MPC Software & MPC Beats Forum: Bug reports, feature suggestions and discussion for the MPC Software and the free 'MPC Beats' application for Mac/PC. If you have hardware-specific questions, please post in the relevant MPC sub-forum.
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By Fanu Tue Feb 28, 2017 10:57 pm
richie wrote:Hopefully all the work in publicizing this won't be in vain Fanu.


Cheers Rich.

Hopefully not. All I know for now is that Pete and Geoff are silent about it.
Just want to try and enhance the product.
I was a hater or if I didn't care, I wouldn't do it to this extent.

Thing is…I've always been critical towards the stuff I use the most.
I've been super critical towards Ableton, also in public, and even written a blog post about how Pro Tools beats it mixing-wise as well as shot tons of suggestions their way. That got shared a bit, so the pressure was on Ableton. Being critical to the max is good.
And I've received thanks for that from them. And I don't mean your typical "Thanks for your feedback", but a personal thank-you email from a team member who said a lot of my stuff towards them has raised a lot of fruitful internal discussion among the company, which is good, and some of the stuff I've kicked their asses about is now on beta stage. Can't say more.

I definitely am not saying I'm a music tech Jesus, but I make tons of music and put devices to heavy use, which roots out bugs as well as finds out the annoyances. You gotta use the stuff a lot and also look at things from a certain angle to get to the root of that. That angle comes from experience of having used stuff a lot, and I can say, if I had been in the Akai team, I would've sent tons of criticism their way and advised them about some critical features.
I've offered this to Akai re: MPC, but haven't got into the team. Whatever :)

Anyways, this is not about me, so no more about that. Just about the MPC and its future.
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By richie Tue Feb 28, 2017 11:44 pm
I don't think you're coming off as having some sort of jesus complex in this regard. Rallying people to make noise to improve workflow is a task and good on you for having the initiative. Something I've noticed throughout this and other related infractions on Akais part is that they're great at coming out with products but the execution and support has always lacked. And really, it's a small amount of people in comparison to the entire user base that actually talk about the issues with the software or the products. I think that is more indicative that the folks using the products have either:

1 - Accepted that this is how it is and work around it.
2 - Have such a simplified workflow in how the work that they've never had to experience the issues that more advanced users find normal to them.

I really do not believe that Akai built the software for the Studio/Ren/etc in line with users that regularly utilize a more advanced techniques and workflow. It was built to be in line with that user of a old MPC, the person that is happy with sampling a single note, playing on 16 levels regardless of how modulated it sounds, and so many other examples. Those same users are more than happy (and used to) exporting their stems to another DAW and continue working. I do not believe they actually expect Akai to have an all encompassing, or even simply a within parity of other tried and tested DAWS.

Fixing PDC isn't just an option to be implemented but tied into the core engine of every DAW. What you're asking is essentially for them to scrap and rebuild the whole sh*t from the ground up.

In my opinion it seems pretty apparent that if you're already used to the workflow of any other DAW out there and never been an Akai user before, it would feel like a step backwards to even bother with the software Akai puts out.
By Spoff77 Wed Mar 01, 2017 1:39 am
Not having PDC means that some third-party plug-in support is basically "broken". I mean it will work but will be out of time. To me this is not really supporting third-party plug-ins.
Last edited by Spoff77 on Thu Mar 02, 2017 12:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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By Fanu Wed Mar 01, 2017 9:33 am
richie wrote:Fixing PDC isn't just an option to be implemented but tied into the core engine of every DAW. What you're asking is essentially for them to scrap and rebuild the whole sh*t from the ground up.


Yup.
And the reason I'm busting their balls / shaking my head is that they said 2.0 was built from the ground-up.
They're either lying or truthful, and the latter case would, once again, reveal they don't understand what users need.
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By Fanu Wed Mar 01, 2017 10:38 am
MPC-Tutor wrote:
Fanu wrote:And the reason I'm busting their balls / shaking my head is that they said 2.0 was built from the ground-up.


Was it Pete or Andy Mac that said this?


I'm sure it was Andy Mac who said that in the NAMM videos…or maybe Pete/Geoff, too.
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By MPC-Tutor Wed Mar 01, 2017 11:30 am
Fanu wrote:I'm sure it was Andy Mac who said that in the NAMM videos…or maybe Pete/Geoff, too.


You have to remember Andy is not a developer, I suspect that's more in reference to the new look and various improvements, I seriously doubt that they rebuilt it completely from the ground up - new skin, tweaks, new modules, rebuild on some existing modules maybe, but I would imagine the core is still the same.
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By Fanu Wed Mar 01, 2017 11:55 am
MPC-Tutor wrote:
Fanu wrote:I'm sure it was Andy Mac who said that in the NAMM videos…or maybe Pete/Geoff, too.


You have to remember Andy is not a developer, I suspect that's more in reference to the new look and various improvements, I seriously doubt that they rebuilt it completely from the ground up - new skin, tweaks, new modules, rebuild on some existing modules maybe, but I would imagine the core is still the same.


I'd definitely guess it's not been done from the ground up. I'm sure they would've implemented PDC because they were aware of its lack already.
Andy probably says those things because he's not aware of the truth…just like it was with vintage mode "lies".
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By Ill-Green Wed Mar 01, 2017 2:30 pm
Andy Mac was only echoing what was already said. I heard the "2.0 built from the ground up" way before NAMM, I think Dan and Pete started that. You know for old times sake, like they did with the vintage converters of the Ren. Same plot, different feature.
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By MPC-Tutor Wed Mar 01, 2017 2:41 pm
TBH I don't think I want Akai to have built 2.0 from the ground up, can you imagine how many bugs there will be if everything was started from scratch? We don't want another 1.0, which took them until 1.9 to just about get to something reasonably stable. If they use the existing core then at least they have the 5 year foundation to work on top of, so any new bugs should hopefully only be coming from the new features.
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By Fanu Wed Mar 01, 2017 2:48 pm
Honestly, with the little software background Akai have, I don't buy the "from the ground-up" thing at all.
It would've taken them years to rewrite it. I'm sure it's based on the old code.
And no way any dev with any sense of desires for audio features would've left PDC out for a completely new build.