The MPC-V: A Virtual Akai MPC

gertie wrote:well if i understand u correctly....

You don't.


The Maschine software gets the job done... The MPC does its own thing... Kontakt does something else. The beauty is in the combination of the whole.

@ Cos,

You know, I don't really know how big numark actually is, and if its even possible to buy out a company like propellerheads. I assume the software companies have a high value due to lower overheads compared to a hardware company. In the end it doesn't matter, I'm still accomplishing for the most part what I would want this imaginary product to do for me anyways, my biggest feature request would be to have more ins on my mpc and a possible mlan type connection.

ArKyve-31 wrote:In the end it doesn't matter, I'm still accomplishing for the most part what I would want this imaginary product to do for me anyways, my biggest feature request would be to have more ins on my mpc and a possible mlan type connection.

I'm doing practically everything in the comp, so integration is king for me. If Akai released a dedicated standalone machine with total software control, I'd take a serious look, but Akai are notoriously poor on the software side of things. Anyone remember the plugin bundle they released years ago?? Wank.

Pics or it didn't happen.

there are about 99 cool things i need to document and put online in my life right now but the gf got the camera and the imaginary dog, so i've got repair the only computer i've got with firewire so i can import video...

god, im useless lol...

Coz wrote:

gertie wrote:well if i understand u correctly....

You don't.

Coz wrote:

ArKyve-31 wrote:In the end it doesn't matter, I'm still accomplishing for the most part what I would want this imaginary product to do for me anyways, my biggest feature request would be to have more ins on my mpc and a possible mlan type connection.

I'm doing practically everything in the comp, so integration is king for me. If Akai released a dedicated standalone machine with total software control, I'd take a serious look, but Akai are notoriously poor on the software side of things. Anyone remember the plugin bundle they released years ago?? Wank.

Couldn't agree more on Akai's in house coding shortcomings. The Synthstation app sounds good, but the overall UI flow and presentation are pretty bad. I think the only way a future hybrid solution would play out well, is for Akai to have Ableton handle the software end. Akai's only responsibilities would be constructing a controller and sharing the MPC OS with Ableton's coders, Ableton would likely benefit by the MPC name recognition and inclusion of the MPC audience. Perhaps it could like Serato Bridge, an option to add to Live.

I know It's all wishful thinking, but with the APC partnership, maybe there's a slim chance of something like this happening.

Upright wrote:

Askia Shaheed wrote:viewtopic.php?f=29&t=110760

That'a actually pretty cool you were thinking along these lines before Motu and NI launched their products. IMO Motu failed at their attempt so far. I bought Motu BPM at launch and was very dissapointed in it on MANY fronts.

I just recently purchased Maschine and I gotta say they seem to be trying their hardest to nail the whole "virtual Mpc" thing. With their consistent onslaught of free updates it's shaping up to be quite an amazing environment to make music. BTW I am in no way shape or form a Native Instruments fanboy.

Askia Shaheed wrote:NI are definitely skilled at developing software synths and samplers. However, Maschine doesn't have everything covered. By far, the onboard sampler of Maschine isn't as good as the MPC 4000 or 5000. Maschine's sampler isn't even as good as NIs own samplers (Battery, Kontakt, etc).

I agree with you....I don't think Maschine has everything completely covered.

One of the things that really pushed me to buy Maschine was the fact that with it's update 1.7 coming on September 5th 2011 Maschine with be deeply inter-graded with all of the devices in NI's Komplete bundles (at least Komplete 8 not sure about previous versions).
This will bring the samplers you mentioned (Kontakt, Battery etc) so that the main parameters of these and ALL Komplete devices will be controlled by Maschine. While I don't think this will be perfect at first it's kinda cool to see NI working hard to make Maschine a rich "One stop" work environment......When you look at both Native Instruments and Akai and consider Akai's track record on updates related to their Mpc line, Native Instruments is showing a considerable amount of passion toward Maschine in making it the best product it can be.

With the exception of VST support, all the updates Maschine received were badly needed. The sampling and MIDI functions can barely compare to hardware samplers created a decade ago.

Metatron72 wrote:
Couldn't agree more on Akai's in house coding shortcomings. The Synthstation app sounds good, but the overall UI flow and presentation are pretty bad. I think the only way a future hybrid solution would play out well, is for Akai to have Ableton handle the software end. Akai's only responsibilities would be constructing a controller and sharing the MPC OS with Ableton's coders, Ableton would likely benefit by the MPC name recognition and inclusion of the MPC audience. Perhaps it could like Serato Bridge, an option to add to Live.

I know It's all wishful thinking, but with the APC partnership, maybe there's a slim chance of something like this happening.

A combination of the MPC 4000 and 5000 OS pretty much covers everything you would need a virtual MPC to do. The best hardware features of the MPC 3000, 4000, 5000, and MPK/MPD/APC will easily cover the ideal virtual MPC controller. A partnership with Ableton to bring in Live's audio warping and groove functions along with VST plug-in support will complete the ideal product.

Askia Shaheed wrote:

Metatron72 wrote:
Couldn't agree more on Akai's in house coding shortcomings. The Synthstation app sounds good, but the overall UI flow and presentation are pretty bad. I think the only way a future hybrid solution would play out well, is for Akai to have Ableton handle the software end. Akai's only responsibilities would be constructing a controller and sharing the MPC OS with Ableton's coders, Ableton would likely benefit by the MPC name recognition and inclusion of the MPC audience. Perhaps it could like Serato Bridge, an option to add to Live.

I know It's all wishful thinking, but with the APC partnership, maybe there's a slim chance of something like this happening.

A combination of the MPC 4000 and 5000 OS pretty much covers everything you would need a virtual MPC to do. The best hardware features of the MPC 3000, 4000, 5000, and MPK/MPD/APC will easily cover the ideal virtual MPC controller. A partnership with Ableton to bring in Live's audio warping and groove functions along with VST plug-in support will complete the ideal product.

agreed. I would love the controller to have a section that could be dedicated or used for vst plugin support.

I think the first thing i noticed on maschine and loved it, was that it was they designed the controller for future, unknown feature expansion. if you look at the top right "soft" section of the controller, the knobs and buttons are not labeled, they are determined by whats on the screen.........(like our f keys on the mpc).

they didnt pigeon hole themselves into very specific layout and knob functions in that area, yes there are dedicated buttons for your main functions, but it was anticipated that there could be expansion so they needed a section that couldnt handle it.

and i think thats what akai needs to do. I think there needs to be a balance of flexability for the software to mature and the controller to be able to handle it............if that makes sense.

Metatron72 wrote:I know It's all wishful thinking, but with the APC partnership, maybe there's a slim chance of something like this happening.

I don't think anyone can rule it out, but I'm struggling to see a substantial benefit for Ableton. On the other hand it would be a huge bonus for Akai. We'll see...

after all these hints ud think numark would give the peeps what they want be they still stubbonly do they own thing oblivious to the demands of their userbase.

jpeg wrote:after all these hints ud think numark would give the peeps what they want be they still stubbonly do they own thing oblivious to the demands of their userbase.

Very true. I think it comes down to their whole approach being to recycle ideas Numark/Alesis has done in the past, and do the same with everything they inherited from the original Akai. This forum is a living testament to how Akai has failed to innovate one bit in 6 years, and fails at even the most mundane of things (1000 OG pads, MPD's design flaws, support etc.). I can only conclude, that financially and in-house talent wise, they can't do anything new. That's why I mentioned Ableton as seemingly the only way we do see something new. But as was mentioned earlier, it would benefit Akai a lot more than Ableton.

Metatron72 wrote:

jpeg wrote:after all these hints ud think numark would give the peeps what they want be they still stubbonly do they own thing oblivious to the demands of their userbase.

Very true. I think it comes down to their whole approach being to recycle ideas Numark/Alesis has done in the past, and do the same with everything they inherited from the original Akai. This forum is a living testament to how Akai has failed to innovate one bit in 6 years, and fails at even the most mundane of things (1000 OG pads, MPD's design flaws, support etc.). I can only conclude, that financially and in-house talent wise, they can't do anything new. That's why I mentioned Ableton as seemingly the only way we do see something new. But as was mentioned earlier, it would benefit Akai a lot more than Ableton.

Let's be fair...which company has innovated?

Roland..how many times have they recycled the Fantom? Us Fantom G users have been waiting several years to get the sampling capabilities of the Fantom X. Besides being prettier, the Fantom G doesn't do much more than the X.

Yamaha...how many times will they recycled the Motif? Same situation. More sounds, expensive flash ram..they are not really pushing the envelope here.

Korg? The Kronos is pretty much the Oasys with more sounds/engines at a cheaper price. I am still waiting for the editor/plug-in capabilities. The sequencer and sampler is no more advanced than Korg workstations released almost a decade ago....

Looks like you guys found my article about the MPC-V.

I created those models back in 2005 but didn't think much about them back then. At the time I was working for a company that would have been in a great position to build this. I even showed the concept images to the marketing director, but he wasn't interested.

I'm sure if Akai wanted to build this, they could have. Unfortunately big companies stick with what has worked in the past. How different are most of the MPC's from the MPC60? They are all basically the same thing with incremental upgrades and add-ons.

As far as assembling existing hardware and software to create this, this is not possible to the extent I'm talking about. One of the points is to capture the time proven workflow of the MPC line and put it into a hybrid instrument. This is far more than just putting some pieces together. It's about how the user experiences creating music. A prototype could be built using midibox.de and max/msp, but as far as a commercial possibility, it would most likely have to be released by a major manufacturer. On the other hand, large companies are not likely to invest in anything like this, especially right now as they are trying to make up lost ground against software. It would make sense that if they can't beat them/join them with something like this, but these companies don't think this way (except for Korg).

And to the person saying this article is about the latest and greatest... it's not. It's about music technology successfully adapting to trends. If it doesn't, it becomes extinct. The MPC could've done this, but I think it missed it's chance. And that chance was replaced with Maschine.

Stop lying, my boy Rob Zombie drew that back in 1999.