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

Yes, I realize that. However, it is overwriting them within the project folder. It should only have to collect and save “duplicates” of the samples once, when the project is first saved; but instead, it collects and resaves ALL the samples every time the project is saved, systematically overwriting each sample as it goes, even if nothing in the project’s sample pool has been changed. Again, unless samples have been added or otherwise deleted from the project, there should be nothing to resave, except parameter changes and sequencer data… Period.

The same is true of saving a drum program: i.e. the MPC initially collects and saves all the samples associated with the program, and stores them, in redundancy, in the program folder along with the program data. But, should you make any changes to that program, however small, and wish to save those changes, the MPC proceeds to overwrite ALL the samples in the program folder, even if the only thing you changed was, say, mixer levels or what have you. Hell, it even tells you that it’s going to “overwrite” them in the prompt that pops up.

As for the file format of the samples in question; they were all sampled directly into the MPC itself, so whatever the MPC does with files, that’s what format they are. The only reason I even have uncorrupted samples to replace the corrupt ones with, is because I saved all the samples to a separate folder, independent of the program and project folders, as I was sampling them. I’m thankful for that foresight now, let me tell you what!

Cheers!

I suggest sending a PM to Dan from Akai on GS. Seems like he genuinely wants to help people with issues regarding MPC. His nick is xparis001 IIRC

But again, I am thinking something is different in your case. Every time I do a first save of any project, saving process takes a while. every subsequent resave takes but a blink of an eye (via the disk icon). So for some reason, the sample content is not resaved in my projects. Maybe the fact that you sampled your audio directly with the MPC affects the outcome somehow?

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I don’t think the samples necessarily get repeatedly written…? The system just keeps all samples belonging to a project together in one place.

I actually like this, since it means transferring and backing up a project for stage work, is simple and straight-forward.

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Ah, I see, my info was a bit dated then, good to know and thanks for the info :+1:

agreed, I love that feature myself. I have hard disks full of music project files from the past 20 years that have forever lost their samples. It brings comfort knowing that all my MPC 2 project files will never have that happen to them… assuming that data will not get corrupted of course!

lol, alright. Thank you for elaborating your issue, now it’s clearer what you’re struggling with and it sounds like something’s wrong with your device…I hope you’ll work it out.

:wink:

Gentlemen, please…

The samples are absolutely being repeatedly overwritten. There’s no question about that. I’ve been very thorough about sussing this out thus far. And yes, Purusha, as you and tsutek have observed, the reason why Akai have chosen to save the samples this way (in redundancy, within each project) is so they can’t get lost if the original files are moved, renamed, or accidentally deleted; and so the process of backing-up a project and taking it with you is simple and concise. It also has to be this way because the MPC can’t read from disk.

However, it is a lazy implementation: i.e. overwriting everything, every time, means you don’t need a more complicate file management system that remembers specifically what has been changed since the last save.

Cheers!

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Don’t get me wrong, man, I observe this behaviour on my MPC as well: i.e. if I start a new project, when I first save it, it takes the time (several seconds at least) to collect all the samples from the sample pool and save them to the project folder, as expected. And, like you, if I then continue to work on that project, if I save it again (via the disk icon), it’s pretty much instantaneous. However, if I then shutdown the MPC, when I come back the next day (or whenever), reload that project, and make further changes… If I then try to save those changes, the MPC proceeds to collect ALL the samples again, as if it had never seen them before, and overwrite those files in the project folder. Which, evidently, is causing some degradation over time.

Now, given the disparity that almost certainly exists between our various workflows, I can understand how some of you (even most of you) may not have noticed this behaviour before, or otherwise suffered the ill effects thereof; but I seriously doubt that my MPC is the only one that does this, and therefore is somehow broken.

Anyway, I will continue to try to contact Akai “support”, and I will ask someone (hopefully not some robot customer service drone) what the hell is going on here. But I’m telling y’all, I’m not crazy. :wink:

Cheers!

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I can confirm you’re not the only one, happened to me on 5 different projects of mine with the same symptoms.

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That does make sense. …but the current behaviour doesn’t bother me overly-much, for my work-flow. I can see how others might be looking at a different scenario though.

If the system weren’t to re-save, I’d like to see a data validation / comparison done on the existing files at least. Even if that were a manual process.

Well, it wouldn’t bother me either, if it weren’t corrupting my samples. :wink:

Cheers!

Im sure Akai will consider this a critical issue. Now we just need to figure out how the corruption manifests, and send a detailed report to Dan.

I will keep a lookout next time if I notice this resaving of files happening between boots on my MPC live & force. If this issue is reproducible and affect all hardware, it is also probable that also the force is affected by this, as the MPCs and the force undoubtedly share quite alot of code.

One more thing - have you noticed the same issues happening, regardless of storage media used? Just remembered that I haven’t installed an SSD to my force yet… need to test with an ext thumb drive.

Just tested this, booted up my live, opened a project with a bunch of samples, changed BPM, hit the disk icon. Saving was instantaneous.

I am unable to reproduce the long resaving time condition… ideas?

Did you try with a few longer samples ? I think it might make the process more obvious since saving those would take longer :thinking:

EDIT: or maybe it has to do with the actions you perform ? Maybe changing program properties might change things ? Just thinking out loud here :wink:

Judging from how much time the project takes to load, I’m pretty sure saving it as a new project would take alot longer than 0.5 seconds, so I believe there is ample sample data present.

Perhaps one needs to edit the samples, by resetting sample start/end points or similar? I’ll see if I can try a few more things later on.

In the meantime, I urge anyone to try reproducing this long resaving issue on their MPCs. If the issue is not super specific to certain conditions, we might be able to catch it.

That could be a technically separate issue, which will need dealing with separately anyhow.

Could be disk specific…?

Just tried the following:

  1. Made a new project, loaded a bunch of long samples
  2. Saving the project takes a long time
  3. Turned off the MPC and turned it back on, load time of samples is quite short
  4. Edited semitone in Program Edit for each sample
  5. Saving the project is instantaneous

Samples taken from attached SSD, project saved on it too. Disk is a Vertex 450 256Go (pretty old). Tested on 2.4. @tsutek, which version are you on ? I may have to test this on 2.5 as well, since a change related to saving/loading operations was made:

Saving & Loading
• Standalone no longer crashes when loading high-memory projects

@JohntheSavage, I noticed this issue only a few times and my music making sessions are usually pretty long so it would be hard for me to pinpoint a specific cause but you seem more organized so, any ideas ? :slight_smile:

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I think it’s worth mentioning what manufacturer & model of SSD everyone’s using. It’s always possible that this may be more of a problem with disks and/or their controllers. Could also be cache related.

Can’t actually remember what I put in mine though. Had one which came out of a defunct PC, but it’s still a not-too-bad Samsung or Crucial 256GB SSD.

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Im on 2.5