We are getting what we asked for, but is it what we need?

Support and discussion for all of Akai’s modern standalone MPCs including the MPC X / X SE, MPC Live 1, 2 & 3, MPC One / One+, MPC Key 37/61.
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Re: We are getting what we asked for, but is it what we need

By sinik Tue Mar 11, 2025 1:40 pm
B-Wise wrote:Now the 1k/2500 are being praised for their dirty sound, but when it came out people (even on this site which we still have record of) was hating them for sounding too clean :shock: :hmmm: :lol:


i still find it hard to believe that people praise the sound of the 2500. it was the one thing that wasnt overwhelming to me and i even prefer the sound of the modern mpcs. the hype of the 1000 & 2500 is mostly because of the super quick and solid workflow. still like it quite a bit more than the OS of the current mpcs.

i think the whole sound topic when talking about mpc's is a bit overrated. the sp's and the asr's had a much more special sound to them than any of the mpc's (except maybe the 60). for me its more about the instrument itself, the workflow, how everything is laid out, its limitations that makes you try harder ...

Re: We are getting what we asked for, but is it what we need

By jpeg Tue Mar 11, 2025 2:52 pm
sinik wrote:
B-Wise wrote:Now the 1k/2500 are being praised for their dirty sound, but when it came out people (even on this site which we still have record of) was hating them for sounding too clean :shock: :hmmm: :lol:


i still find it hard to believe that people praise the sound of the 2500. it was the one thing that wasnt overwhelming to me and i even prefer the sound of the modern mpcs. the hype of the 1000 & 2500 is mostly because of the super quick and solid workflow. still like it quite a bit more than the OS of the current mpcs.

i think the whole sound topic when talking about mpc's is a bit overrated. the sp's and the asr's had a much more special sound to them than any of the mpc's (except maybe the 60). for me its more about the instrument itself, the workflow, how everything is laid out, its limitations that makes you try harder ...


not sure bout the 2500 OS but far as the 1000; the OS was terrible, it was JJOS that saved the 1K
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Re: We are getting what we asked for, but is it what we need

By Lampdog Tue Mar 11, 2025 3:16 pm
sinik wrote:the sp's and the asr's had a much more special sound to them than any of the mpc'...

I haven't heard another kybd workstation w/ reverbs that sound like ASR-10 reverbs.

Re: We are getting what we asked for, but is it what we need

By B-Wise Tue Mar 11, 2025 3:26 pm
jpeg wrote:not sure bout the 2500 OS but far as the 1000; the OS was terrible, it was JJOS that saved the 1K


I have both with JJOS & they have the same sound & OS features. The 2500 is more comfortable to work on for obvious reasons. The extra MIDI, audio & digital ports are nice to have & it also has a CD burner & HD drive slot.

I just finished moving all my beats from the 1k to the Force yesterday. I thought I was done a yr ago but I found 7 more & I'm still amazed how much louder the new units can get. The headroom difference took me minutes to get used to. The new units cut 18db from the sample by default since 6db is cut at the track, pad & output levels.

This is why I ask what are your gain settings when people make sound comparisons between the new & older units. I was able to hear some harmonics in a sample that I didn't even know was there once I moved it to the Force used the gain change process in the sample editor & boosted it by 18db. I should make a quick video on it.

Re: We are getting what we asked for, but is it what we need

By BackOnDaMPC Wed Mar 12, 2025 3:02 am
B-Wise wrote:
kja wrote:The 2500 came like two years after the 1000.. the 1000 came after the company was sold to numark and it was a much cheaper build and people complained alot.. however it sold very well and have a whole new demographic a chance at owning a mpc.. same thing happened when the company was sold and the 2000 came out.. of course later models came out to fill out the line.. that wasn't my point.
Users threw a fit when the 2000 main screen looked different then the 3000, I remember that.. I remember everyone thought the 1000 was so cheap feeling compared to the 2000xl and it didn't even have a flip screen.. same old stuff every generation..

Now the 1k/2500 are being praised for their dirty sound, but when it came out people (even on this site which we still have record of) was hating them for sounding too clean :shock: :hmmm: :lol:

The craziest thing about the MPC2000 is that didn't want to make it. They had to be convinced from a ex-Emu dude. When they finally listened it blew up & the 2000XL was a no brainer. The history Akai needs to made into a movie.
I miss the 1000. That's what I started on.
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Re: We are getting what we asked for, but is it what we need

By Lampdog Wed Mar 12, 2025 3:54 am
Ultros wrote:This isnt for the surface users this question is for you guys who know me and i know you from around the scene. do you think we are going the right direction? are you guys having production issues and holdups due to your mpc having these quirks and changes or do you find them inspiring in some way?

Back to the beginning.

Yes, right direction.

No issues.

Quirks are small shits that don’t even stop me from making beats at all.

Re: We are getting what we asked for, but is it what we need

By B-Wise Wed Mar 12, 2025 6:20 am
BackOnDaMPC wrote:I miss the 1000. That's what I started on.


I didn't start on it, but it was my first MPC, but I don't miss the 1k/2500. The sequencer made making beats the way I wanted as I got better more tedious mainly because of its lack of clips. The FX we're limited which means you had to have something else connected. The Force handles both issues better for me.

Back on topic.
I would have mixed feeling about the MPCs with 3.0 changing the way tracks & programs are handled, if I used them the way the people that are upset about it used them. But even back on the 2500 I eventually started using one program per track & the fact that I could change programs made it more tedious to set up for me because I make many tracks & programs so I would have to name the tracks a certain way to know what goes where just to stay organized & I didn't make different beats in 1 project.

So I see the benefit of old program feature, but I just didn't have a need for it & it made my workflow more of pain. As a Force users we already had the 3.0 workflow, but having the Arranger without clips & the clip-matrix, it seems like it's missing a major part of the benefits of the new program style.

Hopefully the MPC with the rest of the Force features. If not I don't know if that change was worth stabbing their legacy users in the back. At least give the option to have legacy mode on. Which they might do once the get 3.0 stable.

Re: We are getting what we asked for, but is it what we need

By sparky Wed Mar 12, 2025 11:06 am
To respond to Ultros in a more focussed way, and at risk of repeating myself… from my perspective as an MPC user for 20+ years my sense is the direction of travel is at variance with the nature of the machine itself. The virtue of hardware is that it is tactile and responsive, and that brings it closer to an instrument than a complete studio solution. For me the MPC has always been a voice among others - or sometimes solo - for composition and performance. I can make finished tracks with it but I don’t want or need that to be its primary function. The intuitive nature of previous software design within the machine, reflecting the pad grid interface, is now being abandoned in favour of trying to make some kind of DAW-lite in a box which resembles existing templates but doesn’t improve on them or even convincingly replicate them. I’ve tried using the arranger, it’s extremely clunky and requires all this touchscreen fiddling which I have no interest in - I have an iPad for that. And I presume this development is a finite road due to the age of the architecture inside the machine.

That said … whether we are dinosaur legacy users, or YouTubers who just got an MPC yesterday, or whatever, we’re all (I assume) just trying to make music and encourage AKAI to make the tool we’ve chosen for that purpose better. Of course they will pursue the new, uncritical consumer - but they continue to update the OS after 7/8 years for free, which is to everyones’ benefit, and when people register their dissatisfaction clearly (as with the track mutes and time signatures for example) they have shown they’re listening. There are conflicting needs to be balanced. All i would say to AKAI is: look at the machine in front of you, not just the screen attached to it, and develop accordingly.
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Re: We are getting what we asked for, but is it what we need

By Ultros Wed Mar 12, 2025 4:14 pm
Lampdog wrote:That’s def a concrete wall stop.. That’s one I haven’t heard before and I’ve heard plenty.

Also, going by some of your posts, you experiment with tech alot, *what did you do*?


I honestly dont know what happend to it, i was sitting there making a beat and the sd card started smoking. I was like WTF?!?!?! tried to eject it and it had melted into the slot. I've never seen anything like that happen to anything that reads an sd. However when conductive metals tarnish they become resistive. Perhaps the pins on card were tarnished or maybe it just finally broke down physically. All the more reason to get a live or live 2 or x with SATA. i love the form of the mpc one but its a bit of a turd sometimes.

sparky wrote:All i would say to AKAI is: look at the machine in front of you, not just the screen attached to it, and develop accordingly.


That is solid advice. Make a beat machine first and worry about the computery magic second. it has to be a functional appliance-like system for programming music. Like the rolland SP stuff i dont think those get any firmware updates at all, and they dont just randomly screw up and crash either. Sure they are exponentially more simplistic devices but THEY WORK simplicity working is better than complexity being a nag.

Re: We are getting what we asked for, but is it what we need

By Komatos Records Wed Mar 12, 2025 5:45 pm
Ultros—

I had to sell my original MPC X from 2019/2020 late last year to pay some emergency household expenses but I quickly snagged an MPC One+ in early February to get my fix back. First thing I did before selling the X was remove my internal SSD with all my personal samples and expansion kits I had installed. I put that in an external USB hard drive enclosure and use that with my new One+. Only thing I use the built-in SD card reader for is to install firmware updates. After hearing your experience, I figured that was the safest thing to do. Since I don’t use controller mode and you can’t install the expansions via USB in controller mode to a connected/inserted drive on the One/One+ like you can in the other models and I don’t have an external USB sound card/mixer the single USB 2 port is sufficient for me.

Re: We are getting what we asked for, but is it what we need

By Komatos Records Wed Mar 12, 2025 8:03 pm
Answering your original question: since I never really understood the original MPC workflow (coming from the Yamaha RM1x, RS7000 & SU700 method of creating tracks, sections, sequences, styles, pattern chains, songs, etc.), I don’t have any preconceived notions of how the MPC “Program” concept workflow is good or bad. Never really having the time over the last 5 ½ years to get to understand the classic/2.x firmware methodology for composing/creating music on my former MPC X, I’m looking forward to the 3.x version of the MPC Bible with it’s tutorials to help me learn the One+ inside and out.

I can appreciate how much the old version made composition a breeze once you understood it, and I’m hoping that 3.x with its “one track consistency across all sequences” will make my work easier. Only pain I foresee is loading multiple songs/sequences. If I ever were to do a live set with multiple songs, I’d have to bring a second piece of gear to fill the loading gaps. Or plan out accordingly. E.G. tracks 1-16 for song 1, 17-32 for song 2, 33-48 for song 3, etc.
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Re: We are getting what we asked for, but is it what we need

By Monotremata Thu Mar 13, 2025 4:50 pm
B-Wise wrote:
Lampdog wrote:Yep, it’s all you and you work. THAT, is the magic.

Even Roger Linn said there's no magic sound in the MPC60/3000:


Maybe not intentionally, but those that have used them can hear it. The 3000 is a little different, IIRC it has the same engine as my S3000XL, although mines got some slightly updated components inside. There is definitely something it does to the upper mid-range that I can hear easily with the 3000XL side by side with Groove Agent coming out of my Mac. Throw a break into my EIV and its a world of difference between the two. There is this thick 'plastic' sound (sorry thats the best way to describe what I hear) in the upper mids that comes out especially on snares. Think, Amen, Sesame Street, Hot Pants, etc all hit different, which is why all my drums go to the S3000 now despite Groove Agent being 100 times quicker and easier to deal with. That old 90s jungle/drum and bass Akai 'smack' is not there otherwise, and I can hear it instantly once the break gets into the sampler.

Re: We are getting what we asked for, but is it what we need

By B-Wise Sat Mar 15, 2025 1:29 am
Lampdog wrote:I can hear the diff between my asr-10, 4k, and mpc x also, but I never called it "magic", it's just a diff sound.

Also, the "magic" in the new MPCs is that you're not stuck with just the Akai factory sound like the 60 & 3k. They made the sampler as clean as possible but gave us so many ways to shape the sound to make it our own sound. This is thing that some old school heads miss. These new things require time & skill to get the most out of it, but even the default sound is great. Some people will just hate on shit just cuz it's new & isn't what they used growing up. Either way you still gotta make dope beats & the sound of the old stuff can't help weak beat making skills.
Like this dude had to check himself about being a "Vintage Snob":
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