Heyja NearTao... Thanks for the reply!
I agree with everything you said! .. and at the end of the day its all about talent, a star with a dope track on a beatthang (is it blashpehy to utter that name around here
or a mpc500 or a sp202 in a a room with a solid mastering engineer is going to bang more than an mediocre with a mpc X with a OK engineer in a million dollar crib of shiny expensive outboard ..But this is not what it is about ... anyone in pro production be it sound, light, photography or film will know that the value of quality is the core footage /sound source .. the difference between processing a real 909 or samples on the same outboard is huge .. Try analog saturation on a real 808 vs a VA version and the volume of overtones will be clearly in favor of the 808 even though they might be fairly close dry..
See in the posted example on page 1, the guy already did an accurate test between NuAkai Machine and the 4k ... and the difference was not ...yhea its slightly better .. or I think I can hear a difference ... the 4k was clearly a level above the others .. more banging, punchier the bass was more clear and bigger..
Now Ive listen to quite a few comparisons and I was on the side that they sound the same, I listened to someone just do a one layer beat (I think just loaded samples in 16bit/44k) he compared the 60, ocktatrak 4k and some others .. the 60 had the best bass respone but nothing that couln't be added with processing, but still the tail of the core sound is had much better bass, the others sounded very similar 4k included,.. I also heard someone playback in trim mode samples side by side from the MPC live and a a 4k and they sounded identical (again just loaded 16/bit ..
Now ever since akai dropped that os with tail loop (loop in release on the 4k) and exponential curves on the envelopes I was prepared to jump ship..
There are some outstanding features in the new MPCs, everyone I know says they are superb, the trim mode is the best in the biz (hardwhere or softwhere) pad performance features (simultaneous pad play with round robins will go a long way) and visual lights, shortcuts to menu's, better file system, bounce to pad, the sequencer members/captures what you played outside of being in seq record (a million dollar feature.. never gone miss that hit pad combo I came up with again), scales even in 16 levels, arp and plugins (excellent drum and FM synth tbh).. and I am sure the list goes on and on .. and if I was forced to have only one mpc for production and nothing else there is no contest .. I'd go for the new MPC no question about it ... The workflow speed just in trim mode alone is worth it, not to mention the full range of production tools.. even the convenience of just automation anything on screen with in a second its just a wonderfull upgrade of workflow .. continuous synergy .. very fast and productive ..
But the core sound is what matters most to me,.. I have drumamchines I have sampled with EQ possessing and FX chopped up and multi layered usually 4 with mod matrix slight to extreme modulation on envelopes, volume, layer startpoints, and pitch for movement, aftertouch and velocity routed aswell for dynamic changes and every layer has pitch, pan, filter offsets (don't think the Nuakais have this, but they can do simuntainius pad play which gives more control) always recorded in 24/96 and they sound stellar ....& some of these Nuakai feature I can handcraft I can program phazers and delays fx, round robins, and my own scales (just do multiple compies of a pad in a empty pad bank and tune away, even set the qlinks to different pad parameters and have each copy in the cale have different/custom turnings and 5 other parameters on the fly) and I can resample through a quality outboard chain, even pitched up a few octaves and pitched down again in 96k ..the 4k is just massive as sampler/sequencer if a studio environment.
I would absolutely hate to have all these star sounding kits that I put so much effort into degrade so much in quality as the posted comparison demo inclined .. that is the main reason for conformation ..
this is after all MPC forums and you would be contributing valumble information, writing MPC history (cheeky enough
I also plan on making bunch of kits via auto sampling and I am curious how the conversion holds up .
And to futher favor the new MPCs I will say I tested the MPC softwhere vs others to A/B/C compare the fidelity and the Akai came out to be one of the best sounding one better sounding that the bigger names (did not test/compare it to logic pro though) .. the only one that I slightly preferred to the Akai was Re noise tracker it was justa tad more airy and raw .. I don't know if this is all lined with code or audio processing but it seamed that DAWs with realtime timestreach sounded a bit flatter .. Know I know; we are in does it matter land as the difference is so minimal ..
yet to bring this around to the 4k again ..
If I bounce 50 takes... 5 takes of 10outputs each into a recording facility from the 4k sound vs the same beat coming from the machine and/or NuAkais and the difference is as clear as in the posted demo .. then the whole impact is going to be massive .. how about 9 or 10 takes .. 100 tracks .. in the end the fidelity is going to stack up ..
So I am not jumping ship if some cats can confirm the difference in fidelity from first hand here on these forums ..
Aslo I am not to found of the fx in the NuAkai, they seam very stream lined and overly precises.. vs say the Roland/Boss FX which clearly add character the sound... I mean I rather resample my 4k through a rack of fx or invest in a eurorack or a 500 lunch box system.. and have superior sound ..
I dunno Id love to upgrade but its hard not to look at just adding other kit versus replacing the fab sounding & rocksolid 4k modmatrix and all with inferior sounding NuAkai .. I have the out board I have the synth .. I don't need these plugins or FX .. Id rather add Harpax or a Polyend (superior) sequencers or a Iridum or a SP16 as add on samplers and just expand around the 4k as a sampler module (having the entire Z4 engine directly accessible on 3 pages with mod matrix instantly available, pads and power sequencer MIDI router all there to aid the environment ..
But please prove it... I played with the New Akais just a bit and I found that they sounded excellent .. but that side by side demo raises flags in my book..