Who else does NOT like the MPC Live?

played with it for a half an hour.
actually, a superb gear, just not my cup of irish coffee.

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It may just be a workflow thing. Back in the day I bought Maschine MK 1 after selling my MPC1000 and I couldn’t bond with it because of the workflow differences.

Maschine has collected dust (and mocked me from a shelf) ever since. In hindsight, I think I would have had a much different experience if I had pushed through and adapted to the workflow, I think that’s the biggest hurdle. If you don’t think you want to invest the time to adapt then move on quickly I’d say.

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I have the MPC Live… I think the reason it feels so much like a DAW in a box is because it kinda does it all… Having a song mode and being able to input as many bars as you like puts it in a category of its own… I will admit, I prefer the Elektron boxes but Elektron falls short when it comes to some basic features…

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…falls short at basic features (when expected to be a DAW in a box)

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Good try… No cigar… The lack of basic features can’t be denied…

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Which ones?

They should be clear to you once you read the manuals or use both brands…

Well that is an incredibly rude way to not answer a question.

Could you please follow the guidelines and provide a reasoned counter argument?

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Tempo per pattern. Though DT has this I think (?)

i bought maschine mk1 too , i didn’t like it much , the controller is in a box unused , and the latest version is on my hard drive , doing nothing. though its changed a great deal since i’ve never felt the need to go back to it.
maybe i should sell it.

i did have a pioneer sp16 for a while , its not too bad either … quite straightforward but a few basic things are also missing on it , it definitely needs a pc/mac to accompany it (eg delete samples , trim them ) … it sounded fine.

it didnt take long for this thread to move onto DT lack of song mode …

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There was no rude intent… Reading the manuals will make my earlier comment more clear as I already spoke of the missing features… Song mode and infinite bars…

That was literally your only post on this thread. That MPC Live does a little bit of everything and feels like a DAW in a box and Elektron boxes fall short on basic features. I asked which ones because comparing the Elektron machines to a DAW in a box is probably why you think they don’t have “basic features.” Makes sense to me.

My point was a lot of these so called limitations of Elektron boxes come from putting them in a category of other devices and software that they don’t necessarily fit into. For example, someone liked the MPC Live because it does everything, like a DAW. Well, an Analog Four doesn’t do everything like a DAW. Is it limited in basic features or basic features of a box that does everything? Those sorts of arguments don’t always hold up because the expectation of a person can miss the mark of the initial concept of the instrument design. You could literally buy a $8k guitar right now and look at it and say, “This doesn’t do what an SP-404 does. It’s missing basic features.” Makes no sense. If the scope of the critique is outside the design of the instrument how can the instrument be the thing that fails? Hence my asking for you to clarify which features are missing. Also how do you know I haven’t read any manuals? It’s such a weird thing to say instead of just stating your case more clearly.

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I think that you missed the example I gave… In many peoples opinion, four bars isn’t enough. Considering the cost of some Elektron boxes… The digiboxes have no song mode… In the late 90s, these were considered basic features… 99% of all the groove boxes on the market had these basic features… I’m definitely not alone in thinking this…

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Not sure I understand…could you say it another 8 billion times, just to make sure it sinks in?

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Lol… So true, how many times does it need to be said?

It’s just that so many Elektron products come frustratingly close to doing everything one could want. Your guitar analogy is flawed in that we all have a clear idea of what that instrument is. There is a huge range in what constitutes a groove box and as such there is no consensus on what constitutes a basic feature. Additionally any design choice can be framed as a limitation.

Is a 4-bar loop a limitation?
Is a small sample buffer a limitation?
Is a lack of arrange/song mode a limitation?

Or are all these things merely part of the instrument?

The perennial issue with digital gear is that we all know that if it is a computer on the inside it can be modified to do something more. Every time something is open sourced, we see the nearly unbounded creative new uses for digital devices, the Mutable Instruments Modules come to mind. It’s all just firmware after all, and there are definitely going to be more firmware from Elektron. So there arises the politics of what gets added and who’s wishes get ignored, engendering resentment. An instrument of wood and string doesn’t have this to worry about.

That said, I agree that if you want a DAW in a box, just get a laptop and an audio interface.

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Well this has gotten pretty off topic, lol.

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Comparing MPC with Octatrack or DT is not smart in my opinion. I see too many people knowing that they want something like an MPC but end up getting an OT. And people happy with the OT are usually people which were looking for an OT to begin with.

There are features which the MPC overlap with the OT and vice-versa but you cant really compare them.

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Just buy Ableton

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