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

Akai mention 3rd party vst’s several times rather than a blanket vst’s. That’s encouraging to me as it could mean down the line expanded FX and, fingers crossed, a synth or something. The MPC5000 pretty much had the Miniak engine in it after all (or Micron engine if you prefer…).

What I find a little amusing is that Elektronauts is pretty much hosting the most vibrant MPC Live/X discussion around!

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Controller Mode: Windows 8.1 or newer

so won’t work at all with 7 or…?

lol yeah, that’s pretty much what I think whenever I see someone online saying “actually, I don’t even use a computer for producing music”. I just think the whole “no computer” thing is weird and silly, so I don’t really see the mere fact of these MPCs being standalone as an ultimate selling point for a device.

At the same time you do have a point about portability, after I posted that I started thinking that it’d be super cool to throw the MPC Live and my 0-Coast in a bag and do some serious work on tracks during my lunch breaks, the same way that I currently mess around writing melodies and rhythms using Korg gadget on my iPad …

It is a bit like an iPad daw with a hardware controller, isn’t it? Makes me appreciate the Octatrack even more.

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Can anyone confirm that the MPC Live is even capable of FX processing (insert + send/return busses) in standalone?
I have looked but can’t find any confirmation.

AskAudio’s “full details!” links are… well, I can’t find a way to put it nicely.

The desire for an OT MK2 runs deep in these parts.
Same thing happened with Toraiz.

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Toraiz didn’t convinced me at all !
A lot of discussions on french Audiofanzine too, even on Octatrack Thread.
A linear sequencer from Elektron… :yum:

I think the potential/actual screen lag is by design and is a tip of the hat to the old ‘big jog wheel’ that used to skip values!

Felt like a WW2 sonar operator trying to zero in on a setting, and with the headphones!

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That’s kinda like saying OT is bit like a Korg Es1…based on fact that looking at the UI they both have 16 step sequencer.

Is there an ipad daw that has 8 banks of 16 X samples(with layers)/realtime timestretch + pitch shift/clip launching/looper/multisampling/lfos with layer cycling etc etc etc?

Or any pad controllers out there that have dual USB hub, audio interface with 6 outputs, dual midi ports etc? And run off ipad bus power?

Beatmaker2 is vaguely ballpark re ipad daw but still far behind and ballache to import/intergrate/export in to Daw sessions etc. Beatmaker2 is the app that instant sprung to mind when I saw the Toraiz GUI etc and feature set. The Live has very similar GUI but seems much more interesting and much cheaper + portable + USB hub + better storage options…

Think I might be missing something in defending it so much tho so I’ll leave it there :wink: it could turn out to suck! Hopefully some decent vids’ll throw some light…

I really don’t think this is about features. It’s cool that the MPC can do all these things, but it’s a list of the familiar, repackaged into a neat and progressive package. Which, of course, is what the first iPod was. So that’s not bad at all. Great, even.

I’m mostly arguing with myself, because I’ve wanted something like the Live for some time now. And it contains more than I’d imagined I would ever need, in a portable environment such as this. And yet, I can’t feel all that excited about it. So I’m sort of trying to figure out why, and throwing out these things to challenge myself, mostly.

I think, perhaps, I’m really coming to terms that to make good music, you just don’t need all this stuff. You need an instrument that you’re good at, and a way to record your performance with that instrument if you want to play your song to others.

But I can already do that. So now that I have all these options available, I’m realising - my tracks won’t get all that much better, or more interesting, even though the Live is around now. It’s not that it doesn’t offer a great many options or convenience previously unavailable.

It’s more that I’m realising, that’s not what’s missing. For me, that is.

In fact, I’m coming around to the fact that I’m not missing anything at all. I’ve got an A4 now and enjoying it immensely. If I can’t make good stuff with that, I’m just gonna drop this and do something else with my time. And when it’s time to record it, I think I’m gonna go with the OT again, like I did last time, just because it takes me to places I couldn’t even see on my horizon before.

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That post I’m sure will precipitate a few pre-order cancellations!

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Before you guys preorder any of these. Do you really think it will transform your music to the next level and you really need it? :smiling_imp:
I’m so sorry, I had to. GAS level in this thread is way too high. :smiley:

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No to troll but yup. Why can’t you get a used 2000xl and Jam on the couch? Why can’t you plug it into you thunderbolt interface and use the effects in your DAW. Aside from the finish and the lights what is this machine helping you accomplish that a legacy mpc can’t ?

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Yeah I totally get what you’re saying. I’m mainly interested in it because I have zero time in my studio and this is kinda like bringing half of it downstairs on my lap in a convenient little box that I can later integrate with my main setup super easy and also find use for when I play shows again. The multisample features for DIY polyphonic instruments appeals a lot for shows.

It’s a practical purchase if I grab one. Not excited about the individual features, I have them all in other hardware or computer already, just hyped that it’ll allow me to be way more productive.

I’m same as you re gas, pretty much kicked it after a couple of bad years :wink: Got more than enough gear now and just focused on finishing tracks again now…

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I like the battery thing. Same as Op1. Just pick it up and turn it on. Plus a bunch of features the old mpcs don’t have like timestrech etc and a ton of memory to fill up with sofa sampling sessions for later use. Plus USB hub etc for op1. Whole thing just seems totally convenient…

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I’m sure Dan will haunt me with his keyboard skills on the Timbre Wolf for years to come now, serenading outside my window night after night until finally I go insane and make a live set with only the Rhythm Wolf.

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True but I’ve bought a lot of software like Melodyne and soundforge for time stretching so I don’t ever like using hardware time stretching anymore.

I understand the battery portability thing but I am fortunate enough to have to practice rooms to jam and chop records to.

If you guys really want it wait 6 months for the non honeymoon reviews. But while that is happening people will be tossing good gear for peanuts trying to buy an MPCx

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For me, it’d be the same reason I chose a 1k rather than 2kxl when I decided a few years ago that I needed a hardware MPC in my life - storage, memory, and connectivity to my laptop for transferring files, etc. I also have an S3kxl and to be honest I’m not getting much use out of it just because it’s such a massive pain in the ass to find enough floppies to save my projects since the zip disc died. Can’t really justify the price of a usb/cf card drive for it, would be way, way more than I paid for the sampler.

My 1k currently resides in my living room with my turntables and occasionally a desktop synth or two like my mopho, blofeld or JU-06 for sample based jams. No need for it whatsoever in my main DAW centred studio setup. It’s still a bit of hassle whenever I want to transfer projects into the DAW to finish them off, and to be honest the 1k doesn’t really get all that much use.

I guess the attraction of the Live is that it could do all of that, but looks to be a pretty fully featured DAW in its own right, but go a lot further in terms of sample manipulation and actually rounding stuff off, with a much superior interface, plus the ability to easily take it out of the house for jams or to work on music on the go. Pretty appealing tbh. I think for me the competition is less so with legacy MPCs and more with the OP1, electribes or iPad apps.

Will need a whole lot more convincing that it works well, has good build quality and is generally reliable for my intended uses before I’d even begin to think about buying one though.

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Ableton Live in a micro version of the push II with portable battery that supports the native Ableton plugins would be very nice. The current screen is just fine. I really don’t want touch screen.
MPC Live might lack interesting mangling capabilities - so the couch/portable sessions for which it is intended would lose that Op-1 sketchpad idea generation tweaker appeal. Instead it will be sort of a Sony Acid arranger of samples and you can do the MPC drum pattern thing. But that isn’t quite so interesting.
The external midi sequencing capabilities of the MPC Live are sort of pointless if the external synth also needs to be on the couch and have a power source. Its strengths need to be selfcontained with no wires.

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Think the idea behind it being both portable and have dual midi ports is prob so you can use an onboard synth (multisampled instrument) on the couch and then later if you’re not totally happy with the sound just switch that out to an external synth via midi in the studio? Then resample/bounce that to a track if you don’t want to take (or don’t have enough hands to play) the the synth to shows. Pretty flexible box from that kind of angle. Sofa/studio/shows…

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