I’d say the OT is a better bet than the Digitakt here, simply because it does so much more, but of course there is a price difference. The Digi will bring over all the advantages of the Elektron workflow, which are often lacking or simply missing on the MPC - quick p-locks, real-time randomisation, flexible LFO routing and so on. The MPC brings expanded linear seqencing options and the ability to record and use long samples without any fuss, among other things. An MPC pairs well with any Elektron, because there isn’t a huge amount of overlap.
So if budget is a factor, a Digitakt will certainly expand things a lot - but I think the OT gives you something that’s on a par with the MPC and enables you to fill just about every gap that might exist.
TheKikGen put out this proof of concept hack nearly two years ago already:
What’s new in that video is that he seems to run the Force OS without any midi controllers attached. That’s interesting for sure.
A Force OS like sequencer and a new way (also Force like) handing of multitrack recording & mgmt was supposed to drop with MPC 3.0…but then that was put on the promises table 2/3 years ago and I haven’t heard anything about that since.
In a way this gives hope that some of the quality elements of the Force will indeed make it to the MPC.
Again, don’t look to do everything the instant you get it out of the box. Pick very specific elements of functionality that you want to use, now that you have an idea of what it’s capable. Get that functionality down, then move on to the next item you want to incorporate.
If you do it that way and get that functionality down, you won’t have to look up as much in the manual after a period of abstinence as mentioned above.
An OT can be a wonderful thing when combined to the brains of the system - an MPC One, Live or X.
Love my mpc live 2 at the moment,
it’s got everything you need to make quality tunes without a single cable or cord…
Production powerhouse in a box monitor speakers included.
I made something this afternoon that has pretty much the production quality of stuff I make with ableton… perfect eq and sidechain and fx etc pretty insane for a battery powered box with speakers.
A few refinements are welcome for sure, but it has everything need to produce a full track imo once you learn and get fast at the slightly quirky workflow…
new HAKAI firmware in the public domain now, all MPC’s can run this 3rd party Force config (with associated HW restrictions) on a simple boot option. Really good although the menu system and shift/key combo’s are a little hard to understand atm.
