El Macaco said:
I know you can change the velocity of a sample within a track, but what if the track is made up of multisampled notes? A bit of a pain in the ****.
Exactly. I have the same very basic question (no whining, please, rest assured) - Why omit a basic OS function that has been on all MPCs for the past 15 years? Why remove the ability of an MPC to adjust the overall volume of one track (midi or internal samples)?
IMO - Whether you record five notes on the piano, or seven internal drum samples on the pads into the MPC, you should be able to make the volumes louder and softer. An intelligent, basic and prior MPC method of playing back the material is raising or lowering the volume by part, or by track, or by take, whatever you want to call it.
IMO - When people play music, they use multiple notes or sounds. That's why midi controllers have 25 to 88 keys. That's why every MPC (so far) has 16 pads that can trigger 16 different notes. So you can play multiple notes. Normally you can turn the track(part/take) volume up and down on an MPC. On an MPC60/3000/2000/2000xl/4000, you could do this. Yet, the only way you can do this on an MPC1000 is to go into step edit mode and adjust each individual, single note. One at a time.
MPC3000's comment on this situation:
"I get the feeling that people are just upset that they do not get ALL the features of the MPC2000XL for $400 less. This is simply not going to be the case. In order to create an affordable machine, so things are just not there. This is not saying they will not show up, because a lot of what eventually happens to the MPC will depend on sales. If people complain a lot about the MPC, sales go down and Akai can no longer support the product. Personally, I would like to see the machine sell well. More sales mean more features. Plain and simple. People can be for this goal, or they can be against it"
Great use of intimidation and false economics.
Great way to address customers.
Your logic is: complaints up => sales down => no new features.
Well, guess what happens when you tell your customers that they didn’t spend enough money to be heard or listened to? SALES GO DOWN. Guess what prospective buyers of this unit will do when they see that their purchase will result in their comments and observations having no value? SALES WILL GO DOWN MORE.
MPC3000, you are surprised that people (meaning myself and any other people who have viewed or contributed to this thread) are still spending so much time on a “non-issue”? Several people have voiced their opinion that a basic function found on other MPCs that should be on this product. That you should be able to globally adjust the volume up or down for all notes on a track, samples or midi, quickly and easily. This seems like a fair request and a valid issue to me.
MPC3000, you also state that you believe that AKAI customers that have purchased an MPC1000 expect more product for less money? How about this - write the number down. How much will it cost to code the veloctiy %? If it's a question of money, sell an OS upgrade for an additional cost. Version 2. IMHO, this is much more effective than ignoring and offending your customers because they haven't dropped enough coin into the companies net sales figures. Even better, as a sign of goodwill to their customers, AKAI can simply release the updated OS free of charge.
Finally, this "People can be for this goal, or they can be against it" is wrong. How about "People can either buy AKAI's products now and in the future, or never buy AKAI's products again". If this thread is an example of how AKAI sees their customers, you know the answer.