Does this mean you could connect midi out to midi in and use this to set up pads as parameter ‘scenes’ for another internal program/fx etc?
If there’s timestrech options for Instrument Programs (ie. You can play a sample chromatically and all notes be same length, and do this polyphonically) I could probably box up/sell Push2 here. Can’t find that info anywhere yet tho…
Edit - Actually, I can just use a midi keyboard to continue to use this functionality in ableton… Feel like I haven’t used Push 2 enough to gel with it yet tho so maybe premature to sell as I’ll still be using ableton a lot after buying MPC…
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My main gripe with Ableton has always been sync issues. Latency drives me nuts and kills any insperation. I looked into analog signal for syncing but that just brings more crap into the equation. I want everything to be synced reliably in a tidy package. I’m hoping the new MPC will provide me with a dedicated DAW that acts similar to Ableton but with a rock solid midi clock. Ableton can be used to finish up my tracks.
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This is what I am am aiming for but likely to bypass ableton completely and go with bitwig for better latency performance.
Since the new MPC seems to be ‘just a computer with an optimized OS’ I wouldn’t be surprised if there is at least some latency involved, but I hope I am wrong and that it’s not noticeable.
Regarding timestretching… as far as I’ve seen/read it’s only supported for the Audio Tracks 
At least I hope that it’s a good/better quality timestretch algorithm compared to the one on the Octa.
On Reddit Dan from Akai said the following about Instrument Programs:
“the MPC X/Live can play samples across the keyboard by using a program type called a keygroup. You can layer, split etc with this keygroup type. 4 samples per keygroup layer, and you can have 128 layers.”
Let’s hope it also features Round Robin for these keygroups and not only velocity layers.
I’ve also read somewhere that Wifi and Ableton Live Link (stable Ableton sync?) will come in a future update… Since I am not really fond of these talks about future (promised?) updates before the thing is even released… I am going to wait this one out for at least a couple of months and be happy with my Vped for Multisample duties.
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Anyone who is trying to convince themselves that the MPC Live and X are not absolutely incredible feats of engineering (on spec alone, we’ll see how they perform in the real world) are living in a fantasy world.
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Be a shame if there’s no timestrech option for 16 levels pitch etc. It’s 2017…shouldnt still have to deal with samples changing length when playing chromatically…
Hmm, keep in mind that a decent timestretching algorithm (ableton complex pro anyone?) for instruments is quite CPU hungry so I wouldn’t count on it
Even something kinda cheap sounding would be better than nothing as an option. Microsampler does it no prob, not a great sounding algorithm but in a lot of situations it makes a sample much more useable chromatically than without timestrech… I know Microsampler’s only one voice but guessing Live has way more cpu power than Microsampler and should be able to squeeze a basic algorithm in there without crippling the cpu?
Technology at its best is when it’s convenient and invisible.
I once had my eye on a Prophet 6, and figured that I could get by with just the one synth, if multitracking or similar for composing would’ve been convenient.
But firing up the synth, then the computer (or the Octatrack), connecting them and then start recording, wasn’t convenient enough for me. It’s not a big hassle, but it’s still “Oh, okay, I’ve got something here. Now, I’m just gonna start this, plug that in, fire that up, launch that app and then we’re good.”
Again, not a big deal. This is everyday for most musicians. But it’s still not good enough. And I should add, for me specifically it’s a deal braker, living in a small space with kids all over and basically no access to a dedicated surface for music. So convenience is critical, in my case.
I wonder, though. A battery-powered thing like this, just keep nearby and plug in the cords and record.
Perhaps the convenience of the MPC Live is the real innovation. That so many of the middle steps to make music, that we’ve accepted because it is what it is, is eradicated here.
You really can just sit down, play and record.
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I hope so, but I don’t think so… At least it supports 4 layer keygroup multisampling so you can make something out of that if it supports resampling so you could for example sample timestretched and pitched audio tracks into instrument tracks and make a multisampled instrument out of that?
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That would depend on the MIDI implementation side of things I guess… Waiting eagerly for the full ref manual to drop!
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So akai is not paying royalties to inventor of MPC ? I do not know how it works in this industry, he could be right but he could be also wrong. Depending on the contract he has…
I think people mistakenly assume that since computers, smartphones and tablets cost next to nothing and boast crazy specs, that similar specs would be easily reached with dedicated standalone instruments. IME this has never really been true. General purpose computing devices sell by the millions, music instruments considerably less. The economies of scale alone are night and day.
It is also increasingly difficult to accurately rate “value” in a digital system. Most of the things happen under the hood, to the user its irrelevant, but at the end of the day the software is the one that matters the most, like how you can coax usable performance from an ancient computer by using an optimized linux distro etc. But still it seems like everyone is obsessed by teh GHz’s and TBs…
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Yep, same here … just to collect musical ideas with outboard equipment, played as live instruments, and Abelton is a creativity killer for me. I don’t want to record some bars and then need to correct for latencies or other things, which have shifted of have been not recorded tight (midi recording from synths is sometimes a real issue, which I don’t want to cope with).
This is, why I use my old MPC 5k, which only lacks to provide audio-looping and some comfortable editing of midi. Now, this seems to come with both of the new MPCs and will be one reason to be very tempted to buy one in the next months. I have some questions, which hopefully will be answered by some expert reviews to come.
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Yeah guess that would work in a pinch as a workaround. Long-winded if you’re trying to audition sounds tho Not a dealbreaker either way, just would have been icing on the cake from my POV.
Maybe they could add it later and it be a trade off user decision against global polyphony or something. Not sure they’d be down for having something flexible like that in the OS tho, seems like they wanna keep it as solid/organised as poss. Not a totally bad thing overall I guess and I’ll find a ton of use for it.
That makes much sense … the size of the market and the user community …
- The components should be off-the-shelf and no special developments, which would be very cost intensitive
- The software is an upgrade from existing concepts, and written for general purpose computers and for MPC. There are differences w.r.t. implementation, but a clever S/W design should minimize the issues and provide an almost platform independent solution.
This should make for reasonable cost.
A) There is a quite small market. How many thousends, or ten-thousends units might be expected to be sold? Smartphones and tablets are in the ten-millions per year, or more?
B) A MPC is a professional unit and is expected to take “rough” handling and last long. This drives cost for the design concepts and production quality, if carried out well …
This makes it more expensive.
And there is the hype, which adds extra to the price, simply, because we seem to be willing to pay it.
What I hope is that Akai has learned from the past, software-wise, and releases a stable almost bug-free software with the units. If this is the case, I will be in, or wait, until the units operate stable and reliable. I am through with to be an unpaid beta-tester
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Hoping the (internal, no cables) resampling functionality is thorough on this. Any Touch users comment on current depth/workflow flexibility in this area?
Edit- can you specify how many bars? Autostart via threshold and note-on etc? Select which tracks/master to resample? Etc…
I am in the same boat, ditch ableton, sell push and get some moterized faders and studio one for mixing itb
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They developed that software for 3 years and the only people that worked with that software/hardware are the developers. It’s not realistic to assume that there will be no bugs in the first version. There is no way the software with that many features will be bug free from the day 1. IMHO it will need time to perfect it and this is only possible with users feedback and bug report that they don’t have ATM.
Bugs will be fixed in time. The most important thing here is to be stable and not to crash. This will be deal breaker for people who want to use it live.
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