MPC X, MPC Live, MPC One & MPC Key 61 Forum: Support and discussion for the MPC X, MPC Live, MPC Live II, MPC One & MPC Key 61; Akai's current generation of standalone MPCs.
By Calcaire Thu May 26, 2022 2:03 pm
I ended up making my first album on that groovebox, my first piece of musical gear too. I put my album on mp3.com and made over 100 dollars in streams.


First electronic loop based music was on this one for me too !! I'll be glad to listen to your first album if you have a link ... Cheerz
By HUBA Thu May 26, 2022 2:08 pm
Uncle Dieppe wrote:128 midi tracks should be a minimum count these days and!!!!I mean a workstation thats only able to address 16 Midi channels per se and compromise those between int or external is shocking in this day and age


I wouldn't expect anything close to sensible, forget about tight, MIDI timing with 128 tracks running simultaneously so I'm not sure how useful that would be anyway.

Yeah 16 channels in total seems quite limited for a studio center piece. For stand alone use however it somehow makes sense with the somewhat limited amount of effects available. I've never tried the Kronos, still in the process of researching it, but to me it most of all looks like a highly capable synth workstation that's super flexible for stand alone use with perhaps a more complicated workflow than necessary. I'm considering getting one but it's not like I'll be selling off my MPC's or anything, I'll get it primarily for its massive stand alone potential.

That's the gear industry for you. I don't even want a workstation. I just want a capable synth engine with a flexible set of effects, a fair amount of voices plus realtime sequencing and it seems the Kronos is the only product on the planet that has this covered. In addition to a lot of other neat things as well off course, like a full fledged sampler. So except maybe for the cumbersome workflow, the cons of the Kronos seem to be of a nature I could learn to live with as I don't really need it to be what it's sold as being :lol:
User avatar
By Lampdog Thu May 26, 2022 4:06 pm
The Kronos seq edit is like on mpc 4k.

Fx are OFF THE CHAIN, you can audio thru it as an fx box also.

Sample + sequence at the same time if you want.

Usb audio.

Control surface is SUPER CONFIGURABLE!

9 synth engines, no other hardware synth does that.

A full recreation of MS20 (one of the synth engines) with drag and drop virtual modular cables is in there.

A full recreation of Polysix (another of the synth engines) is in there.

Virtual Foot pedals.

So many envelopes I still get lost finding my way around. Could have been laid out better
but I knew what I was buying when I bought it. Sampling and making kits will take some getting use to.

Make sure you know the differences between the diff vers of Kronos. Some comes with expansions and some don’t.

There is an ios app for set list management.
By HUBA Thu May 26, 2022 5:12 pm
Lampdog wrote:The Kronos seq edit is like on mpc 4k.

Fx are OFF THE CHAIN, you can audio thru it as an fx box also.

Sample + sequence at the same time if you want.

Usb audio.

Control surface is SUPER CONFIGURABLE!

9 synth engines, no other hardware synth does that.

A full recreation of MS20 (one of the synth engines) with drag and drop virtual modular cables is in there.

A full recreation of Polysix (another of the synth engines) is in there.

Virtual Foot pedals.

So many envelopes I still get lost finding my way around. Could have been laid out better
but I knew what I was buying when I bought it. Sampling and making kits will take some getting use to.

Make sure you know the differences between the diff vers of Kronos. Some comes with expansions and some don’t.

There is an ios app for set list management.


Yeah that sounds pretty awesome. Do you know if it's possible to program tempo synced envelope stages by using the step mod sequencer as a modulation source? To have say the pitch envelope decay time set to say a dotted 8th notes length? Hope that made sense.

EDIT: If the step mod sequencer can be set to play at key press/note on that is. Like an arpeggiator.
User avatar
By Monotremata Thu May 26, 2022 5:40 pm
Lampdog wrote:The Kronos seq edit is like on mpc 4k.

Fx are OFF THE CHAIN, you can audio thru it as an fx box also.

Sample + sequence at the same time if you want.

Usb audio.

Control surface is SUPER CONFIGURABLE!

9 synth engines, no other hardware synth does that.

A full recreation of MS20 (one of the synth engines) with drag and drop virtual modular cables is in there.

A full recreation of Polysix (another of the synth engines) is in there.

Virtual Foot pedals.

So many envelopes I still get lost finding my way around. Could have been laid out better
but I knew what I was buying when I bought it. Sampling and making kits will take some getting use to.

Make sure you know the differences between the diff vers of Kronos. Some comes with expansions and some don’t.

There is an ios app for set list management.


Damn the Kronos sounds **** bad ass. My last Korg was an N364, had a sequencer and engine pretty much the same as my best friends T3. I remember seeing the Trinity at the time those came out but that thing was way out of my budget hah. Sounds like I should've made the money stretch and got one of those I wouldn't have had the horrid experience i did with the N364..

Go figure I traded my N364 for a JX-8P with the PG800 programmer back when analogs weren't worth shit in 2000 or so. Nowadays the mariachi bands down here in Los Angeles are buying up those N series for ridiculous amounts of money all because of some stupid accordian or something preset thats on it.
User avatar
By Lampdog Fri May 27, 2022 12:37 am
The only 2 things I think will throw people off is the menu diving, jam packed with so many features there is some diving going on.

and

Sequence edit being like the LIST EDIT in the current mpc’s. It’s not grid and/or timeline which is something people LOVE.

I have a Kronos2 and if yall see something in the manual you need further details on I’ll explain it if I know it. It’s not a problem.

I honestly don’t see mpc61 in Kronos’ hemisphere AT ALL.

What mpc61 will have to compete against if it calls itself a kybd workstation.
By SuperKonquer Fri May 27, 2022 11:11 am
I loved the Kronos when I had it but I had to sell because I was moving and didn't want it damaged sitting in storage. But then Fedex wrecked it before it got to the buyer and I only got partially reimbursed for it's value. I still feel like selling it was the worst decision I ever made gear wise. It is a freaking beast.

You have to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to use it to its maximum capability. I don't think anybody on the planet except for the developers really know how to use the Karma engine lol. Learning how to use that thing completely would be like graduating from MIT. When I bought a Montage I was disappointed in how it took me 3 secs to figure everything out.

The Kronos imo opinion is the best, feature stuffed flagship keyboard ever made period.
User avatar
By Lampdog Fri May 27, 2022 7:21 pm
SuperKonquer wrote:I don't think anybody on the planet except for the developers really know how to use the Karma engine lol. Learning how to use that thing completely would be like graduating from MIT.

I feel this statement in my soul.

X took me about 3 weeks to learn most of it.

If mpc61 is Live w/ an attached kybd then it won’t take people long to learn it at all.
If it’s more then that’ll be a good surprise for folks.

Long while back I never thought a better combo existed other than ASR10+2KXL.

Then came:
Triton Extreme +2kxl
Triton Extreme + 4k
Kronos2 + 4k
Kronos2 + MPC X AND i’m very happy in this spot.
User avatar
By MPD MPK RAY Sat May 28, 2022 8:39 am
I keep hearing the MPC Key 61 will be:

"Just a MPC Live with a MPK strapped to it"

A LOT up here......

But Lamp if you had seen a MPC5000 flip through not one synth engine......but let's say you demoed a 5000 with the XV-5080 built in......

Let's say MPC not Alesis made a keyboard that moved through hundreds of XV-5080 patches fast....

On the 23rd...
By brisket Sun May 29, 2022 12:47 pm
Calcaire wrote:
I ended up making my first album on that groovebox, my first piece of musical gear too. I put my album on mp3.com and made over 100 dollars in streams.


First electronic loop based music was on this one for me too !! I'll be glad to listen to your first album if you have a link ... Cheerz


That's awesome! Don't have a link to the album in proper order, and I forget the order, but at https://archive.org/details/iuma-oedipus_complex tracks: 3 & 4, 6 & 7, 10 through 13, 15 & 16 were all the tracks on the first album. A lot of them were straight groovebox, a few groovebox + guitar and vocs
If you got your groovebox tunes online I'd love to hear them too. there's a couple of really good ones on YouTube
It's remarkable too that I got the One at the intro price of 699 before the two different 100 dollar price raises... and I'm pretty sure 699 was the price of my mc-303 when I got it.