Folks are making way too much of this DAW in a box spiel - dunno if this came from AKAI marketing or if we are just projecting - at bare bones these two new machines follow the classic MPC paradigm - decent pads and a smattering of knobs & sliders with a screen (that just in this iteration is a touch screen and brings some modern convenience functions) - the screen has always been there and allowed you to browse, arrange, edit etc across multiple audio and midi tracks to create songs in the studio, or live. Thatâs the concept - nothingâs changed except itâs been brought up to date and looks like they might have nailed it. Itâs not rocket science kids, itâs an iteration of a well understood tool - if your on the fence, watch some YouTube vids of classic 60âs in action - same workflow, same approach, just modern tech ( it launches clips, you can use it to control dedicated software, etc. No biggie). The hype is really that it does MORE stuff than ever if you want it to, and its seen as a return to âclassicâ MPC standalone so you can work just like your grandad did with his 60/1000/2000/3000. Is it a DAW in a box? Maybe, but who cares? Anyone remember when there was some mumbojumbo years ago about Octatrack being âAbleton in a boxâ? Yeah baby! Those were the daysâŚ
Yes, eight stereo audio tracks in standalone mode (128 in controller mode). But also heard rumours that âthis limitation might become a non-issueâ in the future, perhaps if hard disk streaming becomes implemented on the units.
I am confused about âeight stereo tracksâ, it repeatedly comes up. Eight seems a bit low number for me (one of my major grips about the octa), and also a bit counterintuitive since there are 16 padsâŚ
So, is it the case that this limitation is only for samples longer than a 4bars, and one-shots can be more in number? Or 8 is a hard limit and there is some kind of voice stealing scheme?
You will get 8 audio tracks plus the drum and instrument tracks, so theoretically you will have up to 8 audio tracks within the 128 track limit. Still you will have a 64 voice and 2gigs ram limit. Each one of the 8 audio tracks will take up one of your available 64 voices and one track of the 128 available. Makes sense?
The 8 stereo audio tracks are for full track length backing tracks or recorded tracks like say a guitar line or vocal track. While these 8 tracks are playing you can also playback individual sample hits, loops and external midi.
From the FAQ: âStandalone, the MPC X and MPC Live can reliably handle up to 64 simultaneous tracks per projectâ
Just want to add that one shots can be as long as audio track. The only difference is that they will be not time stretched in real time. So if you prepare your tempo in advance there is no limit on how many âaudio tracksâ you have, just trigger the long vocal sample(for example) at the beginning of the pattern(sequence) and you have more then just 8. This is how i see it
Edit
On one of the videos they warped a sample and played it in 16 pad mode. Witch is chromatic mode on a sample spread across the pads(drum program - for example you want different pitched snare somewhere in the sequence). The sample was time stretched and did not changed the length regardless of the new pitch of the sample. So this means that maybe every sample can be time stretched/pitch shifted(warped), even instruments. And the question is, 8 audio tracks is the limit of how many samples can be time stretched or just how many tracks you can select and use as audio tracks. And if the limit is on how many stereo samples are time stretched that means that in clip launch mode you can not have more then 4 audio tracks. Just a thought.
Wonder if/when akai will add some kind of Scenes function and Parameter locks? Looks like NI have added some Scene functionality to their software. And Push has pretty good P-lock functionality (not quite on par with Elektron yet tho). The MPC looks great but these are two pretty big ommisions in current times IMHO⌠Makes it feel kind of âneeeearly thereââŚ
Not a dealbreaker right now but if NI or/and Ableton announce standalones the above would be pretty big draws for meâŚ
