i see him different than that, I don’t see him as the maschine vs the mpc topic but the i came from the daw , ableton , logic, fl studio, and this is the crowd akai wants to get with mpc 3.0
although I know he uses maschine as well.
I hope akai gets it right with this crowd too, if they do other parts of the mpc user base will benefit from the success
I didn’t watch, but I know the crowd your talking about. These DAW guy fresh on the MPC will the ones that’ll get Akai to make certain parts of the OS better & faster because that’s what they are used to. Will get better MIDI editing because of them. But, Akai also must know that these are fickle so they won’t give everything all at once in a way that will lose most of the core users - some will be sacrificed. Sorry for them, but bye!
I stand corrected, I like this guy
UPDATE: got rid of my MPC Live II and made someone else - hopefully - happy with it 
what are you replacing it with?
Not really replacing it with anything. Just trimming the fat I wasn’t needing / using anyway. I foolishly expected that Live II will work for me as a portable groove box, but it’s way too big & heavy to carry around the house or to take it for a trip. I had the same problem with Push 3 (standalone).
So, I’m back to:
I get it… I now leave the live 2 on the coffee table, love it though.
i wish the ableton move had the scene buttons on the right… like the push
True, although I can see the tough choice they’ve been faced with: on Move standalone you don’t really need scene buttons (with 4 tracks the vertical ‘swipe’ works well enough), and when controlling Live they’d rather sell you a Push.
Yet, we might still see a Push Mini / Move XL someday, sized somewhere between the two, with proper 8x8 matrix, scene lauch buttons, a battery of knobs and step sequencer row, ideally standalone with some ARM CPU and 8 tracks. I’d get that.
Ableton is definitely more versatile, and more powerful in some ways, but definitely not all. An example: on MPC note repeat/arp/chord functions are amazing and work together nicely. On Push, you can’t even set something so basic as the gate length, it instead defaults to the grid resolution
Drum racks in Ableton are cool and all, I like the modularity of it, but I think that the MPC Drum Programs and how they work together with audio editing/slicing is on another level. With that said, I love Ableton, it’s just that they’ve had a more broad (and modular) focus
Sure, MPC for some music styles might work better. Personally, I couldn’t care less for note repeats, beat slicing or drum racks, though.
“some styles” = pretty much all types of modern music ;D
it’s pretty basic stuff, it’s about editing audio and sequencing notes
either way, that’s good for you! use whatever floats your boat
Yes, you’re right indeed.
I’m counter-culture by nature 
Yeah, for me the process of chopping and building a drum program on the current gen MPC is still peerless. I will say that for me a sliced simpler in Push is incredible for de/re constructing loops - interface and functionality work together perfectly, kinda bridges between MPC and tracker-ish chopping. But for everything else and how it all fits together, the MPC is it.
One of the main reasons both that 3.0 doesn’t work for me, but also why I still want to keep an MPC around. I usually spend a lot more time in the program editor just messing around and trying things out, playing on the pads, without going straight to making sequences. Quicker and more efficient in terms of funnelling everything towards a “finished song” ≠ better imho.
Will be interesting to see how it goes, but it’s definitely a brave move to push aside the things the MPC is actually good at to emphasise stuff that’s a much more awkward fit to the hardware and where there’s already a tonne of competition. Like I say, if this is where they’re going imho they better just rip off the plaster and go all in with the new hardware. No guarantee it’s gonna work out, you could see the Force as an attempt to do pretty much this and it didn’t really catch on.
But feels currently like it’s in a halfway house that I don’t think is really gonna satisfy anyone. People who want DAW/groovebox have very specific expectations and if they’re not being met as the 3.0 hype dies down a lot of them will bounce - will be hard to get them back or recover a reputation as a legit DAW alternative.
Looking for some advice re: MPC + audio interface / mixer with interface / analog mixer…
My setup looks like this: fender rhodes and Key 61 in a corner. I want to add a second tier to the key 61 with synths (MM2, TD3mo, monologue), drum machines (syntakt and LXR02) and effects. I can put some stuff on the rhodes as well. No room for a large mixer. I love using a mixer as an instrument, but that means it needs to be within reach - so it needs to be compact…
Looked at the Tascam model 12, but the inputs at the back make it too deep for me - I’m too close to the wall. Looked at the Zoom L-series as well.
I was also contemplating getting a small performance mixer (without interface) with aux sends (like assembler or jellymix) and putting the MPC on an aux to select the sample source.
Other strategy is to get an audio interface like behringer UMC1820 and just use the internal mixer in the MPC (and all the available effects). More setup work in the mpc, but I guess a template solves most of this. The control is less direct (unless you use a midi controller, but that also has its drawbacks), but the setup is simpler in a way.
If I wanted that performance mixer, I could still use it at the last stage. Route all the audio of my hardware and MPC to the separate outs of the audio interface and mix and add effects loops for performing.
What’s your take on this? Is an audio interface just a no brainer in this setup? UMC1820 is just 179€ and has instrument inputs for rhodes and guitar, so it’s quite a small investment for the added functionality… Or are there clear advantages to a digital mixer with audio interface? Or just an analog mixer…
Depends a lot on what you’re going for, but I’ve had a bit of joy using a DJ mixer - Xone PX-5 in my case - routing the MPC over USB. Maybe not ideal in terms of having to switch stuff in and out, and also RCA ins, but compact. Probably should be plenty of pretty cheap options used that can do this - a lot of DJ mixers have class compliant usb soundcards.
Advantage of the PX:5 is obviously hands on controls plus it’s analogue on top of the interface which helps for things like feedback routing. Although I’m sure digital mixers can also handle this just fine.
Never used a midi controller with the MPC, but I do use a few Intech Grid controllers with Live/Push and it works well, pretty playable. Could make sense with the MPC extended with a soundcard, I just have no idea how well either the midi mapping or audio over usb work, it’d be worth checking if the interface you’re looking at has been verified as working - there have been mixed reports, I only know that the PX:5 worked flawlessly for me.
I do have my eye on a Jellymix as well, I think it’d be an ideal partner for an MPC plus another synth or piece - I see it primarily as one to hook up and perform rather than a utility mixer.
Thanks! Not really looking for a dj mixer, but I can see the appeal…
Umc 1820 appears to be rock solid with mpc… Another reason I don’t want to invest in a digital mixer is that mpc updates seem shabby. What works now is not guaranteed to work in the next update…
But the main reason is that all the audio routing is there in mpc3… Fx send, sub mixes,… Seems silly to add a mixer for audio routing, apart from the tactile and performance control. But an intech grid controller might help…
But that’s theory, user experience might be different if course, that why I ask here first!
Intech are nice and very compact - the setup I have gives me 8 channels and 5 pots per channel. But probably you’d get most of the way there for a lot cheaper with something the Novation one. I went for the Intech because I had great intentions of customising them but in reality that hasn’t happened so far. One way or the other I think some kind of dedicated physical controls for the mixer is a must, I wouldn’t want to rely on the touchscreen too much for this.
Best portable devices I’ve had/got;
I’d be amazed if there wasn’t a truly portable MPC at some point soon. The 1010 Bento looks to be stealing some of the march now too…
The system bitwig came up with is not very good. Or has it changed? Using touch for the piano roll sequencer is terrible. The widget that pops up is useless. And that widget disables the ability to long hold for right click menus. Ableton for those things is a lot better imo. Sample edit using touch is also easier in ableton. Bitwigs controller mapping is ace tho
