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

Folks are making way too much of this DAW in a box spiel - dunno if this came from AKAI marketing or if we are just projecting - at bare bones these two new machines follow the classic MPC paradigm - decent pads and a smattering of knobs & sliders with a screen (that just in this iteration is a touch screen and brings some modern convenience functions) - the screen has always been there and allowed you to browse, arrange, edit etc across multiple audio and midi tracks to create songs in the studio, or live. That’s the concept - nothing’s changed except it’s been brought up to date and looks like they might have nailed it. It’s not rocket science kids, it’s an iteration of a well understood tool - if your on the fence, watch some YouTube vids of classic 60’s in action - same workflow, same approach, just modern tech ( it launches clips, you can use it to control dedicated software, etc. No biggie). The hype is really that it does MORE stuff than ever if you want it to, and its seen as a return to ‘classic’ MPC standalone so you can work just like your grandad did with his 60/1000/2000/3000. Is it a DAW in a box? Maybe, but who cares? Anyone remember when there was some mumbojumbo years ago about Octatrack being “Ableton in a box”? Yeah baby! Those were the days…

http://www.elektron-users.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=2&func=view&id=118294&catid=9

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Remember the dbeat?

Nope, what is it?

Dbeat as in typical Discharge-style punk drumming?

I’ve been trying to get a question answered on the new MPCs, without luck so far.

Anyone got any input on this?

One thing I wanted to use my OT for, is playback of at least 8 stereo stems. It can be done but it’s a bit clunky imo.

Will the new MPCs do something similar?

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Yeah there’s 8 stereo audio tracks on the MPC. Not sure of length limit, think I heard 20 minutes somewhere.

Yes, eight stereo audio tracks in standalone mode (128 in controller mode). But also heard rumours that “this limitation might become a non-issue” in the future, perhaps if hard disk streaming becomes implemented on the units.

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It was the openlabs mpc style unit that was linked to ableton 7 at the time.

I am confused about “eight stereo tracks”, it repeatedly comes up. Eight seems a bit low number for me (one of my major grips about the octa), and also a bit counterintuitive since there are 16 pads…
So, is it the case that this limitation is only for samples longer than a 4bars, and one-shots can be more in number? Or 8 is a hard limit and there is some kind of voice stealing scheme?

Ugh this again!

Isn’t the 8 audio tracks for streamed audio and recording audio,? You will then have more tracks for midi sequenced audio samples

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You will get 8 audio tracks plus the drum and instrument tracks, so theoretically you will have up to 8 audio tracks within the 128 track limit. Still you will have a 64 voice and 2gigs ram limit. Each one of the 8 audio tracks will take up one of your available 64 voices and one track of the 128 available. Makes sense?

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Ok, that’s plenty, thanks :slight_smile:

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Thanks!

The 8 stereo audio tracks are for full track length backing tracks or recorded tracks like say a guitar line or vocal track. While these 8 tracks are playing you can also playback individual sample hits, loops and external midi.

From the FAQ: “Standalone, the MPC X and MPC Live can reliably handle up to 64 simultaneous tracks per project”

http://www.akaipro.com/kb/article/2232#release

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From the videos I saw the unit looks interesting.

Just want to add that one shots can be as long as audio track. The only difference is that they will be not time stretched in real time. So if you prepare your tempo in advance there is no limit on how many “audio tracks” you have, just trigger the long vocal sample(for example) at the beginning of the pattern(sequence) and you have more then just 8. This is how i see it :slight_smile:

  • Edit

On one of the videos they warped a sample and played it in 16 pad mode. Witch is chromatic mode on a sample spread across the pads(drum program - for example you want different pitched snare somewhere in the sequence). The sample was time stretched and did not changed the length regardless of the new pitch of the sample. So this means that maybe every sample can be time stretched/pitch shifted(warped), even instruments. And the question is, 8 audio tracks is the limit of how many samples can be time stretched or just how many tracks you can select and use as audio tracks. And if the limit is on how many stereo samples are time stretched that means that in clip launch mode you can not have more then 4 audio tracks. Just a thought.

Wonder if/when akai will add some kind of Scenes function and Parameter locks? Looks like NI have added some Scene functionality to their software. And Push has pretty good P-lock functionality (not quite on par with Elektron yet tho). The MPC looks great but these are two pretty big ommisions in current times IMHO… Makes it feel kind of ‘neeeearly there’…

Not a dealbreaker right now but if NI or/and Ableton announce standalones the above would be pretty big draws for me…

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On the legacy MPC there was ‘16 levels’ isn’t that a crude scene mode equivalent?

Never owned an mpc but I thought 16 levels was just 16 stepped velocity or pitch settings? If it’s more user definable than that then great :slight_smile:

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