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By giacecco Mon Aug 08, 2022 10:23 am
I've purchased my first MPC Live earlier this year and soon upgraded to the MPC X. Despite all its legacy and quirks, I've enjoyed learning it and adapting to it, coming from Bitwig Studio (that I still use).

As a hobbyist, I've invested significant effort in learning, and today I am concerned by the very bad quality of the 2.11.x releases, particularly by how many trivial bugs could get through AKAI's quality control processes through multiple revisions (using 2.11.3 at the moment of writing).

If I consider that for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of users the MPC is a professional "work" device, the release of 2.11 must have been a disaster for them (if they took the risk of upgrading).

As a techie, I would speculate that AKAI looks like a project that has lost its key product manager / developers and can't even guarantee basic quality control. I'm actually surprised that, on one side, they could deliver the MPC Key 61 and the new plugins (yes, I've purchased them, don't judge me), and, on the other side, have such an unreliable firmware.

I wonder if this is the beginning of the end of the MPC or they will be able to recover and make this feel like just a bad memory. Many of the people in this forum must have years of experience of AKAI. How do you feel about what happened? Thanks.

G.
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By mr_debauch Wed Aug 10, 2022 12:28 pm
no you have it backwards... the real unicorn is the fact that the current gen mpcs (live, x, one, etc) are as good as they are and have been updated and worked on after launch. akai didn't have almost any product at all without some sort of BS since they were acquired by inmusic.
By mpc_fan_2022 Fri Aug 12, 2022 10:16 pm
At that point I'm convinced AKAI is putting bugs in the software on purpose frankly. That jogwheel bug in controller mode, I wasn't there before, how the **** can something like this happen? AKAI devs don't give a **** or there is a rogue dev adding bugs to the software with each update, either ways there is absolutely zero QA at AKAI software department, zip.
By Komatos Records Sat Aug 13, 2022 6:01 pm
I'm usually updating my X within the first week or so of a new firmware being released. But with all the strange bugs that have popped up in 2.11, I have been very reluctant to do so, especially after hearing about the jog dial issue. I use that all the time, along with the + & - buttons to switch sequences. While I wouldn't mind having/trying out some of the new features, I don't think it's worth these serious bugs being added along with the features. I'm glad I haven't updated and shelled out the exorbitant amount of cash Akai is asking for the new plugins, especially with all these issues. I've got a feeling they're just stretching themselves too thin by releasing new products like the Key61 while trying to add it's features to the original line (X, Live/Live II, One).
By Komatos Records Sun Sep 18, 2022 7:36 pm
Finally got around to updating my hardware (via USB flash drive) and software to 2.11.4 today. Did a preferences reset immediately after installation and reboot. Downloaded the 6 trial plugins using WiFi on the X. Demoed them for a little while after doing a full stability test of the hardware/firmware by playing back all demo sequences built into the Internal Demo folder and any demo sequences that came with the extra Expansion packs that are available when you buy an MPC new.

No stability issues to report. Seems like memory management/cleaning has been improved when a new project is loaded. Even the Default Kit demo project with 128 samples loaded across all 8 banks only got up to 95% CPU usage after playing all the pads sequentially. On previous firmware’s it would go above 100-115% and start chopping/glitching audio after 80%. The jog dial issue other users mentioned isn’t occurring for me. It steps +/- 1 step for each click of the dial. This is in standalone mode. I don’t use the software other than for transferring expansions, so I’m not sure if it’s an issue for me via the software.

From my limited demo of the 6 plugins they seem to have some decent-good starting sounds & patches. If Akai decides to do a Black Friday sale for the bundle for $200-$250 or less, I’ll be sorely tempted to purchase the bundle if I have some disposable income.

I also like how they kept the original file browser while offering the new Sounds browser. Give you a choice, the best of both worlds.