Honestly I would go with the newer MPC. The Live or One. I like the Live because of the i/o but the One looks like a great value. The drum synth is really good, it gives you plenty of control and you get chromatic play with the bass, toms, snare and percs. It’s very capable but it’s not going to replace a MD. The MD has a few more sculpting options that the MPC lacks, not a knock against the MPC though.
5 Likes
The drum synth doesn’t have any lfos but there are plenty of effects that do and you can add up to four per track.
I want a rytm myself but not to replace the mpc… one needs to have at least one drum sampler with full sampling capabilities in the arsenal and the mpc more than fits that bill, you will love chopping up and collaging the good bits from your rytm on the mpc… compliment your rytm yes it will
1 Like
I have the Octatrack cues going into my MPC and have my turntable going into the OT. OT for mangling and the MPC for chopping said mangling. 
2 Likes
Well yes if it’s chopping you want MPC is the way to go. And it does have round robin, quite rare in hw drum machines. I miss all of this but in the end to me workflow is more important than features. Ymmv. Ps the rytm does enough round robin for my taste.
and at the end of all of that you get Ableton Live export…
it’s a wrap.
1 Like
100% it’s my only dawless setup. Everything else is plugged into my Mac.
2 Likes
I hear you, but I love the mpc workflow and think it’s the most emulated workflow for good reason. outside of the elektron workflow I’d be hard pressed to find a more complimenting workflow that had enough creative contrast and ratio of heavy weight complimentary features… round robin is cool but there are a plethora of other much cooler features inside something as straight forward as the mpc one, the MPC Live and mpc x even have more to offer but the mpc one is a firecracker all on it’s own.
sample freezing, autosampler, simultaneous trig, layering, track explode, on and on… shuffling back and forth between the rytm and the mpc one would be much fun indeed… mute record, next sequence etc… we’d be here all day
4 Likes
This is what I love about working with the Elektron and MPC workflow. The contrast compliment perfectly. When I produce on an Elektron I get a certain vibe going then I bring in the MPC and it’s a different vibe altogether. It’s a great partnership.
5 Likes
me too, they really boost one another in incredible ways… my favorite combo to date and as an Ableton Live cult member it’s a beautiful trifecta
4 Likes
Now I can trigger the slices on the OT from the MPC. This wasn’t possible before the latest OT os. So many possibilities!
2 Likes
that’s crazy, I gotta little jar filling up with pennies for the next flagship cause if it’s gonna be better than the digitakt and rytm and if they want it to sit next to the octatrack it’s gonna be siiiiiiiiiiiiiick…
and I just can’t help thinking (dreaming) that in their next flagship they’re gonna want to incorporate the power of the octa and the workflow of the model series together as much as they can… if they do that I’m gonna be the earliest of early adopters haha
3 Likes
word
1 Like
I actually just added the Model:Sample to the setup. It’s M:S and Turntable going into the OT and the cues going into the MPC then the MPC and and OT main outs going into a six track recorder. The recorder is the Zoom F6 that I use for field recording and projects I do for a multimedia company.
1 Like
The M:S is sick for melodic stuff. I get these distant haunting sounds out of it. That reverb is special.
1 Like
most underrated!
I love Roland SPs but the model knocked them out the box for me. of course I would love more sample time and realtime sampling but outside of that I’m better than good with the model samples… omg the way you can flip anything going on in that thing around is exceptional… I never leave the house without it… it’s so good that I hardly even mind having to load stuff up via computer
1 Like
Yea the fact that it’s limited yet direct gives me freedom. I don’t have to think about features I just bang out funky beats and crazy melodies. It definitely stands on its own next to the big boys. It’s like a family. The MPC is the responsible father, the OT is the hippy uncle and M:S the misunderstood kid.
4 Likes
man, individual track lengths, scaling, chance, track nudges , retires etc… it’s a lil monster, and because it doesn’t have realtime sampling it forces you to commit to what you sample into the mpc
1 Like
I use the MPC One with a DSI tempest, i tried out the internal drum synth - they are workable, but i dont get much mileage out of them (NI Maschine Drumsynth sound a bit better). I use it to compensate the Tempest short comings. The One has a lot more direct controls than the mpc live, and that screen is mostly for visualization. (It might be different experience on the live, because it misses some knobs.) I like the tube synth, its cool sounding.
Where i felt the rytm had its shortcomings was in the hihat area, and those are crucial. I ended up always building sample chains, to have more variety, and then i had to do that on the computer, upload, try out etc. So i personally think its good to combine that analog groove thing, with an external sampler, which makes it easy to layer samples, and have access to all of your samples. The sequencer part alone is very cool and worth the price.
1 Like
Would love to hear about how to set this up, it’s exactly where I want to be.
2 Likes