I haven’t seen a rear end with that many inviting holes in a long time.
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User name checks out.
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MPC wizards…
can you achieve some sort of granular synthesis with the these new units and create polyrhythms?
cheers,
I guess so…this is what i found after a search via something called google…
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Pretty badass. Guessing will be able to do the same kind of stuff on the Live/X touchscreens. And also resample/slice it etc. Hyped for this box to hit stores…
Still just want to know about MIDI and internal timing / jitter. If it’s sloppy like most DAWs then I’m not interested. If it’s tight as an OT or MPC4000 then it’s a no brainier! Especially important for resampling internal and sampling external synth lines.
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Sloppy MIDI timing with DAWs has everything to do with the OS and how computer kernels handle USB MIDI data in general. So there’s hope that a standalone device will work better in this regard.
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A hope … yes
… but the OS of the MPC is an OS after all. The more such an OS is like Unix or Windows, the worse internal timing has to be expected.
Unix, Windows, and Apple OS are not based on “pre-emptive” scheduling but on “cooperative” with respect to running processes. That is the main reason, why processes drift along the time-line and are not tightly bound to a prescribed (hard enforced) schedule. At the end we suffer sloppy timings 
. Particularly background processes add to the problem.
I hope that the new stand-alone units are good enough. The old stand-alone MPCs have been
They say the MPC OS is based on linux, so what do you reckon?
Yep, what is the implication of a Linux OS for timing/jitter? Anyone know?
Although 4000 and before are much tighter than the 1000, 2500 or 5000 - and they all used dedicated chips - so it must be as much to do with coding as the OS too.
I’m surprised this isn’t the first thing all MPC and hardware sequencing heads are asking.
If it were super tight Andy would be banging on about the ‘absolute joy’ of the timing feel!
Maybe, now that everything internal can be brought into the computer and made sample accurate they don’t think anyone is bothered. But still for live, resampling, sampling external synth sequenced by the MPC or people who like to record live takes - it’s important.
There are configurations available to Linux that prioritize real time processing audio. Ubuntu Studio, for example.
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Now it will come down to how many “cooperative” or let’s better call them “non-cooperative” background tasks are supposed to be running all the time and stealing away from the schedule. Worst candidates are networking and WLAN tasks, but there is room for many others too
I guess that operating a graphical interface via a touch-screen might generate lots of “interrupts”, if the user experience shall be fluid, highly responsive, and with a minimum of latency (concerning the touch-screen). BUT if this is running on the same processor with the rest of the software, then this processor and its busses better be very fast, to prevent timing issues.
It might be an overshot, but to get the most out of such a concept, one could have a timing-chip, a main-processor, and a graphical interface processor in parallel, and each having a priority like prio 1 for timing, prio 2 for audio and midi, and prio 3 for the interface.
The old machines had only buttons, knobs, and sliders. That’s way easier to track than a high-res touchscreen.
I think, we will have some tech-heads looking at this soon. If the timing would not be sufficiently tight, the units would be destined to become door-stops, and I hope that AKAI was aware of this during development
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lol that is just the reflection from the stand wobbling =)
Just an opinion, but:
Sloppy midi timing with something as established as the MPC’s or Ableton, etc. is a pretty tiresome topic. It’s not like it’s going to be the thing between you and making great music.
“Rolling Stone Magazine gives this album /***: world-class tunes, but I do wish the millisecond-scale jitter would have been kept at bay”
But I guess it’s the nature of the hobby. As much being a collector/technician as being a musician.
Now, midi SYNC - that can be a real killer for your music, don’t get me started…
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Maybe this is academic, but IME cv synced boxes sound tighter than MIDI synced ones. I do not know why I feel this way, but the timing feels more effortless somehow. YMMV as usual.
Timing is very important in rhytm based music
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Timing is essential in any kind of music.
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I don’t usually write anything provocative, but if internet is at the stage where it gets received like this, I might do it again some time 
Tsutek- I hear you. Maybe it’s the way the Live is being picked apart, and everything is a possible fatal flaw, that makes me want to go ‘take it easy’ wasnt aimed at anyone in particular, more like a comment on these threads in general.
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Generally I agree, if our music is not interesting enough to like it, excellent timing will nothing do to improve it. 
But let’s consider this … we are standing in front of an audience, having some sequencing going on (ever seen a video by KEBU, who has a bunch of synths running in parallel as a on-man-show?) and now some of the sequences going out of timing. I don’t talk about academically little timing-deviations, which nobody would recognise, but about issues that will kill the groove.
I would never trust a computer based sequencer playing some complex melodies at once on stage! That’s the reason, why some of us on stage use hardware sequencers only, if the machines have a high reputation of being stable and tight. You can kill the performance of your band, if your sequences drift away or scatter notes in wrong moments.
There is a saying of a great musician, I think it was a Jazzer (sorry forgot it’s name), who said in turn … “If you play a bad note every now and then, audience might think it was just intended and you are forgiven, BUT, if you kill the groove, you destroy the performance and get killed.”
IMO there is much truth in it.
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