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 wessberg Sun Jan 29, 2023 7:07 pm
Sorry for the semi-long read. I've been the happy owner of quite a few AKAI products over the years, and it is still one of the brands I trust the most and prefer to buy over the competition every time. I recently decided to give my good old S6000 sampler a rest and replace it with an MPC Live II for my live setup.

However I'm having some concerns and worries currently, all of which might be entirely unwarranted, but they're there. I don't want to just spread negativity, please understand that I really want AKAI to succeed and to continue to buy AKAI products for years to come.

So, to kick things off, I was really surprised to learn that the Live II couldn't do disk streaming, something I've always relied heavily on from my S5000 and S6000 samplers for live gigs. I'm aware that the Force can now do it, but I like the MPC workflow, and bought the Live II specifically because its portable, battery-powered nature fits really well into what I use it for currently.

I have been looking for a public roadmap from AKAI to understand if this is something they're intending to work on, but none seems to exist. I have been looking for statements or responses to questions from anyone representing AKAI in regards to whether or not disk streaming is a priority and whether or not the MPC product I bought will eventually support it. I have found none. I have tried to reach out to AKAI on Twitter. They didn't respond, and generally don't seem to respond to questions like that, certainly not publicly.

Now, combine this with my impressions based on their press releases for each new MPC update, the only insights I have into what is being worked on, and these always seem to focus on adding new effects and instruments to the MPC platform, all of which I really don't care about or use at all, rather than a deep focus on productivity enhancing tools or addressing the longest standing requests from the community - a community AKAI has built up over many years and really needs to protect, as this is one of its big advantages. AKAI is a respected brand.

I'm fully aware that AKAI nowadays is positioned within a competitive landscape where it's getting ever more difficult to beat the competition, - Ableton Live on a laptop - and thus they've clearly made it a strategic focus to compete on these DAW-like things, but ultimately what I've always liked about AKAI is how no matter what I've needed to accomplish from my sampler (or MIDI controller, etc) in the past, I've always found a way to do it - clearly AKAI products are engineered by people who use the products themselves, and clearly these have evolved from real-world use cases that doesn't seem relevant on the surface but comes up over time as the community starts using these tools in professional applications across the world and over years and years. Now, the omission of disk streaming seems to break that experience for me entirely, as this is so fundamental to me, and seems so glaringly, obviously important for touring musicians, especially for a unit with the word "Live" in the name.

Honestly, it feels like it's just too difficult to get in touch with AKAI directly, and I think there is extreme value in collaborating directly with the community while committing to a public roadmap - especially with a trusted brand like AKAI with a large group of returning customers who are essentially ambassadors for AKAI, having been along for the ride for many years.

AKAI, please don't neglect the importance of customers who come back and keep investing in your brand. Please work directly with us, share your thoughts with us and ask for our feedback. Get to know us, and the ways we use your products. That's the reason why AKAI became a leader in its field, and that's how you continue to stay relevant.
By mpc_fan_2022 Sun Jan 29, 2023 8:12 pm
Complaining about AKAI's customer service or engineering practices/organisation here is completely useless. There is a litany of such comments on this forum including dozens of mine, for years... AKAI/InMusic doesn't care.

When it comes to the Force vs MPC, there is not that much difference in the workflow, it's just that the force has scenes instead of sequences. But you can trigger scenes just like one can trigger sequences on the MPC. That plus all the things that the Force has that the MPC does not have. You can read the Force's Addenda to figure that out.


It was hypothesized here that technical debt burdens the MPC codebase therefore AKAI/InMusic engineers cannot easily add functions that are on the Force to the MPC, so it's very likely the Force will always be years ahead of the MPC in terms of functions for the near future.
By LivePsy Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:33 pm
Wessberg, I agree with you. The current MPC hardware does not stream from hard disk, will not record more than 5 minutes of audio, the time stretch and pitching is terrible and is a mess of a user interface. I concentrate on it as the basic drum sampler with some (inconvenient) step automation and 4 fx per pad. Its good. The workflow is a chore IMO. But it isn't brilliant like the Toraiz SP-16 with fast kits, editing and step programming. Maschine does the same subset of functions with better workflow than the MPC too. So the MPC lacks audio features for full one box live jamming while missing the fast and fun workflow of competitors.
By SuperKonquer Mon Jan 30, 2023 12:46 am
I'm sure Akai reads the forums here but they're probably not really going to prioritize much of the data they gain. They had their own feedback forum and shut it down so that's very telling about how much serious attention they pay to public ranting.

But I suspect the Akai Force isn't as hot of a product as the MPC and I think the need to put a divider between all the cool new features on the Force and lack thereof on the MPC will dissipate as time moves forward and maybe we'll get disk streaming sooner than later.
By renegadebliss Mon Jan 30, 2023 12:57 am
I'm not sure if you are aware or not, but the Akai Z4 & Z8 samplers and the MPC 4000 that came out right after the S5000/6000 series also did NOT have disk streaming. It was a complete OS re-write and did not provide that functionality. In between S6000 & MPC Live/X - only MPC5000 & JJOS version of MPC 1000 had disk streaming.
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By MPC-Tutor Mon Jan 30, 2023 3:26 pm
wessberg wrote:I have been looking for a public roadmap from AKAI to understand if this is something they're intending to work on, but none seems to exist. I have been looking for statements or responses to questions from anyone representing AKAI in regards to whether or not disk streaming is a priority and whether or not the MPC product I bought will eventually support it. I have found none. I have tried to reach out to AKAI on Twitter. They didn't respond, and generally don't seem to respond to questions like that, certainly not publicly.


A product manager, Dan Gill had a productive period on gearspace engaging with questions, pontificating on possible future features and diskstreaming was talked about but looks like it only came to the Force. He no longer posts anywhere, not even sure if he still works there. In the past they did try some interaction here but it didn't end well, they sent a marketing guy when they should have sent a developer, or at least Dan Gill .

These days they seem to have little, if any, public engagement beyond social media marketing posts. There are no public roadmaps, and no direct discussion about upcoming features, they don't respond to bug reports or feature requests sent through the official 'feedback' form inside the MPC Software, they closed down their forum and removed all the phone numbers from their site.
By HouseWithoutMouse Mon Jan 30, 2023 3:41 pm
Patientrichard wrote:Why are we not buying things for what they can do, instead of what we wished they could do, these days?


Because the products are largely software, and software gets updated. Manufacturers send an implied message that there will be something more and better in the future, so it's safe to buy even though it currently sucks. Nobody treats these things as non-updateable hardware objects, it would be silly and denying what's actually happening.

They're selling a promise of a better future, just like they're selling a promise of being able to produce better music. For a lot of people it's about dreams. That's marketing, their job is to make you want things and to have dreams that buying the product could fulfill.

Only if you're using the product to earn a living, and you need it to work right now, then you don't care about the promises.
By mpc_fan_2022 Mon Jan 30, 2023 5:32 pm
HouseWithoutMouse wrote:
Patientrichard wrote:Why are we not buying things for what they can do, instead of what we wished they could do, these days?


Because the products are largely software, and software gets updated. Manufacturers send an implied message that there will be something more and better in the future, so it's safe to buy even though it currently sucks. Nobody treats these things as non-updateable hardware objects, it would be silly and denying what's actually happening.

They're selling a promise of a better future, just like they're selling a promise of being able to produce better music. For a lot of people it's about dreams. That's marketing, their job is to make you want things and to have dreams that buying the product could fulfill.

Only if you're using the product to earn a living, and you need it to work right now, then you don't care about the promises.


The lesson is, never buy a device for what it could be but for what it is when you buy it. The Force OS was terrible when it released, I didn't buy it, I waited until AKAI add an arranger to it and I got it cheaper as a result. If AKAI didn't I would never have bought it, as simple as that.

The people who bought the MPC, found it lacking, and expect AKAI to eventually listen to their suggestions are setting themselves up for a great disappointment.
Last edited by mpc_fan_2022 on Mon Jan 30, 2023 5:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
By wessberg Mon Jan 30, 2023 5:41 pm
Thanks for your replies everyone. There's some really good points and insights there. Just goes to show that the AKAI community is an intelligent one, and one that cares!

It sounds like AKAI has grown increasingly isolated when it comes to relations with the community on feature development as of late, which might have to do with resource constraints.

And especially for that reason, limited resources, I feel like AKAI releasing the Force was a mistake, not because it isn't a great product - it is - but because it divides the customer base into two parts (yes, some will buy both, but the MPC line and the Force are similar enough that they compete for the same potential buyers), and that also means AKAI essentially have to split whatever development resources they have available into building the same features twice (not sure how much of the code base is shared, they might be smart about it, but still it is safe to assume a great deal of overhead). I think they would benefit greatly from focusing on making the MPC platform as powerful as possible with the resources they have, and to do that they need to work far more closely with their customers.
By wessberg Mon Jan 30, 2023 5:57 pm
mpc_fan_2022 wrote:The people who bought the MPC, found it lacking, and expect AKAI to eventually listen to their suggestions are setting themselves up for a great disappointment.


While I agree with you, I was simply so absolutely, utterly convinced that disk streaming would be supported on a professional, live-oriented sampler with only 2 gigs of memory, that honestly I didn't even think about it when I researched whether or not the Live II would fit into my setup. Coming from the S6000, this was never something I had to think about, so I didn't even know this was something that might not be supported on a professional sampler. The words "disk streaming" entered my vocabulary at a later point.

This is one of those things that you only realize is an issue when you run into it, and that may happen well into a production, as the pieces come together in tour preparations or whatever.
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By EnochLight Tue Jan 31, 2023 1:48 am
wessberg wrote:I feel like AKAI releasing the Force was a mistake, not because it isn't a great product - it is - but because it divides the customer base into two parts


I feel like it was a great move and certainly not a mistake - it appeals to users who prefer an Ableton Live clip-based workflow, and that tends to be a different sort of user than traditional MPC heads. And for those who love both workflows, well - that would be users like me - so I bought bought a current-gen MPC as well as a Force. My Force stays in my studio and is the master controller; my MPC Live II sits on my desk for quick jams and goes with me on-the-go (I've taken to the park, on vacation, in a dozen hotel rooms, at the beach, at the pool, etc). Horses for courses and all that... :smoker:

wessberg wrote:While I agree with you, I was simply so absolutely, utterly convinced that disk streaming would be supported on a professional, live-oriented sampler with only 2 gigs of memory, that honestly I didn't even think about it when I researched whether or not the Live II would fit into my setup.


Just curious - how do you see disk streaming working on the new-gen MPC's? Because on Force, it's just best utilized in the form of the 8 stereo audio tracks, and that's it - basically it makes Force an 8 (stereo)-track recorder. Can't use it for Drum Program (it can quickly saturate the bandwidth); can't use it for Keygroups (for the same reason). I mean - you CAN use it for Drum Programs and Keygroups but only in a very limited capacity.

So what would you want it to do on MPC?
By Elijah Tue Jan 31, 2023 3:52 am
It's amazing that all of Deluge's samples work with disk streaming. I wonder why other samplers can't.
By wessberg Tue Jan 31, 2023 6:47 am
EnochLight wrote:
wessberg wrote:I feel like AKAI releasing the Force was a mistake, not because it isn't a great product - it is - but because it divides the customer base into two parts


I feel like it was a great move and certainly not a mistake - it appeals to users who prefer an Ableton Live clip-based workflow, and that tends to be a different sort of user than traditional MPC heads. And for those who love both workflows, well - that would be users like me - so I bought bought a current-gen MPC as well as a Force. My Force stays in my studio and is the master controller; my MPC Live II sits on my desk for quick jams and goes with me on-the-go (I've taken to the park, on vacation, in a dozen hotel rooms, at the beach, at the pool, etc). Horses for courses and all that... :smoker:

wessberg wrote:While I agree with you, I was simply so absolutely, utterly convinced that disk streaming would be supported on a professional, live-oriented sampler with only 2 gigs of memory, that honestly I didn't even think about it when I researched whether or not the Live II would fit into my setup.


Just curious - how do you see disk streaming working on the new-gen MPC's? Because on Force, it's just best utilized in the form of the 8 stereo audio tracks, and that's it - basically it makes Force an 8 (stereo)-track recorder. Can't use it for Drum Program (it can quickly saturate the bandwidth); can't use it for Keygroups (for the same reason). I mean - you CAN use it for Drum Programs and Keygroups but only in a very limited capacity.

So what would you want it to do on MPC?


And I agree with you that the Force is a great product, but I still do think there's substantial overlap between the buyer interested in the Force and an MPC, and the majority will only buy one of these units. This causes fragmentation. My hunch is that AKAI doesn't have that many development resources, and they're really trying to gain ground against Ableton. Well, to do that, I think they need to have a more clear focus and vision. As a new buyer, I think one might be confused as to whether the Force or the MPC is the best long-term investment. It might even lead someone to buy neither.

As for your question about how I see disk streaming working on the MPC - what's there on the Force would be just perfect for me. All I need from the MPC for disk streaming is the capability to play back sequences of stems/backing tracks and click tracks. Having 8 separate stereo audio tracks is more than enough.
By Wul Tue Jan 31, 2023 8:31 am
If you want the force experience install the Hakai firmware ffs. You get the best of both worlds, and can if you think about it complement each other.
And if you want to complain to akai seek out the head of software development on Twitter and send him a tweet. He does see it, and may respond.