I would love to know how the Live performs when midi-slaved to the clock and transport from a Machinedrum Userwave mkII
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In any case, glad you got the mess at star music sorted!
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Does anyone with a MPC Live have the ability to test some things related to using an external sync source?
Iāve reported these issues to Akai both as a support ticket and on their forum but havenāt gotten a reply yet:
- When slaved to an external MIDI clock, try recording to an audio track, and/or to the looper. (doesnāt work in my case)
- When slaved to external MIDI, try saving a project and see if you can still play it back after saving. (in my case sequencer starts but no sounds are heard. Intermittent, unplugging MIDI fixes it.)
- Try booting with MIDI clock source plugged in and on, load a project and see if MIDI sync is working. (in my case I have to re-load the project for it to work.)
My Live is slaved to a DSI Tempest which has only very basic MIDI so I am pretty positive itās not sending anything besides clock & transport. Iāve taken care to disable MIDI sequencing and MIDI pad play on the Tempest.
I am sending mine back to the storeā¦ This product is far from finished in my opinion and I do not have the spare time for being a beta testerā¦ Perhaps some other time.
Using the MPC as a midi slave to the Octatrack is one big sloppiness fest here while other devices are fine with the Octatrack being master clock.
Audio sample Input/monitoring latency isā¦ letās say it niceā¦ not very impressiveā¦
Crashed 4 times on me out of the blue when loading a project from usb and press start/play.
When booting up with 4 midi ports hooked up and a usb midi device like the OP-1 for example results in the MPC only receiving Midi via usb and not via the actual midi portsā¦ Solved by booting up without the OP-1 usb cable plugged.
Overall weird behavior and slow screen response inside the keyprogram mode
Selecting all keygroups doesnāt work for a lot of things except the VCA.
Anyway, I had enough of it alreadyā¦ The midi sequencing side of things is really nice though and I will miss that, I really need to find some sort of alternative for it (iPad maybe?) but the crashing is really a no go for me.
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Damn , too many reports about crashs, bugs, midi sync sloppyness.
Im definitely going to pass on this one. 
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Mine just froze while loading a demo project. And there is no way to turn it of haha. Lovely machine when it works but crashes all the timeā¦
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I cheated on Elektron and bought a MPC live.
I must say the build quality is impressive and these pads feel great. Some years of research in these pads.
After long time working with Elektron sequencers it is nice to feel a new breeze through your mind with respect to work flow. Also makes me think differently about how to approach my Elektron gear.
Sample selection procedure on MPC is improvement for sure. Also I think the real time live recording for me is bit better because there is somehow more overview in this device. Also for songs structures. However changing parameters, and locking on the sequencer is more complicated, for this I will keep my Elektron.
But yes this device is on beta and a lot of part is in the OS are not finished or need attention. Indeed the midi sync is not working as it should.
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Try holding the power button down for a while, maybe that will force-shutdown the unit.
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that worked. If you hold down the powerbutton for about 10 sec it restarts. Funny thing is, now when I rebooted it all the factory content is missing. This thing is really weird.
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Despite the couple of minor early adopter issues, I gotta say the MPC Live is really scratching me where I itch. I am having tons of fun with it, itās easily one of the most immediate machines Iāve used, but at the same time quite deep, just in different ways than a synth is deep. (LAYERS with unique pitches, pans, volumes, etcā¦ I canāt overstate how huge this is!)
- I like that I can drive it hard and it sounds great, not nearly as much worry about gain staging as the Octatrack.
- As a drummer, the pads are amazing and latency is imperceptible on drum programs
- Building programs on the PC in MPC 2.0, then unplugging and jamming wherever is amazing.
- Now that Iāve gotten used to it, getting around and finding things is pretty intuitive and quick.
- I donāt have to prep as much as I do with the Octatrack. Getting a new project going is easy.
- Stuff I write on the MPC rocks way harder than stuff I write elsewhere.
- Plays pretty nice with other gear, but room for improvement exists.
Still a few minor gripes that Iām totally willing to live with because I did buy it on day one and should know better 
- Needs more USB host functionality.
- Needs more standalone automation editing capabilities (I can live w/o parameter locks)
- Would like to see some SHIFT+PAD shortcuts like other MPCs. (i.e. to mute modes, mixers, pad perform, etc.)
- Would like to be able to define my own MIDI note layout for MIDI programs
- Would like to be able to define MIDI input channel/note range for all types of programs
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TBH, I knew the MPC was in Beta, so I knew putting my money down was a bit of a risk, but despite what the few issues Iāve had so far, Iām really happy with it.
I still havenāt tried the software, but considering how much of a PITA it is to browse the factory content on the hardware, I might try the software and as you said, build my kits there to then play then standaloneā¦
And among my suggestion to the dev team there was āpad lock modeā: the option to lock the pad to a screen (ie: a program/a drum kit/track mute) and have the screen control a second area, like next sequence. Something like this live would be really ehlpful
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smooth
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Not sure, the space could be intentional or accidental.
Definitely not hearing any fade in/out of samples.
Well, I picked my preorder this morning and have been most of the afternoon until now playing with it, just a few tracks and trying out the fx and getting used to the ui, just some light first contact.
I have to say the machine is impressive. The hardware seems quality and the little Iāve seen so far of the software is well enough designed (not talking about any bugs). No latency, doesnāt get hot (very slightly warm next to screen, absolutely no worry), sounds good, nice pads, nice knobs and buttons, seems all around well built. The fx could be better, but that was already known and expected. Have been writing down suggestions I will send to akai when I install the software.
I was seriously worried with all the horror stories going around but so far, so good, though Iāve done very little with very little cpu consumption, so I guess I wonāt come across any bugs until I push it harder.
Have to rest now, my head is a bit mushy from listening to the same beat for hours while I tried stuff 
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mine arrives tomorrow. i feel i should prepare somehow. iām hoping i can load the current track iām working on inJJOS and get going without too much of a fuss
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Too much people state the same. thatās why i have my doubt and concerns. I will see in 15 days with it if itās not too much pain in sync, bug, freeze etcā¦ and i will decide after it 
One thing kills me is to not be able to assign effects in modulation matrix/LFOā¦ only manual automation (Qlinks) thatās a big cons for me. (but TORAIZ is also powerless in that territory soā¦ i mean regarding modulations destinations at least on toraiz effects are fully p-lockable + lfoā¦ OT is the KING in modulation destinations)
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Allright, I am also new tot this group, but read a LOT of your posts -thanks and felt the urge to respond. Okay I have this device probably three weeks now. I made ten tracks/loops and this machine is very productive. I am an Ableton user and had Push. This is more immediate, hands on and much more fun, albeit a little more cumbersome sometimes editing stuff. The way you create beats is really fast and please give yourself time to know how to create variations in programs and setup the Q-links right and it will kill all Ellektron/Korg electribe stuff. Been there. You must give it a month or two.
Pros:
No single crash,
Midi as master has been rock solid, didnāt tets it as a slave. Tested it with ultranova and korg keys. (check sync settting in menu)
Records midi cc no problem,
Assign midi CC to q-links no problem
Working with the grid gets faster and faster.
Pad perform works with midi and is a life saver.
Used clips as in ableton, launch them in time with programs
Finger drums, no latency on the pads
On the fly audio recording works great (but you need to press record instead of overdub)
Fx are really quite ok.
Loop recording and overdubbing is fun
Saving to internal drive and saving to compact flash
Reads and writes my usb drive.
Cons:
Illogical things in menu, no biggies
There is some small latency when recording adio, very fast to fix when editing starting points
Browser could be better with tagging
Stand alone reverb is not that good (mono)
No USB midi -out (Ipad) USB in only with class compliant controllers.
No biggie for me, but no warping with drumprograms
No editing automation in standalone, but automation editing with the step sequencer could be the definite answer to p-locking.
Please Do understand this is such impressive and deep machine, by the time you have all the muscle memory, all bugs have been ironed out.
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I understand youāve send yours back too? What issues did you have with it? People are suggesting I have a faulty unitā¦ Perhaps itās just me, but itās like Iāve seen reports of at least 5 persons having the same issuesā¦ Mine worked fine the first day and started acting up after 2 daysā¦ I am just not sure about this anymoreā¦
You knowā¦ Even how cool this device isā¦ I can live with some software bugs or weird stuff, but in my opinion it should be a stable midi slave and not only a stable midi master upon release and for a hardware sampler you donāt expect the 12ms latency that Iāve encountered while monitoring the inputā¦ the crashes did it for meā¦ Think Iāll wait a couple of months before reconsidering this machine and hope most bugs are fixed by that time.
Cheers!
I forgot to mention this in my post, I really love the looper. Itās something I wasnāt really expecting when I ordered my MPC, but itās almost more useful than audio tracks for recording because you donāt have to stop playback to start a recording immediately on the first beat of your sequence. Itās a handy little sketchpad.
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not for nowā¦ i have a faulty unit and get replaced this weekā¦ then i will decide if i keep or change for (Toraiz + OT)