalone. it’s not coming from Native Instruments in anyway. I seriously doubt that NI take that road.
I dont know, just know people said they already saw it…
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Sure. Even thought the naming is different, MPC uses more-or-less the same model as the Elektron boxes as long as you consider what’s called a “sequences” on the MPC side equivalent with what’s called a “patterns” on the Elektron side.
However, I was contrasting the MPC approach with the way Machine does things. 
You can find a good explanation of the primary difference in the Sound on Sound MPC Touch review:
The main issue is there’s essentially no concept of pattern variations. Each Track in each Sequence is a single MIDI clip. A new variation means a whole new Sequence. And there’s no quick way to duplicate a Sequence — you have to go through a multi-step process of copying and pasting and renaming the current Sequence. In Maschine or Live you’d typically make a number of loop variations and fills on the fly, ready for assigning to Song Scenes later. In MPC each Sequence is a fixed block, so you need a different Sequence for each variation you might make in any Track. It’s frustrating because the concept of patterns as distinct from tracks would fit perfectly with MPCs object-based structure.
This sums up my experiences pretty damn well.
I know, I know. Please note that I was arguing that using the display for step sequencing is probably much nicer than using pads.
What I was talking about can be summed up with the row of buttons to the left of the pads on Maschine:
There’s nothing equivalent in terms of physical buttons on the Live, and in my experience Maschine also gives me much more direct control than the MPC 1000 ever did for me.
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I had a demo today and came away really impressed. I wanted to know if you could chop a sample and play it chromatically. And yes you can. Plus you can layer effects for each sample slice. So each pad can have different effects assigned and you can add an effects chain of your choice on each pad. Then you can save the effected slice as an audio track and change all the pad assignments. I thought that the MPC live was pretty amazing. I’m coming from using an OT. Anyhow I think I’ll get one. Plus it can be used as a recorder.
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I’m having difficulty recalling how I felt about the effects on the MPC 5000, which were apparently ported to the Live. Can anyone post demos or comment on the quality of the MPC 5000’s reverbs and compressors?
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Can’t find the videos I saw the other week. But this one has some verb in it. Hard to judge tho. Sounds like a bad recoding and listening through my phone. Sounds kinda gritty/digital, maybe in a good way, probably find a use for it. Being able to stack 4 fx per pad should hopefully mean being able to carve out some useable stuff. Tbh most reverb/delay/filter/compression I use in mpc will prob just be portable placeholders… for anything important I’ll use the outs to send to pedals or switchout the standalone fx for better plugins in Daw.
Akai dev posted in user forum, said expect news on hardware and software availability sometime next week.
i’ll get one anyhow, but what would really flip it would be live looping mode 
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Not sure if you already know but it has a looper, dunno how ‘live’ it can be tho. Seemed pretty useable from the vid I saw but I didn’t pay attention to whether you had to stop the sequencer etc to save/allocate to pads.
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If it does release by next week, they will be limited. Frustration from waiting was one thing, now be prepared to be jealous and frustrated when first batch users get theirs and you gotta wait a couple months because you thought they’ll be available for everybody.
Starting to wish I sold some stuff to pre-order. Waiting on user reviews/vids…Still kinda thinking ‘too good to be true’… Find out soon 
If it’s solid I’m down for one ASAP.
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I’ve been pretty chilled so far, with a pre-order at GAK.
But reading “MPC news is imminent” instead of MPC release is imminent, has me a bit hot & bothered. I’m starting to feel a little bit worn down by it all.