What basic & advanced sampler features should Akai add next?

Expand the looper to 4 tracks.

They should have a "Delete & Purge" option for when deleting Programs so only all its samples gets deleted. This way even if there's samples in the pool that's not in a program they won't get deleted when you purge the samples from a specific program.

Being able to filter loaded samples by date or time it was loaded & just deleted those would be nice. See all the samples you loaded in the last 10mins & delete.

A revamped looper would be nice with some neat features such as:
- multi track loop
- undo last overdub
- export tracks to keygroup
- fx per track

"Find samples" like Serato sample does would be great.

I would love if Akai added an OP-1 style tape function to MPCas part of the arrange that would be dope to have different tapes; and those pause and reverse and tape noise features interegrated with the sequencer/arranger

wavemartian wrote:

ontherun wrote:Nice topic, would love more control over sample stuff.
Loop point detection without clicks would be nice.
Also some more time Stretching like Paulstretch or variphrase also.

Take a basic bass note, try playing around with the volume envelopes and adjust the filters, l still get clicks, it’s really annoying. Try the same on the 2000xl, with minimal adjustment l can get a smooth sounding bass note, no clicks. What is it with these new mpc’s?

Yep same here.
Instead we get stems so Akai can put a "powered by AI" sticker on those boxes

Try adding more Amp release. Most patches on my RS7000 click if the release is too short (not the rapper )

Well, very good thread and very good ideas.
But, as Monotremata said, I am afraid we won't see any improvement on the sampler side but tons of new romplers and splice like marketing tricks.

Anyway, is clear we need more LFO and a mod matrix, MPC is screaming for that.
More sample mangling, tweaking in real time, stretching, reversing, morphing different samples all in real time to play the sampler in a performative way.

The point is, the sample features are there since decades, nobody cared to improve MPC sampler as a performative instrument. We have a good Cpu, we can now work with more long samples, just do it, Akai, we don't need romplers or expansions, we need a performative instrument.

Slightly out of topic, but take a look at that:

https://www.tastychips.nl/product/gr-1- ... nthesizer/

That's a grain synth that creates textures and clouds of sound starting from a sample you feed into it.

So, I am not saying they should make exactly this synth on MPC, but take the idea of it: a synth (could even be an improved advanced keygroup style) where the sample you choose goes through many different processings, gets chopped to grains, spread in all octave and so on.

It's quite possible to do it, we have the resources for that on MPC.
I obtained some interesting results making a keygroup with just a long sample as source, spread in all octaves.
I used a field recording and it leads to very interesting textures, the sample get stretched according to the note you play, all notes overlap for minutes.
But then, you would want to start mangling all those stretched samples to create some movement but, no, it ends like this.
Maybe Akai could start from this to create some sort of sample grain synth or advanced keygroup.

Add a "End Loop Point" Marker....

40Beatz wrote:Add a "End Loop Point" Marker.

You said that already. What else you got?

40Beatz wrote:Loop Point Editing. As of now...the END Point becomes the Loop Point. Idiotic!!!

Unfortunately Akai still hasn't added it & it is still idiotic of them.

Straker wrote:Well, very good thread and very good ideas.

More sample mangling, tweaking in real time, stretching, reversing, morphing different samples all in real time to play the sampler in a performative way.

The point is, the sample features are there since decades, nobody cared to improve MPC sampler as a performative instrument. We have a good Cpu, we can now work with more long samples, just do it, Akai, we don't need romplers or expansions, we need a performative instrument.

More real-time sample mangling would be cool.

The sampler has been improved. They added per pad editing of start & end points like an ASR-10, edit all layers at once, 8 layers per pad, MPC stems (which is the best on standalone, but it's a big step in the right direction), disk-streaming & slice randomization. The Warp could be improved having some of it parameters assignable to macros would great for real-time mangling.

I would rather we use this thread to focus on what we want. You may not like the MPC becoming a rompler, but that's subjective & leads to debates, which takes us away from the point of why I made this thread.

Thank you & if you come up more ideas please add them here.

John Schaefer wrote:Just thought I'd pipe up in response to the people saying 'what else could Akai do in the sampler'?

The modulation section is so basic compared to what existed on the MPC4000. Where the 4K had a modulation matrix, and two free-running multi-shape LFOs, the current line of MPC firmware/software has one LFO that is not an LFO. If it retriggers on every pad/keyboard note then it's not an LFO, just an LFO-shaped envelope. This single thing is a massive block on sound design on the current MPC as you can't modulate anything that will freely move over time, e.g. filter, pitch, start point of sample. There were rack samplers as far back as 1990 that had these features, and 35 years later we don't have one in these machines.

Beyond that, the sort of things I can think of are that some samplers can freeze on a wave and let you 'travellate' the sound using either additive or granular windowing, and you can assign that to a controller (the MPCs have plenty of q-links waiting for this). They're really just one-shot machines right now that no serious samplist or sound designer would invest much time in.

Another function that the CPU on the MPC is more than capable of doing but hasn't been considered by the developers = in Ableton when it analyses waves that are in a folder, it guesses the tempo of percussive samples based on their transients. When these samples are dragged into a Drum Rack in Ableton Live (the equivalent of your MPC pads) it adjusts the playback rate of the samples to be playing in time with your song tempo. If you have resample/varispeed normal mode then it will just slow down or speed up a percussive sample, if you have a Warp mode on then it will retain the pitch but match your sample carefully to the song tempo and you can divide by 2 or multiply by 2 the playback from there.

The MPC5000 used to have a feature in the file browser where if you selected a folder of samples, it would load everything that it found inside the folder onto pads, one by one, until 64 pads had been filled. If it then ran out of space it would automatically generate another new drum Program and carry on dumping samples onto pads until it had loaded every file from your chosen folder. This was incredibly useful and time saving, and you could end up with great happy accidents, taking you beyond the predictable basic kit format. This is such a mundane and easily programmed feature yet it's completely absent on the current machines, which require manual assignment of samples onto pads. I worked a lot faster on the MPC5000 for almost this reason alone, and never had to think too hard about which samples went where because I could just fill up folders with all sorts of sample chaos and the machine itself would make my programs for me, which was great for coming up with unexpected material.

Another missing feature = Microtonal tuning. While desktop samplers like Logic's Sampler, Ableton and Kontakt support this, the MPC does not. The Sequential synths like Pro 3, Prophet 5 etc have microtonal tuning. Hardware synths like the Kodamo EssenceFM have it built in too. Many VST plugins support it, even 'simple' samplers like TAL. It's an almost CPU-inconsequential addition to a box like the MPC since it's only pitch scaling values for the sample playback, but again, these boxes are just one-shot drum machines with a few bells and whistles.

All this aside - I bought the X SE with the intention of running it tethered to get access to Audio Unit/VST plugin effects and more audio tracks than standalone, however the MPC.app is a travesty on Apple Silicon machines and can barely operate under a 512 samples buffer without the audio breaking up into pops and clicks, and the tempo going all over the place. They better have a wholly rewritten MPC v3 desktop app on the way or I'm completely done with the platform.

This is gold!

B-Wise wrote:

Straker wrote:Well, very good thread and very good ideas.

More sample mangling, tweaking in real time, stretching, reversing, morphing different samples all in real time to play the sampler in a performative way.

The point is, the sample features are there since decades, nobody cared to improve MPC sampler as a performative instrument. We have a good Cpu, we can now work with more long samples, just do it, Akai, we don't need romplers or expansions, we need a performative instrument.

More real-time sample mangling would be cool.

The sampler has been improved. They added per pad editing of start & end points like an ASR-10, edit all layers at once, 8 layers per pad, MPC stems (which is the best on standalone, but it's a big step in the right direction), disk-streaming & slice randomization. The Warp could be improved having some of it parameters assignable to macros would great for real-time mangling.

I would rather we use this thread to focus on what we want. You may not like the MPC becoming a rompler, but that's subjective & leads to debates, which takes us away from the point of why I made this thread.

Thank you & if you come up more ideas please add them here.

Yes, correct, have you read my post about the grain synth?
That sums up my ideas, not necessary a synth but some ways to take a sample and use it to build textures, grainy backgrounds and the sort.
You can do that making a keygroup with just a long sample as source, but then you would want to tweak the sample in real time, reverse it, slice it, stretch it, to change the texture that happens with that single sample keygroup.
Basically, I would need editing functions that work flawlessly without clicking and can be assigned to qlinks.
Not necessary complicated features, but performative ones.

B-Wise wrote:

John Schaefer wrote:Just thought I'd pipe up in response to the people saying 'what else could Akai do in the sampler'?

The modulation section is so basic compared to what existed on the MPC4000. Where the 4K had a modulation matrix, and two free-running multi-shape LFOs, the current line of MPC firmware/software has one LFO that is not an LFO. If it retriggers on every pad/keyboard note then it's not an LFO, just an LFO-shaped envelope. This single thing is a massive block on sound design on the current MPC as you can't modulate anything that will freely move over time, e.g. filter, pitch, start point of sample. There were rack samplers as far back as 1990 that had these features, and 35 years later we don't have one in these machines.

Beyond that, the sort of things I can think of are that some samplers can freeze on a wave and let you 'travellate' the sound using either additive or granular windowing, and you can assign that to a controller (the MPCs have plenty of q-links waiting for this). They're really just one-shot machines right now that no serious samplist or sound designer would invest much time in.

Another function that the CPU on the MPC is more than capable of doing but hasn't been considered by the developers = in Ableton when it analyses waves that are in a folder, it guesses the tempo of percussive samples based on their transients. When these samples are dragged into a Drum Rack in Ableton Live (the equivalent of your MPC pads) it adjusts the playback rate of the samples to be playing in time with your song tempo. If you have resample/varispeed normal mode then it will just slow down or speed up a percussive sample, if you have a Warp mode on then it will retain the pitch but match your sample carefully to the song tempo and you can divide by 2 or multiply by 2 the playback from there.

The MPC5000 used to have a feature in the file browser where if you selected a folder of samples, it would load everything that it found inside the folder onto pads, one by one, until 64 pads had been filled. If it then ran out of space it would automatically generate another new drum Program and carry on dumping samples onto pads until it had loaded every file from your chosen folder. This was incredibly useful and time saving, and you could end up with great happy accidents, taking you beyond the predictable basic kit format. This is such a mundane and easily programmed feature yet it's completely absent on the current machines, which require manual assignment of samples onto pads. I worked a lot faster on the MPC5000 for almost this reason alone, and never had to think too hard about which samples went where because I could just fill up folders with all sorts of sample chaos and the machine itself would make my programs for me, which was great for coming up with unexpected material.

Another missing feature = Microtonal tuning. While desktop samplers like Logic's Sampler, Ableton and Kontakt support this, the MPC does not. The Sequential synths like Pro 3, Prophet 5 etc have microtonal tuning. Hardware synths like the Kodamo EssenceFM have it built in too. Many VST plugins support it, even 'simple' samplers like TAL. It's an almost CPU-inconsequential addition to a box like the MPC since it's only pitch scaling values for the sample playback, but again, these boxes are just one-shot drum machines with a few bells and whistles.

All this aside - I bought the X SE with the intention of running it tethered to get access to Audio Unit/VST plugin effects and more audio tracks than standalone, however the MPC.app is a travesty on Apple Silicon machines and can barely operate under a 512 samples buffer without the audio breaking up into pops and clicks, and the tempo going all over the place. They better have a wholly rewritten MPC v3 desktop app on the way or I'm completely done with the platform.

This is gold!

I totally agree, it's gold.