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

I’m wondering: how are these things going for people? Does the experience match your initial hopes and expectations? High and low points?

Very curious to know how they are in practice. In a couple of months I’ll probably be picking up either an MPC Live or an OT MkII, torn between two very different siren calls (finger drumming and melody vs Elektron tweaking fractal mind)

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I love the MPC Live. It fits with the way I work. I can be up and running and arranging really quickly.

Some things I like:

  • Mutes are saved per sequence.
  • Once in Song Mode, the Convert to Sequence feature is real handy for stitching together your sequences then overlaying them with various things.
  • Having the ability to input notes via Grid Mode, Step Sequence and finger drumming really opens up the ability to do more.
  • Sampling is really easy

I also really like the touchscreen. I thought it would be weird, but it’s totally fluid and doesn’t take away from the experience of making music. I know some people prefer a more tactile approach.

I’m not going to compare it to the OT. I’ve owned both an OT and Digitakt. They are both very Elektron. The MPC is very Akai. I’ve made interesting music with both brands. Both are super fun.

Right now, I prefer to use the MPC. It’s more structured and organized. Those are things my music was lacking with the Elektron boxes I mentioned here.

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Great to read, thanks, good food for thought.

well, i love this workflow, it’s really a pleasure to make a track with samples, had mpc1000 before, and this one is better. i think octatrack is more for live performance, than making a tune. it gives you direct sampling and flexible tools for live stuff…
though mpclive added several new modes to mpc’s usual ‘nextsequence’ and ‘trackmute’ screen live play - audioclips, xyfx, looper (!) which is great. i haven’t tried it yet in performance, but i think, it’s huge cons over octa…

one more thing though, mpclive is not really stable as for now, and there’s a lot of firmware polishing to do, i think. so i would wait for an year or so, before buying it… but if you can handle that feeling, when you’re betatesting something :slight_smile: then yeah, go for it

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I’ve read this online and seen a couple of Youtubes of people who experienced issues. I personally have not had any issues and have been running lots of drum and midi programs and lots of sequences with heavy automation. Feels pretty solid to me.

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Thanks for your thoughts too, appreciate it… Yep it’s great they’ve added a few things for performance, wish there was more tho… Also I hope they can get Link running standalone in a stable way…

firmware update http://www.akaipro.com/pages/mpc-x-live-2.0.3-firmware-update

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Anyone succeeded with firmware update? For me the updater says weird things like “mpc live is not plugged in”, “please connect the power supply and retry”… Of course I am in update mode.

Worked fine for me. Took me a to workout how to get into update mode mind you and was then told I had to keep it plugged in to the mains but after that, went smoothly.

Okay, it’s ok for me now :slight_smile: Let’s see what has been changed.

I tried to update mine last night but forgot the power adapter at home (didn’t think I’d need it as the battery was 100% full). Turns out Akai insists on the MPC being plugged in before allowing the firmware update to go through.

This is a bugfix only update AFAIK, supposedly improving audio recording latency (not completely eliminating it though) and various other fixes. Hoping it will remove most of the issues I’ve experienced with audio tracks as well!

btw, I heard that the first MPC X models are shipping - Anyone here ordered one?

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Didn’t order the X but yeah, some have received theirs. Not sure what the delay was, there are a whole lot of people making qild assumptions that the X got some internal revisions and things.

Anyway, good to see some bug fixing IMO. Get things more stable and speedier then can look to add some functionality.

Must say, I haven’t used the Live as much as I should have. To the point I thought I would maybe flip it. But the other night I sat down with it for an hour and had tremendous fun. I’m some how still shit at sampling (I’ll get there!) but this thing is def coming to Tenerife with me in a fortnight!

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Be carful taking it to the airport, some airlines won’t allow it, they took a mates off him, he had a nightmare getting it back

What in the airline terms and conditions allows them to do such a thing ? Is there some new law I don’t know about ?

Back on the topic, I’m happy to see an OS update for bug fixes even though I haven’t experienced any of the nasty stuff I read about. Reading about the buggy audio tracks, I so far “limited” myself to only using midi tracks, it’s a lot of fun already. The only thing that I’m really missing right now is a better way to introduce and sequence parameters automation.

Ain’t got a clue, but just check with airline first

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Q-Links at the project level. You can assign and record midi cc messages. I’ve been assigning parameters for my AR and A4 no problem. Good stuff

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I’m so looking forward to automating my elektrons with the MPC live, as soon as the automation editor gets here that is :nyan:

The plan is to make the meat & potatoes of a track with the elektrons, and then using the MPC live kinda like a “song mode on steroids” for arranging the elektron pattns into more songy forms, automating pattn changes, mutes, perf macros etc. I know I could use a DAW for this but I aboslutely hate doing anything with a DAW other than tracking & mixing these days…

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I find song mode on the MPC Live to be quite basic compared to the OT one…

Thanks, I knew that but I wasn’t very clear, I meant being able to edit the automation after you recorded it. Maybe done the same way you can edit note velocity, or maybe something that would look like the way you edit the enveloppes. As of now, if you record an automation you’re not happy with, the only way to edit it is to delete it and record again. To me, having to switch between record and playback of automation also feels unnatural, clumsy and out of touch with how it is handled elsewhere. Unless I’m missing something … :confused:

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Automation implementation at the moment is fucking appalling. I really hope for a way to edit them soon.
A drop down window in the step-editor, where you edit the velocity would be great, but this is Akai, so most likely it will be really awkward…