By Lithion
Sat May 12, 2007 9:22 am
I am posting this in the 2.1 forum in the hopes that those that have 2.1 will read this and benefit from it. I don't personally think it belongs in the JJ forum because people that read that forum already know.
So I copped the JJ 4.64 upgrade yesterday. I went to bed late and bought a password, and it was in my inbox when I woke up. I spent about 4 hours with it today, and these are my impressions:
I was hesitant to upgrade to JJOS. When I first bought my MPC I had some issues with it. I posted the story about my MPC in another forum, but to make a long story short, I thought I got ripped of because the OS was screwing up making me think the machine was defective. So after I figured that out, I was hesitant to buy another OS from a company not even sanctioned by AKAI, given my already nervous nature about OS's.
Another reason is that I bought the MPC1000 e-book, and a lot of the instructions and tutoring in the book is specific to the 2.1 OS, so I didn't want to waste any time/money not learning all I could from the e-book.
So after I finished the e-book and was starting to feel comfortable with my MPC I started to read a little about the forums and JJ, about how everyone that has it likes it a lot better. I was still hesitant though. Funny thing thinking back, the one post that made me take the plunge was when Nym posted a thread that said 'you know what 2.1 is good for? loading JJOS!' So I took the plunge.
For starters, JJOS is faster. A LOT faster. I'm guessing that the code that JJ is build on is a lot cleaner, and thus you can access functions in a snap. I dunno, it just feels better. That was the first obvious difference was that screens didn't hesitate and loading is really much faster on JJ.
The second thing I noticed was that the smaller font for JJ is easier on the eyes. And adjusting the screen intensity is really easy. This makes looking at that yellow screen a lot easier for lengthy periods of time. I saw a few screenshots that showed a black on white screen, but I don't know if that is possible or just a function of the screenshots.
So those two obvious benefits aside, there are a whole shit load of new functions on the JJOS. The one that popped out at me the most was that when you load samples, it doesnt give you that annoying screen that asks you which pad you want to assign the sample to. As if I'm so **** stupid that I wont remember 2 seconds after I load a sample that its in my ram waiting to be assigned. Also, the load screen is arranged in a manner where you can actually read, see and really look at your folders and samples. Holy shit I had no clue just how bad 2.1 sucked in this sense. This feature alone is worth the upgrade.
I wont go into the new features, like grid editing and patched phrase, because I don't really like grid editing, as I have grown accustomed to step edit. I can see the obvious benefits to it though, because with step edit if you wanted to insert a ghost note or a tripalet fill where none existed, some guesswork with the math was involved, but I will learn grid edit later. As for patched phrase, autochop and some of the other new features, I gave them a cursory use and I can tell they all will have potential for me in the future.
In short, there is just no reason not to get JJOS, even factoring in the 30 dollar cost. Take it from somebody who was once in love with 2.1. You get sick of your files crashing, directory errors, random files being lost, errant load time waits and funky glitches that make no sense. There is just no reason to put up with that. Try it...don't be scrrred.
So I copped the JJ 4.64 upgrade yesterday. I went to bed late and bought a password, and it was in my inbox when I woke up. I spent about 4 hours with it today, and these are my impressions:
I was hesitant to upgrade to JJOS. When I first bought my MPC I had some issues with it. I posted the story about my MPC in another forum, but to make a long story short, I thought I got ripped of because the OS was screwing up making me think the machine was defective. So after I figured that out, I was hesitant to buy another OS from a company not even sanctioned by AKAI, given my already nervous nature about OS's.
Another reason is that I bought the MPC1000 e-book, and a lot of the instructions and tutoring in the book is specific to the 2.1 OS, so I didn't want to waste any time/money not learning all I could from the e-book.
So after I finished the e-book and was starting to feel comfortable with my MPC I started to read a little about the forums and JJ, about how everyone that has it likes it a lot better. I was still hesitant though. Funny thing thinking back, the one post that made me take the plunge was when Nym posted a thread that said 'you know what 2.1 is good for? loading JJOS!' So I took the plunge.
For starters, JJOS is faster. A LOT faster. I'm guessing that the code that JJ is build on is a lot cleaner, and thus you can access functions in a snap. I dunno, it just feels better. That was the first obvious difference was that screens didn't hesitate and loading is really much faster on JJ.
The second thing I noticed was that the smaller font for JJ is easier on the eyes. And adjusting the screen intensity is really easy. This makes looking at that yellow screen a lot easier for lengthy periods of time. I saw a few screenshots that showed a black on white screen, but I don't know if that is possible or just a function of the screenshots.
So those two obvious benefits aside, there are a whole shit load of new functions on the JJOS. The one that popped out at me the most was that when you load samples, it doesnt give you that annoying screen that asks you which pad you want to assign the sample to. As if I'm so **** stupid that I wont remember 2 seconds after I load a sample that its in my ram waiting to be assigned. Also, the load screen is arranged in a manner where you can actually read, see and really look at your folders and samples. Holy shit I had no clue just how bad 2.1 sucked in this sense. This feature alone is worth the upgrade.
I wont go into the new features, like grid editing and patched phrase, because I don't really like grid editing, as I have grown accustomed to step edit. I can see the obvious benefits to it though, because with step edit if you wanted to insert a ghost note or a tripalet fill where none existed, some guesswork with the math was involved, but I will learn grid edit later. As for patched phrase, autochop and some of the other new features, I gave them a cursory use and I can tell they all will have potential for me in the future.
In short, there is just no reason not to get JJOS, even factoring in the 30 dollar cost. Take it from somebody who was once in love with 2.1. You get sick of your files crashing, directory errors, random files being lost, errant load time waits and funky glitches that make no sense. There is just no reason to put up with that. Try it...don't be scrrred.
