Please, tell me I'm wrong - MPC Live 3 for live techno sets

I've had my eyes on the MPC platform for 25+ years, and as soon as I saw the panel on the Live 3, I knew this one was different. I started looking into it, and I was very right. It has features that I've been dreaming about for 25+ years. And at the same time, it lacks features (e.g. SYSEX or NRPN control over panel knobs; MIDI PC to change effects, sample, and plugin "patches") that I've relied on for 25+ years with other gear.

Overall, the more I looked into the Live 3, the more excited I got. Until I found out that in order to use this as a standalone performance machine that can play without stopping, *everything* for a set needs to be loaded into memory, all at the same time. Even idle effects and plugins consume memory and CPU and buses. Ouch.

With the older MPC firmware, this was not really an issue. Only 1-2 "songs" (depending on naming conventions, performance style, and programming) needed to be in-memory at any one time, to keep rocking the beat.

With the current firmware, an entire set needs to be in-memory, or else the music needs to stop so a "project" can be loaded. Even if I spent twice as much money on two of these machines, I've heard that loading a project mutes the audio inputs/outputs; so any type of audio-passthrough with two of these doesn't even solve the problem. Solving the problem with hardware wouldn't just double the complexity, it would triple the complexity by requiring a mixer.

Making techno, keeping the beat through a set is a top priority. Using effects as part of sound design and also performance tools, I'm not even sure if I could load all of the effects for a set into memory, before even loading a single plugin, loading a single sample into memory, or playing a single note. Maybe streaming samples from SSD works for me? But the manual warns: "Note: Using streamed samples with Drum and Keygroup tracks may cause performance issues when […] retriggering at high rates." That sounds kind of like techno.

The firmware change - merging tracks and programs into projects - craps on how I would want to use the Live 3 for playing hour+ sets. This is the reason why I haven't bought one yet. Mabe there's plans to have some kind of "performance mode" that can seamlessly load projects and keep rocking the beat?

Under the older firmware's tracks/programs structure, the Live 3 hardware would be generous for playing full sets. Under the current "project" structure, the Live 3 hardware (both RAM and CPU) becomes anemic and the interface/programming/planning/preparation all become painful.

Every workaround I've thought of or found doesn't seem to solve the core problem: To play a set without stopping, EVERYTHING in that set needs to be loaded into memory all at the same time. Considering how I make music, I have reason to be concerned that just my effects for an hour+ set may be too much for this machine to handle. That's without even accounting for the UI needing to have everything "on the table" all at once.

As it is, this may be the best machine for composing, arranging, and playing songs. But for playing whole sets, it's way off-target. The older MPCs handled it better. Plenty of other older gear still handles it better.

Aside from what seems to be a deal-breaker design change in the firmware, almost everything else about the Live 3 leaves me wanting one. Most everything else that's missing is "nice to have", but this makes it not usable, for me.

So I'm hoping that someone can tell me I'm wrong, or that there's features and functionality that I don't understand, or that a proper fix is just around the corner.

This has always been the case with MPCs, even older MPC2 with programs ultimately required multiple project loads for complete sets. Anything that did work in MPC2 (e.g. a single project that can somehow serve an entire set) can be replicated in MPC3 albeit with a more complex track structure. ultimately the limitation is memory, and older MPCs had that as well.

The only difference with older MPCs was that track structure was 'contained' within each sequence, so sequence 1 could have 10 completely different tracks to sequence 2, thus each sequence could easily be a different song. With MPC3 track structure is project-wide, so each sequence has the same track structure. So the workaround is to organise your 'songs' into groups of tracks - seq 1 = tracks 1 to 10, seq 2 = tracks 2-15, etc. You can configure each sequence to jump to a particular track and you can use colours to visiually group the tracks in each 'song'.

But beyond that, your 'project (i.e. 'set')' is still limited by the amount of available memory, the way you organise the project is irrelevant.

I'd argue that the MPC Live 3 with 8GB ram (or the XL with 16GB) plus internal (not sample based) synth plugins should be able to cope with an entire techno set no problem whatsoever. How much memory are you seriously going to need, wouldn't much of it be based on short samples and synth plugins? Disk streaming can be used for lengthy audio triggering. The main drain of ram is likely any additional sampled instruments that you might want to add. You could use disk streaming here as well as long as you are not triggering super busy, high poyphonic sequences specifically from these disk streamed instruments.

A lot of unknowns, including exactly how I would prepare a set on one of these machines.

One thing that seems odd, is that Akai has been making samplers with expandable memory for at least 40 years. Back then, sampler memory was expandable to more than 2MB! Now, 8GB seems like plenty for "song" production, and it may be more than I need for an hour+ techno set. But IIUC, that RAM is being used for more than just samples. Why couldn't they make the Live 3 so I could just drop 1-2 RAM sticks in it? If nothing else, that would make me more confident that the machine won't start choking halfway through a set.

Anyway, as a guess, let's say I have 10 songs in a set, and each song uses 10 tracks. Let's say I have 10 effects per song. So for a set I'm using 100 effects and 100 tracks. During transitions, I may be using up to 20 tracks and 20 effects at once, but let's ignore that. Let's say that, at any given moment, I'm using 10 tracks and 10 effects, with 90 tracks idle and 90 effects idle. I still suspect that those idle effects are consuming CPU and RAM. That's assuming zero plugins.

I've had no hands-on time with the Live 3. If I buy one, it'll take some time before I get proficient with it. It may do everything I want, and more. But on paper, and after watching lots of tutorial and how-to videos, I have concerns.

From a more hardware-centric background, let's say I have 12 audio channels from hardware synths into a mixer. Those are my 12 "tracks" for the whole set. I could start with song 1, on some tracks, then transition to song 2 on other tracks. While song 2 is playing, I could set up some synths and effects (manually or via MIDI PC) to get ready for song 3. Then transition into song 3, and so on. That model makes very efficient use of only 12 tracks, by allowing each track to do different things at different times, as needed, when needed. In contrast, the current Live 3 model is everything, all at the same time, needs to be loaded and ready with its own track. For people who play strict set-lists, it's convenient. For people who want to be more towards the improv end of the spectrum, it's a straight-jacket.

Which draws my attention to the Live 3 interface, and (currently) lack of internal or external MIDI control to control track mutes, track solo, and clip launching. That pushes me towards a pre-set track-list, away from a more flexible approach of just playing tracks in whatever order seems right at the time.

It's kind of like a studio-in-a-box, except it's not. In a studio, I can call-up synth and effect program changes mid-set, using a reasonably small number of tracks.

Conceptually, that's one of the things that would make me more confident buying a Live 3. It seems very capable of controlling external gear with MIDI PC, CC, NRPN, etc. But it can't control itself? It can't change effects, or plugins, or samples mid-set? I'd think that's a good way to make better use of CPU and RAM for longer or more complicated sets, while also making set-lists more flexible and improv-friendly.

Of course there should be more than one way to peel that potato, but the current firmware seems to be cutting off options, rather than increasing flexibility.

I guess what I want, before I buy one of these, is confidence that I'll have good options to do what I want to do with it. The clips feature seems great for arranging songs, but for live sets that remain flexible, the overall architecture of the "projects" seems far from ideal, especially on a machine with limited CPU and RAM, and knowing how I like to program effects and sets and sound design, etc.

smasher wrote:Why couldn't they make the Live 3 so I could just drop 1-2 RAM sticks in it?

MPCs now use a fully integrated board that contains fixed, pre-soldered CPU and RAM ('SOM'), you can't add more memory (not without some scary soldering skills). MPC is basically a tablet with rubber pads running Linux.

So for a set I'm using 100 effects

You would use submixes, send/returns etc rather than running 100+ individual FX plugins across your tracks. Bouncing some tracks to audio would also help (disk stream the bounced audio).

What is it about the MPC that appeals to you? Seems like it might not be suitable for the way that you work and maybe a laptop would give you the flexibility you need. MPC isn't even that stable, especially these days as it's ultimately a bespoke computer system developed by a very small team of developers whose priorities seem to be focused on pushing out new plugins and hardware variations.

Stability might be better found in Elektron machines which seem more popular with techo producers, and no concerns about using too many plugins there as there aren't any in the first place!

MPC-Tutor wrote:

smasher wrote:What is it about the MPC that appeals to you?

Aside from my concerns about playing live, it seems like the right balance of what I need to make music. I've dealt with studios full of dream synths, and just noodled, getting lost in sound design. If I start with an Elektron machine, I'll soon need two, and a mixer, and some outboard multi-effects, and… Then I'm back to a truck full of gear that only distracts me from making music.

I keep looking at other options, and I keep coming back to the Live 3 as the right balance of features, workflow, and limitations that may best facilitate making music, not just goofing around in a studio or DAW full of distractions.

unless you plan on sequencing everything for your live set in the MPC box, i would just plan to work around the project load time (which with the next gen is likely in the 10-20 second range, depending how big a project might be) by letting other external gear carry the load

this gets into bigger picture questions of whether you actually want the MPC to be the sequencer for all your tracks, both within the box and any other external gear in your rig. it's robust enough to do that but if you want true uninterrupted track flows, you might look into running everything from an external sequencer like Hapax or Deluge, which have workflows that can transition between two different projects relatively seamlessly.

it gets complicated

other external gear […] external sequencer […] it gets complicated

My name is Smasher, and I have a problem. I love synths, drum machines, and effects. The more gear I collect, the less music I make. The more gear I play with, the less music I make.

I know myself, and I know that gear-sprawl holds me back from making music. With current technology, if I want to make music, I need to intentionally limit myself to a single machine, and leave everything else where it won't distract me. Even on the Live 3, I'll likely need to intentionally ignore certain features, and intentionally not get sucked into "just one more plugin", and "just one more sample library".

In terms of having the right balance of features and limitations that fit my mental and production workflows, I just can't find anything more suited to the task than the Live 3.

Part of its appeal, to me, is effects processing. I use effects as part of sound design and a performance tool. I can easily set up a techno studio where effects processors outnumber synthesizers, four-to-one.