Loading expansions to MPC Live via SD card

Good morning / afternoon / evening, gang.

Can anyone shed some light on how to install expansion kits via the MPC Live hardware?

I loaded up my Masada Cycle Kit Vol. 1 onto a freshly formatted SD card, but I can't see a way to load it.
I know the card works, because I've already saved / loaded a project to it.

Is there some special method, like "hold down menu when powering up" etc.?


Thanks in advance.

Is it an XPN file? It looks like the file browser doesn't recognise them (it doesn't see them in the computer version either). In the computer you just drag the XPN into the main window, guess you can't do that in the hardware. TBH I never even considered how they plan on installing expansions into the standalones, remember there is no expansion browser currently in the hardware, all you can do is navigate to the expansion's 'content' folder when in controller mode.

My guess is for the moment at least you'll just have to install expansions as normal folders and navigate to them via the standard browser. You can extract the contents of an XPN in most zip applications as it's just a zip file with an XPN extension. Or install in your computer and go to Library > Application Support > Akai > MPC > Content and copy the content folders for all your expansions and add them to your standalone drive.

MPC-Tutor wrote:Is it an XPN file? It looks like the file browser doesn't recognise them (it doesn't see them in the computer version either). In the computer you just drag the XPN into the main window, guess you can't do that in the hardware. TBH I never even considered how they plan on installing expansions into the standalones, remember there is no expansion browser currently in the hardware, all you can do is navigate to the expansion's 'content' folder when in controller mode.

My guess is for the moment at least you'll just have to install expansions as normal folders and navigate to them via the standard browser. You can extract the contents of an XPN in most zip applications as it's just a zip file with an XPN extension. Or install in your computer and go to Library > Application Support > Akai > MPC > Content and copy the content folders for all your expansions and add them to your standalone drive.

I recall hearing Masada (or someone in an official / semi-official position) explain that it could be done.

I don't have the Live so cannot test it but from the manual it seems that the internal drive has a folder called 'Expansions', then inside each expansion has it's own sub folder, e.g. 'The Vault 2' and so on. So have you tried making a sub folder inside 'Expansions' and placing the relevant expansion content files inside that?

BTW how do you move files to the Live's internal disk? Do you have to enter controller mode at which point the Live's internal drive appears in your computer?

Okay I see from the FAQ that you cannot access the Live's internal drive from the computer when in controller mode, so all files must be transferred to the internal drive from an attached disk - I can't see the options for this in the Live manual, it there a 'move' files option or similar?

MPC-Tutor wrote:Okay I see from the FAQ that you cannot access the Live's internal drive from the computer when in controller mode, so all files must be transferred to the internal drive from an attached disk - I can't see the options for this in the Live manual, it there a 'move' files option or similar?

I'll have to check later.

At my desk. LOL. also, sob!!

We have to run it past @Masada

MPC-Tutor wrote:Okay I see from the FAQ that you cannot access the Live's internal drive from the computer when in controller mode, so all files must be transferred to the internal drive from an attached disk - I can't see the options for this in the Live manual, it there a 'move' files option or similar?

So you can't drag and drop file/samples etc from computer to the Live?

J.O.BEATS wrote:

MPC-Tutor wrote:Okay I see from the FAQ that you cannot access the Live's internal drive from the computer when in controller mode, so all files must be transferred to the internal drive from an attached disk - I can't see the options for this in the Live manual, it there a 'move' files option or similar?

So you can't drag and drop file/samples etc from computer to the Live?

To the ssd card you can. Haven't found a way to do any file transfer to and from the internal. When open the file browser in controller mode it just shows the files on your computer. It shows up like a card reader on the computer so you can drag and drop but you'd need to still load it from the card in stand alone. But projects on the card can be easily loaded into software as I transferred a project to get some samples up on the computer.

I spent some time trying to figure this out tonight. I haven't had much time and was just trying to get a feel for things before anything deeper like the manual or vids on the net.

If there's no 'copy' access to the internal drive (specifically the Expansions folder) they've effectively made it a walled garden in terms of third-party expansions.

I assume there must be some way of accessing the internal drive, otherwise how do you back up any work you save to it?

WHATS UP brothers

the way to load expansions on the standalone is to copy the programs from your hd( where the expansion are installed by the xpn ) to a sd hd or ssd .mpc live will now have the ability to load your expansions .

masada2502 wrote:
the way to load expansions on the standalone is to copy the programs from your hd( where the expansion are installed by the xpn ) to a sd hd or ssd .mpc live will now have the ability to load your expansions .

How do you back up all the files saved to the internal drive? Is there any way to access that drive, either externally (e.g. via USB connection to a computer) or internally by moving files back and forth between the internal drive and any attached storage?

MPC-Tutor wrote:

masada2502 wrote:
the way to load expansions on the standalone is to copy the programs from your hd( where the expansion are installed by the xpn ) to a sd hd or ssd .mpc live will now have the ability to load your expansions .

How do you back up all the files saved to the internal drive? Is there any way to access that drive, either externally (e.g. via USB connection to a computer) or internally by moving files back and forth between the internal drive and any attached storage?

When you copy the programs over from the pc.. will the LIVE in standalone show the cover art and etc?

MPC-Tutor wrote:

masada2502 wrote:
the way to load expansions on the standalone is to copy the programs from your hd( where the expansion are installed by the xpn ) to a sd hd or ssd .mpc live will now have the ability to load your expansions .

How do you back up all the files saved to the internal drive? Is there any way to access that drive, either externally (e.g. via USB connection to a computer) or internally by moving files back and forth between the internal drive and any attached storage?

I'm going to try out the method that you quoted, I made a topic preemptively on this subject before finding this post, still would like your question answered (specifically I want to know how to transfer projects off of internal) and will be testing out expansions PC to HDD

I'm going to repost this here.

Questions on installing Expansions again. I was waiting on getting a Live to see how the built in expansions were installed.

So if you go to Browser/Places/Internal/Expansions that's where the expansions are installed. Those expansions also show in the Lower Left Screen in the Browser. If you create a new folder in the Expansions folder it will show in the Lower Left Screen. That's a good compromise and quick to get to.

So the question is, how do you get a folder from your own harddrive or SD card to show in the lower left screen? The Internal isn't big enough to load any significant expansions.

kaydigi wrote:I'm going to repost this here.

Questions on installing Expansions again. I was waiting on getting a Live to see how the built in expansions were installed.

So if you go to Browser/Places/Internal/Expansions that's where the expansions are installed. Those expansions also show in the Lower Left Screen in the Browser. If you create a new folder in the Expansions folder it will show in the Lower Left Screen. That's a good compromise and quick to get to.

So the question is, how do you get a folder from your own harddrive or SD card to show in the lower left screen? The Internal isn't big enough to load any significant expansions.

It sounds like you need to install a ssd/hdd/ flash drive to add significant expansions. Once you do select the places tab in the browse menu and you'll see it there.

I've tried copying my c:programdata/akai/mpc folder (which I'm guessing is where the expansions are installed on my pc, cause I see them there) to my live's 2tb hdd in my with no luck, only things that show up on the hdd on the live are .wav samples that won't load or preview. Help?