Probably going to ditch my Akai MPC Key 37

I had really high hopes for the Akai MPC Key 37: I wanted a compact, portable sequencer/drum machine with a small keyboard for use in live settings for music that is often improvised. Often, the music will change time-signature during the song, (which is neither a big ask (every previous sequencer I've had can do it) and not that uncommon (from the Beatles onwards).

To that end, I was hoping to be able to do the following:

1. Have sequences within a project with different time signatures
2. Be able to improvise a song, playing a sequence to start then shifting to a second sequence and so on, with chords that might hold over the boundaries of the sequences.

You can do neither of these things.

A project can have one time signature, you cannot have different time signatures within a single project. You can sometimes work around this by using maths.

If you hold down a sustained chord while playing one sequence and then tell the Key 37 to play another sequence, when that second sequence starts, it fires a midi-off/reset message to the pad sound, killing it. I've raised a support ticket about this and have been told that's how it works at the moment. The argument that you could just programme all the sequences you need in for a song and play along with that misses two important points: firstly, if there's improvisation in the music, you don't necessarily havce a fixed structure; secondly, if the singer misses their cue and comes in late, there's no way to recover and you end in public disaster.

So, this really puts a damper on this as a bit of kit for playing live.

This is on top of the annoying issue that only proprietary plugins can be used on the thing - I kind've understand their business model for that but the official pluings I have bought so far are quite inferior to the plugins I have on my DAW (like the Arturia ones).

On the plus side, Akai do seem to be developing the MPC operating system, so it's possible the above issues might be fixed. Also, it is possible to work around things to a certain extent and I have been using it in live situations.

So, I am in two minds as to whether to ditch this thing or not. It's *almost* great, it can *almost* do everything I want, it's *almost* something I would recommend to my friends. But it has these two massive showstoppers for playing live.

All the best,
Mike

We are in a similar boat.
For 6 months I said to myself that "Akai will fix these issues in the next firmware. I'm sure they will because these omissions are just too silly to be left there unattended". But the fixes hasn't arrived yet.

But as there currently is nothing else on the market that is as competent for the rest of the 80% it does well, I'll just need to stick with my MPC.

My gut feeling is that they will need to start catering to the live musicians soon again. Once they realize that they cannot only focus on the Youtube view chasers and young gens with short attention spans. Their interest tend to wear off quick when there is another new shiny toy on the market

There's no flawless gear. Every sequencer has flaws. Sustained pads thru sequences, btw, are the most common problem of all sequencers. I mean, all midi notes should be off at the end of sequence. This is normal.

The fact that these things have an ever growing library of fairly high quality plugins that you can add to your already jam-packed ecosystem is in itself pretty unique in the 'standalone' world, did you see what this platform looked like just a few years ago? It didn't even have audio track support until MPC2 arrived.

Really, if you want to run VST plugins that are generally only coded for use on powerful Mac/PC environments you should just take a laptop on stage with you and run your Arturia plugins from that. You could even still use your MPC for everything and just use your laptop as a connected MIDI instrument.

MikeInOxford wrote:This is on top of the annoying issue that only priprietary plugins can be used on the thing - I kind've understand their business model for that but the official pluings I have bought so far are quite inferior to the plugins I have on my DAW (like the Arturia ones).

John Down Doe wrote:There's no flawless gear. Every sequencer has flaws. Sustained pads thru sequences, btw, are the most common problem of all sequencers. I mean, all midi notes should be off at the end of sequence. This is normal.

Please don't tell Elektron this and risking them crippling their sequencer aswell, if this is what to expect from "all sequencers".
My Elektron sequencers doesn't have this ridiculous limitation. But instead they only have 4 note polyphony as the limitation

I agree with all your point except for the plugin thing. What keyboard workstation from what brand allows running any plugin from any developer? None.

ALL Notes Off message on sequence change is ridiculously stupid though, and it's likely not to change anytime soon.

I guess the solution would be to use the CLIP Matrix instead of sequences, but it would mean having to pay $200 on top of whatever you paid for your MPC... If you feel like you need to cut your loses at that point then yes, get rid of the MPC Key 37.

In general, I'd describe the modern MPC line as highly capable on paper, but when you stray away from a certain way of working, the device falls apart because of the bugs or odd workflow choices.

For instance, people who need to send Program Changes on sequence change will have no choice but to insert a program change message in the sequence, therefore triggering that message at every "loop", often resetting whatever program on the external device they are trying to control: BIG FAIL, especially when the MPC worked as expected in OS 2.X. So edge cases like these can simply make the MPC completely useless in some situations (again, maybe the clip matrix fixes that, I don't know, but $200 pay wall on GEN1 is egregious...).

mpc_fan_2022 wrote:ALL Notes Off message on sequence change is ridiculously stupid though, and it's likely not to change anytime soon.

I guess the solution would be to use the CLIP Matrix instead of sequences, but it would mean having to pay $200 on top of whatever you paid for your MPC...

All good points. But how is Clip matrix solving the Note Off issue?

Let's say you have paid for the Pro Pack and try to use the MPC synced with external gear and their sequences. Clip matrix has no way of following progran changes, correct?
In that case the Clip matrix is not solving alot...

horisonten wrote:

John Down Doe wrote:There's no flawless gear. Every sequencer has flaws. Sustained pads thru sequences, btw, are the most common problem of all sequencers. I mean, all midi notes should be off at the end of sequence. This is normal.

Please don't tell Elektron this and risking them crippling their sequencer aswell, if this is what to expect from "all sequencers".
My Elektron sequencers doesn't have this ridiculous limitation. But instead they only have 4 note polyphony as the limitation

I have A4 too. What did i mean: you can't record sustained pad over 1x seq, while sequencer is running.

John Down Doe wrote:I have A4 too. What did i mean: you can't record sustained pad over 1x seq, while sequencer is running.

You can't? If you hold a note over a pattern change on Elektron boxes, the note will get an "infinite" length value on the note, and thus will sustain indefinitely until a new trig with a different value is reached on another pattern?

And recording of notes over sequence changes is not what is discussed in this topic. This topic discusses the issue that you cannot play notes/chords over sequence changes when playing live (not recording).

For sustained tails turn off looping in clip record if that's a thing in 3.xx mpc my only frame of reference is the FORCE software. Clips are like sequences you can adjust the length and timing iirc so you can have granular timing and length per clip.

When you get done filling up the clips then you can record to an arrangement. Folks producing directly to the arranger are kinda doin it wrong but if the frickin clip matrix is behind a pay-wall their hand is being forced.

MikeInOxford wrote:So, I am in two minds as to whether to ditch this thing or not. It's *almost* great, it can *almost* do everything I want, it's *almost* something I would recommend to my friends. But it has these two massive showstoppers for playing live.

So you basically say when you bought the Key 37 that its limitations would be that bad, right?

IMHO we might see a solution for the time signature and note hold over issues. But if you're short of money I'd rather sell now and don't wait for fixes that might never come.

As for the plugin quality, an MPC is way underpowered when compared to not-so-modern Windows or macOS machines. And sadly Akai never updates a synth or FX even on popular demand. So in this regard you are stuck.