Discuss Akai's iOS apps iMPC & iMPC Pro
By Paulinko Sat Jul 12, 2014 7:05 pm
iMPC Pro Sample, Name and Saving Glitches

We are the defacto beta testers for this app.

Recording Samples

When recording samples via a USB interface, I get no sound during the recording. This means two sets of headphones, one connected to the USB interface, and the other to my iPad. I haven't had this monitoring problem with any other app.

Renaming Samples

The app doesn't give you the option to overwrite a recording you don't like or to even delete it. You can do retry and it won't save the recording. Here's a work around: Use iFunBox to delete and transfer correct samples with correct names back into the app. Add correct sound with name back into the program where you want to use the sound.

Saving and Renaming Programs

Programs are where you save sounds to pads in a collection of 64 pads in four banks of 16 pads each (ABCD). Select program and sounds where you can drag sounds from the various folders in the list, record new sounds, or edit the sound that's already on the selected pad.

When you make a change to an existing program, an "*" will appear next to the program name. If you are creating or editing a program, you will have to save it or lose it before exiting iMPC Pro.

Any time you save a program that already exists, you will have to give it a new name. You can delete programs you don't want. Be careful about how you do this and it might be good to experiment to be sure of how the app will respond to the changes before putting a lot of effort into creating your own programs (read below for an example).

Tabletop

The iMPC Pro inside Tabletop will NOT have any of your custom samples or programs due to the way Apple has sandboxed iOS apps so they can't share files. This is supposed to change with iOS 8. It would be very nice if there was a utility provided by the app developers to allow us to export and import sounds, programs, sequences, and projects between Tabletop version of iMPC Pro, regular iMPC Pro as well as the app on our other iOS devices or people we'd like to share them with.

I copied some of my sounds into the Tabletop version of iMPC Pro, assigned them to two programs, noticed that I needed to make changes to the programs. I wanted to have the programs with the changes to have their original name. During the process of saving the programs with a different name, deleting the original, and saving a copy with the original and deleting the copy with the name I didn't want, the Tabletop version of iMPC Pro LOST all of my user programs. I had to recreate the programs by dragging the sounds onto the pads again. I believe this happened when I deleted the first program but I'm not too sure so experiment before you invest time into your projects.

Tabletop MIDI Learn

Works as advertised for iMPC.

iMPC Pro it will frequently crash just trying to assign the pads. Once you do get all of the pads assigned with midi learn, and save the session it promptly forgets the midi learn (i.e. useless).
User avatar
By Lampdog Sat Jul 12, 2014 7:35 pm
Paulinko wrote:It would be very nice if there was a utility provided by the app developers to allow us to export and import sounds, programs, sequences, and projects between Tabletop version of iMPC Pro, regular iMPC Pro as well as the app on our other iOS devices or people we'd like to share them with.


:arrow: ifunbox?
User avatar
By Loosecaboose Sat Jul 12, 2014 8:03 pm
Lampdog wrote:
Paulinko wrote:It would be very nice if there was a utility provided by the app developers to allow us to export and import sounds, programs, sequences, and projects between Tabletop version of iMPC Pro, regular iMPC Pro as well as the app on our other iOS devices or people we'd like to share them with.


:arrow: ifunbox?


Hey lampdog I think he means a utility that runs on the ipad, not one that needs a computer. Considering he mentions ifunbox to delete recordings I'm sure he is aware of the program ;)
By Paulinko Sun Jul 13, 2014 4:09 pm
Loosecaboose wrote:
Lampdog wrote:
Paulinko wrote:It would be very nice if there was a utility provided by the app developers to allow us to export and import sounds, programs, sequences, and projects between Tabletop version of iMPC Pro, regular iMPC Pro as well as the app on our other iOS devices or people we'd like to share them with.


:arrow: ifunbox?


Hey lampdog I think he means a utility that runs on the ipad, not one that needs a computer. Considering he mentions ifunbox to delete recordings I'm sure he is aware of the program ;)


Yes, iFunBox is useful for transferring samples but it would be nice to be able to transfer your projects to another device so that any custom samples, programs, sequences, etc. that you've created will be there. This would also be good if you're collaborating with someone else.

Plus if you find there are things that are better in Tabletop and others that work better outside Tabletop and you want to take advantage of both setups, you have to do extra work to recreate your project in both setups.

There are several other music apps that let you export and import presets or projects via Dropbox or email. A similar functionality would be great for iMPC Pro.
By Paulinko Mon Jul 14, 2014 5:31 pm
Another thing to be aware of is that when you creating a song by dragging sequences over to the list, if you accidentally drop the sequence onto a pad, it will overwrite the pad. I'm not sure about the ins and outs of undo, but you could certainly make a copy of your project before putting your song together just in case something should go wrong, you'll still have your original collection of sequences.

I haven't figured out or know if there's a way to delete a sequence from the app, but you can certainly overwrite it with the sequence you want.
By ecamburn Tue Sep 29, 2015 8:30 pm
Having the same issue as the OP

When re-loading Programs after saving them, the samples don't load.

What's the secret password for getting samples to actually save with Programs? :-)
By Bmyregaard Mon Dec 07, 2015 3:56 am
Paulinko wrote:iMPC Pro Sample, Name and Saving Glitches

We are the defacto beta testers for this app.

Recording Samples

When recording samples via a USB interface, I get no sound during the recording. This means two sets of headphones, one connected to the USB interface, and the other to my iPad. I haven't had this monitoring problem with any other app.

Renaming Samples

The app doesn't give you the option to overwrite a recording you don't like or to even delete it. You can do retry and it won't save the recording. Here's a work around: Use iFunBox to delete and transfer correct samples with correct names back into the app. Add correct sound with name back into the program where you want to use the sound.

Saving and Renaming Programs

Programs are where you save sounds to pads in a collection of 64 pads in four banks of 16 pads each (ABCD). Select program and sounds where you can drag sounds from the various folders in the list, record new sounds, or edit the sound that's already on the selected pad.

When you make a change to an existing program, an "*" will appear next to the program name. If you are creating or editing a program, you will have to save it or lose it before exiting iMPC Pro.

Any time you save a program that already exists, you will have to give it a new name. You can delete programs you don't want. Be careful about how you do this and it might be good to experiment to be sure of how the app will respond to the changes before putting a lot of effort into creating your own programs (read below for an example).

Tabletop

The iMPC Pro inside Tabletop will NOT have any of your custom samples or programs due to the way Apple has sandboxed iOS apps so they can't share files. This is supposed to change with iOS 8. It would be very nice if there was a utility provided by the app developers to allow us to export and import sounds, programs, sequences, and projects between Tabletop version of iMPC Pro, regular iMPC Pro as well as the app on our other iOS devices or people we'd like to share them with.

I copied some of my sounds into the Tabletop version of iMPC Pro, assigned them to two programs, noticed that I needed to make changes to the programs. I wanted to have the programs with the changes to have their original name. During the process of saving the programs with a different name, deleting the original, and saving a copy with the original and deleting the copy with the name I didn't want, the Tabletop version of iMPC Pro LOST all of my user programs. I had to recreate the programs by dragging the sounds onto the pads again. I believe this happened when I deleted the first program but I'm not too sure so experiment before you invest time into your projects.

Tabletop MIDI Learn

Works as advertised for iMPC.

iMPC Pro it will frequently crash just trying to assign the pads. Once you do get all of the pads assigned with midi learn, and save the session it promptly forgets the midi learn (i.e. useless).


How absurd is this: every time you change a custom Program, eg, when you're in the middle of creating a Sequence, you have to give it a new name. Then it doesn't match with the other Programs on other tracks in your Sequence. Am I missing something, or is the height of absurdity? One certainly can't create new custom Programs with a system like this. I'll have 10+ new Programs in a Song, with each being only different by one Pad? And there's almost zero user help for any of this. I've watched every impc retronym video at least once and I'm still stumped on a lot of workflow. Trial and error, frustration, and close to giving it up completely. If you have some help for me, please reply and let me know!!
By coolderb Mon Dec 07, 2015 8:54 pm
iMPC "Pro" is pretty much a marketing app. developed by Retronyms, promoted by Akai but has not received any meaningful updates or support in over 15 months. The developers have made all sorts of promises and claims that they are working on fixes and feature requests, but have not delivered. Your best bet is to move on to products from more professional developers who actually deliver such as Korg (Gadget,iMS-20, iElectribe, iM1, iKaosillator, iMS-10), UVI (Beathawk), Native Instruments (iMaschine) and Intua (Beatmaker).

For recording, checkout the recently released Auria Pro. All of the above mentioned apps. can be fed into Auria Pro via Audiobus to record multiple tracks. Auria also has its own synths from Fab Filter as well as a sample player that plays soundfonts and Logic EXS24 sample files.

As far as the current state of iMPC "Pro" this thread in the Akai support forum pretty much sums it up: http://community.akaipro.com/akai_professional/topics/impc-pro-bug-report-features-request