Akai MPC

[SumOne]

I've become a big fan of the Akai MPC range and as they are sort of their own thing I thought they could do with their own thread to share the love! 

 

 

 

 

[SumOne]

It's well known that the MPC series is great for finger-drumming/drum machine/sampler stuff but nowadays they also have decent synth/vst type plugins and work well as a stand alone DAW to do full production and organising of songs. 

 

What I didn't expect is the MPC One now also works pretty well as a live Bass guitar multi fx. It has a tuner and you can add upto four effects to whatever is going into it live through the input, those FX include bass amp/cabs, compressors (including side-chain compression, the 'mother ducker' is great fun) and all the usual things like delays, modulation etc and no noticable latency to it processing it live:

 

 

.......or obviously instead of live use, you can record it clean and make multiple exact copies to play back simultaneously - each with 4x effects applied, so you can fairly easily do stuff like having one version with clean LPF sound mixed with one that has a  HPF and drive and modulation (and then could re-record them and add 4x more FX on top etc.). So the possibilities of adding FX to Bass guitar recordings are almost limitless with a bit of tinkering, (not like the old days when I tried this sort of thing with tapes and ended up with mostly hiss and muffle!)

Edited March 28, 2023 by SumOne

[SumOne]

I've recently got an MPC Key 61 which I think is great. 

 

The positives that most reviewers say  (hardware, workflow, sounds) are all true. 

 

I don't agree with the downsides that a few reviews point out (Bugs, slow to load sounds, cheaper to get an MPC One and add a midi keyboard).

 

1. Bugs:  I haven't experienced any bugs. Akai are known to release things with bugs and then quickly release updates to fix them, so if you get something thats been released for a few months it is fine - the reviews complaining about bugs seem to be testing shortly after the release date.

 

2. Load times: Some plugins do take upto about 6 seconds to load, most are much faster though and there are no load times for plugins within the loaded project. I don't think it's an issue for most keys players, possibly an issue if used as a stand-alone DJ type performance tool and you want gapless transitions between songs.

 

In demos criticising load times people seem to be navigating around the main menu and into different large plugins to switch sounds for live keys use - that kind of seems like user error, the equivilant of standing up to make a presentation and complaining it takes time to navigate folders in Windows and then load up your overly large Powerpoint files - rather than using a combination of  shortcuts, reducing excessive file sizes, and files already loaded and open and ready to use. The MPC is instant to select between plugins you've put within a project (upto 8 plugins per project, plus many more sample based things with keygroups and drum programs), you scroll through them and the sound changes instantly.  Or in key layout view you can also use the drum pads to instantly switch multiple plugins:

 

 

e.g. on that screen it's set so drum pad #1 turns piano on/off, #2 to turn Clav on/off etc. (pad #2 is red so Clav is turned off). Can also touch on the screen to turn them on/off and drag the bars for overlap & playing multiple sounds at once.  I'd have thought that's plenty of instantly accessible sounds - at least for quite a few songs for most live keys players.  

 

Admittedly, if you are a keys player and need switch between more than those 8 plugins without loading/overwriting then you'll need to switch between projects - there is a 'setlist' shortcut to make navigation fast but project loading can take up to about 10 seconds with large projects and the sound cuts out while loading.  I don't imagine that is much of an issue for most keys players though as they probably don't need large project files (and 8x plugins and multiple keygroups is possibly enough for a whole set so they perhaps don't need to change program at all - or at least not every song), and generally that type of performance has gaps between songs anyway.

 

....where it is more of an issure is if wanting gapless transitions for a stand-alone DJ type performance where you have large project files that include sequencing and automation and drum tracks and multiple samples and plugins etc because you'll have to have silence as you switch between those large projects. This is potentially an issue for some as the MPC Key sits in that grey area of  'keyboard/stand-alone DJ type performance tool' and if using it for the latter you don't want to be forced to have 10 second silent gaps between every song.  In an ideal world you'd be able to load up a setlist with a few projects and there would be no load times between them, or some way of allowing limited sounds (even just triggering a single sample, or allowing trails) to play while the new ones load. Adding a delay pedal after the MPC to trail off through project transitions could be a solution (I've been eyeing up the Boss RE-202 for a long time!).

 

3. Value vs adding keyboard to MPC One: There's more to it than just being an MPC One plus a keyboard: £350 of additional decent plugins (Piano, Organ, Strings, 2x synths), extra buttons and touch strip (with things like dedicated 'note repeat' button and lit up note division values along the strip - not things you'd get on an external controller), many more ins/outs, 4GB RAM (vs 2GB),  32GB internal storage (vs 4GB),  internal SSD instead of SD slot, wifi  (which makes it genuinely 'stand-alone') and bluetooth, kettle lead (vs external adapter). I agree with a review that said it is more than the sum of its parts, workflow and usability are key and having everything in one dedicated unit really helps with that.

 

 

Edited March 29, 2023 by SumOne

[sammybee]

I've been an MPC user since 2004 - started with an MPC 2000xl, then an MPC 3000, flirted with MPC 1000, MPC 2500, MPC Studio. My current MPC's are an MPC 2000xl special edition, and an MPC Live. The latest incarnations are fantastic songwriting tools, but nothing makes pumping drums like the 2000xl and 3000. It's amazing what you can do with an MPC Live/One/X, guitar and bass -> and have a great deal of fun while you're at it