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

I watched this and thought it was all a bit ridiculous. Didn’t get off to a good start with the bitching about YouTube comments around his fingernails mind you.

The Live won’t be for everyone and won’t have every feature but concluding with a sweeping “do not buy” is ludicrous!

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Almost all of the things he said are wrong. He clearly don’t understand the unit. But I shared in case someone might find it interesting. It’s just another view point :slight_smile:

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Which parts were wrong? The workflow/routing/accessibility problems/limitations etc seemed potentially accurate? But I’ve not read the manual or had hands on…

ok, I’ll bite…

First off, is this guy high or something? made all kinds of operating errors etc…

  • He complains about outputs 7/8 not being headpgone outs. Outs 7/8 are the outs 7/8 of the MPC X, which uses IDENTICAL software and is 100% project compatible with the live. Now then, having outs 1/2 shared by headphones and “master” outs is slightly unfortunate, but at least it’s easy to pick up and intuitive for new users etc.

  • Then he complains that all factory content has been premapped to outputs 1/2?? Like, seriously? OF COURSE THEY ARE! Otherwise no sound could be heard when loading the factory content. If you need non-default output mappings, which can be configured on a per-pad-level btw, you needs to make your own programs and save em. Makes sense?

  • The cimplaint about not having master vol control if your master is other than 1/2 might be valid. Would need to check this. But this should be easily fixed with a software update that allows one to set the “crown output” (ie. the master channel) to something other than 1/2.

  • The complaint of not being able to lock the MIDI input target is entirely valid. As is the complaint about the lack or multitimbral MIDI input. But Dan has already stated this will be adressed in the future.

  • This guy clearly has not RTFM wrt using keygroup programs. And also seems to be oblivious to the existence and effect of the PAD BANK buttons, as evidenced several times in his video. Agreed, the pad note mapping default is not logical, but jumping to the correct pad bank gets you in the right octave range in one click.

  • When trying to demo the clip programs, he fails to correctly use the PAD BANK controls again (he’s in pad bank D). Again, he intoxicated or something?

One thing he never mentions is that the Akai software is still in BETA. How convenient for him. He also seems very oblivious to the MPC legacy and paradigms of the past MPC models, which have been carried over to these new models as well, for better or worse. I am pretty confident things will evolve toward a more logical situation. As it is now, the UI of the live is a slight hodgepodge of past and present, it needs to refine into its own thing.

Where his criticisms are on the money is the track mixer menu. I admit it is very illogical and very confusing. Like having the add audio track button but not add intrument track button etc… Also, IMO the step sequencer UI is also still feeling immature. But again, things are still in BETA.

I get the feeling that this fella is so hipster, he wants to be byuing as well as selling the MPC “before it was cool”. He is too impatient to even giving it a fair chance to get out of the beta. Then he praises the K-Mix, which undoubtedly also had its’ problems during its early days, like not working with windows AT ALL etcetera…

TL;DR - “Thats just, like, your opinion man”

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that was a painful watch. i just hope the lack of response on the touch screen at the beginning was due to user error!

I’ve encountered one session that involved a flaky touch screen. Only the once and it was fine after a restart but during this period I found that the screen wasn’t responsive to certain taps/gestures. Was all a bit odd. It’s the closest I’ve come to a “bug” to date and for my use I can live with that but if in a live scenario it would have been a worry. Still, early beta days and things like this will be ironed out quickly enough.

He also states that he cleaned the screen with some cleaning agent. Had he bothered to RTFM he would have noticed the warning “only clean with a dry cloth, never use cleaning liquids” :troll:

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what i’d like to know is what happens to these units that get sent back? some poor sod ends up buying an MPC with nail varnish all over the screen lol

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is the audio quality good enough to replace a dedicated audio interface?
Let’s say a steinberg UR44 or Focusrite scarlett 6i6.

Yes you can go with MPC Live instead… gain is ok, IO is ok… but you can only record/sample 1 Stereo pair at a time. And for microphone you need a preamp in between

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Yeah, it seems odd to me that you couldn’t set a melodic instrument program to say midi channel 3 and have that played off a keyboard while playing the pads on a different program. Is that not a feature? It wouldn’t affect me so much but still seems like a short coming.
Also what is the deal with the going back and forth to pad performance page? Can that not be set to the program?
Still having an mpc 1000, that video seems a little dubious, although I haven’t used the live at all.
Oh and all my hardware and software have starting templates I made, so his complaint about the live not always starting up in a way doesn’t make sense. Make a template, save it, and use it as a starting point every time.

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autsch… sad… the guy did a funny video on a road trip… seems he lost fun in the piece quickly :-))))… we should give him the tipp to buy a digitakt… maybe that helps :-))

he mentioned two or three correct things in beta (like the harddrive integration is really horror if you want to copy whole file systems to it… i`ve done file copying before attaching to the mpc…)… buthey… its BETA…

in general i think he is experiencing the “i dont like MPC workflow”… so he should really sell it…

and he didnt understand new concepts like the looper idea…(“why do i need to export”… hahaha)… its a looper… its for looping not for assigning pads… haha…

I didn’t see that part of the video but Looper option to auto assign overdubs to separate pads seems no-brainer tho? I kind of assumed that would be how it worked. Like a Roland looper with different tracks. Maybe they’ll make it so you can record in to separate pads in clip launch mode in an update… Tons of potential to be a very badass looper…

Live looks cool and a solid upgrade for any mpc heads but I get the feeling that the devs don’t spend enough time thinking outside of the ‘norm’ and playing other companies hardware/software. Nice to see akai finally make something ambitious that isn’t a little embarrassing (far from it), been a while, but I think it’ll take some ‘non mpc’ kind of updates/thinking to really make it feel like something totally contemporary/forward thinking.

I feel the same about the DT. Elektron kind of deciding what should be there based on what’s in their other boxes. Not the competition/alternative :confused:

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the win in wintel = windows. Linux can be on various processor types for example Android OS you get one phones is a type of Linux

Still trying to find my way around the Akai terminology and MPC way of working but I do like the Live so far, apart from a few little gripes, I really pine for navigation shortcuts and I still haven’t found automation edits, so when I need to automate something, I do it live.

however, track mutes still work, so you always have the option of “expode tracks” to get all 12 note rows to separate tracks, and then you can mute em one by one… There are 128 tracks, don’t be shy :diddly:

WOW, could you explain to me how to do that ? in keygroup ?

Mine gets very warm on the left hand side of the touch screen next to the pads. Is that normal?

Been a few saying that. That spot definitely gets a little warm in mine but nothing worrying. But then, I haven’t had a serious session with it yet

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Do you have a HDD/SSD installed? This seems to be the problem for some users.

I don’t have any SSD/HD installed and for sure the left side of the touchscreen is hotter than any other place

when you guys say it gets hot, do you mean like many other hardware (warm) or do you mean worryingly hot?