MPC Live Ableton integration - Best way?

Hello guys, I'm new here in the forum and also brand new to the MPC family. Got my Live just a week ago and it's my first MPC. So far I am having a love hate relation ship with it, but that's for another story.

What I'd like to know is:

I want to integrate my Live into my studio setup which consists of hardware Synths and Ableton Live. I want to use the Live in controller mode because I need the better Warp Algorithms, so I use the MPC 2.0 VST Plugin. So far so good. Now in the settings of MPC 2.0 I found the option send Record/Overdub to MPC or to host DAW. I wanted to choose Host Daw and the plugin then promted me to install the Internal Midi driver, which I did.

Now choosing the internal midi driver in Abletons Midi settings didn't yield any results. The transport control for the MPC also would't work to control Ableton.


After endless tinkering around with different Midi settings in Ableton I found I could make the transport controls work by choosing the MPC Live Public option in Ableton Midi setting and choosing send record/overdub to MPC software.... This way it works, but I don't think it's the intended way to do it.

Neither am I using the option to send record/overdub to host DAW, nore am I making any use of the Internal Midi driver I had to install.


Can anyone tell me the correct way to set this up? Could't find any useful manuals from Akai, nore any setup guides online.


Thanks for your help guys :)

No one?

Give it more time, in fact you might not have posted this in the correct forum as most MPC Live/X users don't use the VSTi version, they are mostly standalone and maybe a bit of controller mode. I'll move to the MPC Software forum.

Not an Ableton user but your part of the problem affects other DAW users too. In 1.9.6 you had the option to send both MIDI and MMC to internal MIDI, set your DAW to receive from internal MIDI and BOOM the transport controls worked and you could record MIDI to your DAW. As of 2.0, the plugin's MIDI outputs are locked to output to DAW. If you change them, they revert back. Any DAWS that I'm aware of won't accept transport controls or MMC from a plugin, so I had to find a workaround for the transport controls by setting Reaper to receive MIDI from MPC public and then MIDI mapping the transport controls on the MPC to Reaper's transport. It doesn't work great. There's a slight buffer when I press play, which garbles the sound of the first bar a bit, so I have to insert a blank sequence upfront so the first note has a proper attack and not a glitch.

It should be as simple as selecting a MIDI program type in the MPC plugin, assigning a MIDI channel to it & then it should send said MIDI to the corresponding MIDI channel in any DAW, but I have yet to get it to work. Akai support couldn't even tell me which MIDI input I should use in my DAW to receive MIDI from the MPC plugin. I couldn't even get them to understand the question. They kept giving me canned responses that were utterly irrelevant to the issue, again & again. And transport? Even worse. The instructions in the MPC help files are completely obsolete now & just plain don't work. They reference settings in the plugin that no longer exist. I have literally pages and pages of demonstrably grossly incompetent responses.

In other words, no support person who answered me even understood what the hell I was even talking about in clear concise English. I have pages & pages of evidence of their utter incompetence. Eventually, they just stopped replying and I had to create a new account to even get a pointless response. I've considered starting a thread here to bring attention to their abysmal support, but it would take all day. I was never rude with them despite the demonstrable fact that they only scanned my questions for keywords and then sent irrelevant replies over & over again. I'd even link knowledge base articles in my message, tell them that I followed the instructions in the article but they didn't work, and they would reply with a link to the same article saying that I neede to follow the instructions there. WTF?

As of now, I can't record MIDI to my DAW or even have my DAW host the instrument & the MPC plugin record the MIDI and send it to it. MPC records the MIDI, but it won't send it to the DAW in any way shape or form despite the MPC plugin's MIDI outs being permanently set to "DAW." The physical transport buttons on the MPC are the only MIDI I can get the MPC plugin to send at all.

Setting up my old MPC 1000 to send MIDI to my DAW was effortless compared to this. Doubtful, but hopefully Akai stumbles across this post & gets their shit together, but I'm not holding my breath.

Hey man, thank you very much for your precise reply! So it's not me, who's incompetent, but bugs in the software. And about the customer suppport from Akai: I have made the exact same experiences as you.
I asked them something before i bought into the MPC system and all I got was a canned response, completely unconnected to my inital question. I sent them a reply asking for a proper reply. Still waiting until today....

I am getting kinda mad at Akai already, just having the MPC for a week now. I mean I really like the concept and the workflow (If it would work properly), but who this company handles it's customers and other stuff just makes me wanna sell the MPC already.

The web is full of complaints... On here, or their on forum or on Youtube. Complains about the customer service, about Midi bugs, about missing features, about dumb new features when essential stuff is still missing or not working...

Another thing that i really can't understand is, where there is no tuning option for the standalone plugins... I mean how the hell am I supposed to make music with an "instrument" I can't even tune.

I'll give the MPC a few more weeks and see how things develope, but I guess people have been waiting way longer than a few weeks now and nothing has really changed....

I must admit I'm a fiend for the MPC workflow. And, though many would disagree, I think they look sexy as hell. I mean, every time I glance at my setup, I want to turn it on. In those ways, it inspires me as no other software or hardware does, thus my love/hate. I feel like Akai is an abusive lover, but the sex is so good I can't quit.

I'm glad I can contribute here. The best stuff regarding MPCs is here by a LONG shot. This forum taught me how to use an MPC in the first place, and I feel like if I had to go back to FL, I'd just quit. FL is more robust but the MPC gets it done & fast, and feels like working music gear (I can even stand up to compose). FL began to feel like working on a computer, not making music. Some stuff from both FL and Ableton I wish I had, but I feel like MPC's limitations are actually inspiring, in that they force you to come up with new ways & means to realize your vision. I often think back to old school classics that were done on far less. They had to figure out a way, and in that made timeless music. That's just how I feel though. It can be dumb to shun innovations, but for the most part, I don't feel I need them. A slow drip is good for me. That's why the MPC is right up my alley. That's me though. Some would disagree.

Anyway, welcome. Sorry so windy today, I just had my psyche meds adjusted.

I can't figure out how to edit my post but ignore the word *your* in the first sentence, that was a typo. Apeears I'm not as concise as I thought.

*Appears lmao

I totally feel you and I dont need that many features either. But if they get introduced I want to make use of them. Having to fight buggy implementations then just sucks. And the canned replies by customer support does too. It's really less the MPC itself which bothers me, than the company and how they don't get their shit together.