Not much, and that’s why my interest comes and then goes.
But imagine you’re in a place with neither, and maybe even starting to consider your first big DAW purchase along with a newer laptop.
MPC One would be around the same price, and cheaper.
Giving you a more or less all in “One” solution at a very attractive price.
it’s not an assumption it’s a fact, both things have their pros and cons as implied. DAW is ultimate flexibility and power obviously but that’s not always a good thing. There’s definitely a lot of cats out there with more plugins than finished tracks. standalone unit= minimal midi mapping, likely never losing files/library paths etc, turn on and go factor, different workflow, inspiration to use and the fun of exploring new gear. It makes you make music differently because it’s a different process.
We can stand here all day arguing whether a Fender strat is better than a Gibson les Paul and get all holy about either side. frankly it doesn’t matter. most arguing about it online are 50 year old accountants with 6 of their personal choice while kids are out-shredding them on squiers because they don’t have to work 50 hours a week. Use whatever you enjoy and can make time for
Yes, such situation is possibe, just highly improbable…, like 1 : 1.300.000
watched loopop’s video but still not quite clear what this is or how it works, could you elaborate?
I dunno man…this is the MPC part of Autechre’s - The Plc on the album Quaristice…
here’s the full track with the MM and MD…
the tool is only as good and as inventive as the user.
here are some MM and MD parts I was sticking together…I wasn’t following their pattern list. but from what I was looking at, programming wise, I wasn’t anything crazy. its just really good.
I dont have an MPC1000 so I can’t speak to what they did on it. but I’m sure they do some cool shit with it. I dont think I can load the SYSEX from the 1000 into the Live [im pretty sure].
I mean they made a track on a shit Roland PMA-5…ONLY
I’m getting interested in the MPC One but then I have 2 good daws already so it’s hard to justify, unless I sell something like the OT.
…so u know all the strenght of elektron step sequnencing…
now forget all about plocking but add way more tracks and free pattern length combined with the feel of an old tape tracker…press rec and play, hear the count in and off u go…
that’s mpc style…
You nailed it. I started my hardware sampling journey on MPC (MPC 2000, then 500, then. 2500). My first Elektron was a Digitakt. Then the MPC Live came out and I GAS’d over it and sold the DT. The MPC Live arrived and I had it for two weeks, I made nothing interesting and it didn’t have the instrument feel of the old MPC’s, or the sound. I started to miss the DT, and I realised pretty much everything I made in the first week on the DT was more musically interesting than anything I made in the first two weeks with the Live. I returned the Live and bought another DT. If I want to tweak the mix and record an arrangement, I have DAWs with much superior fx and arranging tools. What I’m missing from my DAW is feeling like I’m actually exploring and making music. As a big MPC fan, I think the best MPC right now is a Digitakt + 1010 BlackBox. DT gives solid drum sounds and crunchy lofi sound quality and experimentation, the BB give timestretch, stereo sampling, song arrangement, and chopping to slices. The BB is the essence of all the things I love about MPC in a boiled down and cut back form.
Loopop starts talking about it at the 37:40 mark of his video. He doesn’t call it P-locking, he refers to the process as automation. You’ll see him go to several pages because there’s basically 3 different ways to sequence on the MPC One, focus on the step sequencing portion @ 37:57. You’ll see him editing parameters per step. That’s essentially p-locking. You’ll have access to virtually every parameter that you can automate (p-lock) in the step sequence page. You record automation live or per step.
The MPC One cannot replace the OT. They compliment each other but are very different instruments.
Most importantly the feel or groove of the sequencer is quite different. My beloved, highly portable almost weightless medical equipm…I mean M:S sounds tight but in a different manner than an MPC. The Akai family used to sound very tight and with great attack. That kind of musical tightness is more difficult to reproduce on the Elektron devices which, to me, sound more ‘dreamy’ and loose in a controlled way. The same pattern on especially older MPCs will have a more exact, rigid sounding groove. If you look at the math behind the engines you will find no significant differences though your ears will tell you otherwise. I have come to greatly appreciate that different groove texture that the Elektron devices provide.
The new MPC won’t give you the instant gratification an Elektron box will give you. There’s also so many features on the MPC that it hasn’t been fully explored by most users. It’s that crazy deep.
Personally I like paring the two because I can easily cover all my sequencing needs between the two. A useful feature on the MPC is its midi track count, I often record midi sequencing from my OT into the MPC. This is great for freeing tracks and freezing tracks that have a lot of trig conditions. I can record 64 bars of trig condition goodness if I want.
IMO there are some major differences, if I compare my Elektrons vs my MPC:
… RTFM for the Elektrons vs “just switch it on, take it easy, and have some fun” for the MPCsFor me its more live-composing on the Elektrons and more mute-/unmute and shuffle of ideas (re-mixing) on the MPC. IMO we have two totally different work environments and work flows, which sometimes can achieve similar results, but also come with some special options exclusively. I think that’s the reason, why I keep them both at hand 
Excluding Model:Samples as well!
Yea … you are right … but didn’t I write “my Elektrons”?
my mistake!
I’ve just noticed this velocity sensitive pads on the M:S feature overlooked a lot recently. Seems some folks are unaware.
Carry on!
They all get the job done.
And can be super fun!
ohh ok, i thought (and hoped) that they’d introduced some new way of entering automation. it does indeed seem a bit tedious going through all those menus, and the concept is still having separate automation tracks instead of step-based modulation. but i guess the immediacy of parameter modulation is one of the downsides of an MPC compared to an Elektron box.
Yea, it reminds me of clip envelopes in Live.
Yes, but I have had several years with OT and produced nothing. Maybe it’s time to change it up but hard to do when DAW is similar in concept.