Exchange tips and tricks for the Akai MPC4000
By MPC 4 ME Wed Apr 08, 2009 7:31 pm
There are three important things they have to "fix"
There are a few tiny improvements I think they should add.

3 things they have to fix first:

The Poly Aftertouch settings are not saved with the program. I don't think this is a bug but yet this is fairly easy to implement.

Next is the loud noise when certain FX are loaded and when you adjust a program parameter with one of the Q-Links with Control Change. What is up with that?

Then in Operating System 1.71 (the last OS), sometimes the MPC deletes MIDI sequences. Because of this, I cannot use 1.71. Some other people have seen this and you can read those comments here on the forum. The sequences get deleted when you navigate real quickly and push buttons really really fast. This is a major bug and should be fixed first.


A few tiny improvements I think they should add:

- In the sequencer, I would like to copy MIDI notes from pad X to pad Y
- In program window, they should add a MUTE/SOLO function per pad!



I don't think these are too hard to fix/implement..
User avatar
By dalkore Wed Apr 08, 2009 7:45 pm
feline1 wrote:dalkore, even if there was no new OS,
users would still benefit greatly from an updated MPC4000 Reference Guide,
which includes all the changes listed in the Addendum documents for OS 1.16, 1.2, 1.3, 1.33, 1.4, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.71, 1.blahblahblah. (as it stands, if you read the original Reference Guide, a lot of the stuff is wrong now! and you have to search through about 10 other PDFs to double check ... pain in the ass)


This would be a fairly straightforward and routine job for a professional technical author like myself, were it not for the fact that Akai LOST THE SOURCE FILES.

The original MPC4000 user guide was written, in Japanese, in Adobe FrameMaker (industry standard format for long technical documents),
and translated into English by a translation firm in the Netherlands - this was in 2002.

However by the time Akai had gone bust twice, they'd lost the FrameMaker files, and all we have are the final PDFs. Ex-Akai employees have searched, including the guy who wrote the (far superior) Ak.Sys 2.5 User Guide, but no joy.

So, it would be necessary to waste dozens of man-hours barfing out the PDF into rich text or plain text or something like that, and reformatting the whole sorry thing back into a new FrameMaker template, re-inserting all the screenshots, rebuilding all the cross-references......
the job would take about 10 or 15 times longer.
Bloody nuisance.

No way would I do that for free at this point in my life!


Fel - Will you PM me with the hour you estimate this would take if you were retained for this project and what hourly rate you would be using to figure the total cost. This will give me a talking point when they call me back.
By adrian Wed Apr 08, 2009 8:46 pm
dalkore wrote:
Fel - Will you PM me with the hour you estimate this would take if you were retained for this project and what hourly rate you would be using to figure the total cost. This will give me a talking point when they call me back.



:lol: You :lol: really think think they are going to call back? :lol:
User avatar
By feline1 Wed Apr 08, 2009 9:19 pm
:lol: Dude, everyone's tried this stuff so many times already. Akai couldn't care less.

But anyways:
There are are at least 350 pages of material involved.....
I'd usually expect a document that size to take a month to turn around from start to sign-off.
(longer, if they want to actually review and check it properly)

Here in the UK you'd usually be talking a few £thousand for a pro contract author to work for a month on a project like that.
By MPC 4 ME Wed Apr 08, 2009 10:59 pm
Hey, just to be clear, I'm not gonna pay to see the manual updated. The manual is the least of my concerns. If they are gonna do something for the MPC4000, they should work on the OS only and make another cheap addendum. The manual is really not that important.
User avatar
By feline1 Wed Apr 08, 2009 11:52 pm
MPC 4 ME wrote:Hey, just to be clear, I'm not gonna pay to see the manual updated. The manual is the least of my concerns. If they are gonna do something for the MPC4000, they should work on the OS only and make another cheap addendum. The manual is really not that important.



yeah right. Only cos other people read it for you :lol:
By kvmoore Fri Apr 10, 2009 1:45 am
b-righteous wrote:Regardless of the past baggage, I would def pay for an update to the 4k to add a few 5k features like mute groups and add an improved chop shop 3.0. Of course, fix the gain, split tracks, and sysex bugs without introducing a bunch of new ones.



Heck yeah. +1 on that. As a matter or fact, +1000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Even if Akai doesn't add a lot of the other new 5k features to the new OS, but at least add "track mute groups" and maybe "pad mutes" then I would definitely be more than thrilled!!!!!!!!!

Oh yeah, another nice thing to add too would be to allow the MPC4000 to import programs and sequences from the MPC1000/MPC2500.

So, yeah, I'd definitely be willing to pay for a new OS for my 4k. Heck, I did it for my MPC1000 with the JJ OS so to me, this is no different. I think Akai should have learned from JJ by now. Any new OS (as long as it introduces new/useful features as well as bug fixes) is well worth the purchase in my book. Since it isn't going to be free, paying for it is far better than not having it available at all!!!!!