Audio Tracks in the 4K....

Any chance we'll ever see this implemented in a furure OS??

It'd be cool to be able to record long samples (vocals, live instruments, outboard gear, etc...) directly to the hard drive instead of the limited 512mb Ram available. The recorded samples would then be available for playback instantly via live streaming from the HD on audio tracks (at least 4, 8 tracks, or more would be nice). This feature is already available on the Korg Triton Studio (they added two audio tracks as of their latest OS) so I figure it shouldn't something that would be impossible to achieve on the MPC4K.
We already have audition of samples from HD so adding HD recording, audio tracks, and stream from HD sure seem achievable on the 4K.

A feature like that would definetely make the 4K more than the center piece of a recording studio.

What do you guys think? Has this idea been mentioned to Akai yet???

Summer2000 wrote:Any chance we'll ever see this implemented in a furure OS??

It'd be cool to be able to record long samples (vocals, live instruments, outboard gear, etc...) directly to the hard drive instead of the limited 512mb Ram available. The recorded samples would then be available for playback instantly via live streaming from the HD on audio tracks (at least 4, 8 tracks, or more would be nice). This feature is already available on the Korg Triton Studio (they added two audio tracks as of their latest OS) so I figure it shouldn't something that would be impossible to achieve on the MPC4K.
We already have audition of samples from HD so adding HD recording, audio tracks, and stream from HD sure seem achievable on the 4K.

A feature like that would definetely make the 4K more than the center piece of a recording studio.

What do you guys think? Has this idea been mentioned to Akai yet???

Yes

Well .. and....? Are they positive on this?

Sean from AkaiPro told us that the beta release for a new 4k OS can be expected near the end of this month.

Mister Blue Haze is trying to tell us that the new OS *may* have a feature that's cool for remixers. Can't remember the actual thread. My *guess* is that that next OS deals with some sort of sample streaming from disk, like the audio tracks you suggested. We'll find out soon.

... the addition of somekind of hard-disk recording might also be prompted by any perceived threat from the roland mv8000 (which can multi-track audio phrases to RAM).

Infact with the OS seemingly stable at last and Akai recovering from what ever problems it has had in the last couple of years, perhaps things have only just begun for the MPC4000? Further improvements to the OS and maybe additional expansion boards (VGA?*) seem more likely than a newer more advanced machine, although I must say the MPC1000 took me by surprise.

(*What is it with the MPC4000 and VGA out? There seems to be a connection, more than once I've seen references on the net to this, did Akai originaly propose it then cancel?)

Jim

"Further improvements to the OS seem more likely than a newer more advanced machine"

-> Lets hope so!

(*What is it with the MPC4000 and VGA out? There seems to be a connection, more than once I've seen references on the net to this, did Akai originaly propose it then cancel?)


There is one other connection inside the 4K that is not being used. Is it possible?

oh please...that would do it for me-

_ _

Why do you guys want a VGA out while you have AkSys?
Just curious. You want to use the VGA during live shows to get a bigger screen?

^^^^ I dont use a pc....I want a VGA output!!!!!!!!!!!!
Plus with a vga output id hope you could see everything.... sequence page, step edit etc...
Pez.

adrian wrote:There is one other connection inside the 4K that is not being used. Is it possible?

what's the connector like? (i'm not an mpc owner yet) How many pins/slots has it got? A straight vga connection doesn't need many. Has it a lot? If so it may be some kind of general expansion bus, like agp or pci on a computer which could take anything you designed for it pretty much. Are there any chips near it or connected to it? Googling the numbers on them normally reveals their function/manafacturer if they're not proprietary to Akai.

Vga output would need a number of things not least of all a graphics chip (other than the current one as this is driving a lo-res mono lcd which is most certainly not vga) and more importantly provision within the OS to tell the processor and graphics chip what and when to draw; read 'a lot of code'. Is the OS on the MPC4000 stored in ROM? If so chances are there is quite a tight size limit. For one particular box I own I was told by Roland that there were lots of things they wanted to add but had run out of room on the ROM. Companies do this for cost of manafacture reasons etc not shortsightedness btw. For example: The development OS is currently about 60k, we can source 100,000 64k ROM chips from Hitachi at half the price of Motorola's 96k chips, accountant goes away and does the sums, cool that means we can charge $100 less in the marketplace for the whole unit. The other chips mean we'll have to charge $50 more than we planned. A decision is made to go with the 64k chips because the product is in a competitive part of the market and needs to be inexpensive ... and in the case of Roland they always abandon their products within months anyway so we don't need anymore room for the OS as we 'aint never gonna change it

eh anyway, but yes it's entirely possible i would have thought, the things virtually a pc anyway, it's got an intel strongarm cpu, ide controllers, usb etc etc

Rob wrote:Why do you guys want a VGA out while you have AkSys?

Like I say I'm not an owner yet but AkSys doesn't deal with the sequencing side of things, just IO. One thing I do like about the MV8000 (Roland's more recent VS recorders do this as well) is that the internal display provides one level of detail but the external display doesn't simply copy this larger it actually provides more detail and different functionality.

Yeah I think just the existing lcd on a bigger screen would be fairly unexciting (what does the MPC3000 vga do?) but given my limited knowledge of the MPC workflow/workspace I think it could be really interesting to take that into 256 colours, 800x600 res or something ... alternatively it could be rubbish of course and not work properly until about OS 2.5 !!!

jim

This must be do-able! 4k is allready full duplex, they just need to add some feature wich let us record to virtual tracks. Cant be very difficult..

Let us all pray and cross our fingers ... Halleluja

what's the connector like? (i'm not an mpc owner yet) How many pins/slots has it got?

The connection is similar for the IB-48P.

I will attempt to extract some info from one of my former co-workers from AKAI.

If they are going to make a VGA connection board it seems I will have to sell either the ADAT board or 8 out analog board. That would be a difficult decision.

jellyjim wrote:
(*What is it with the MPC4000 and VGA out? There seems to be a connection, more than once I've seen references on the net to this, did Akai originaly propose it then cancel?)

Jim

I can tell you what I believe it to be. It was totatally Bad Marketing on Akai's part.
If you look at the original MPC 4000 Brochures you will see an MPC 4000
an Monitor directly behind it with Ak.Sys on the screen, a computer keyboard
and an external USB Harrdrive. The way the picture looks, is that you can plug a
Monitor in the back of the MPC 4000, when they were TRYING to show that you
can hook it up to a computer. The problem with the pic, is that their wasn't a computer
in the picture, so you're left if you don't know about Ak.Sys, in thinking that you can
just hook a monitor up to it and go.

I'm sure that's actually where Roland got their Idea for it, as Akai basiclly gave them the idea....

very plausible and it jogs my memory i have seen this explanantion before

renegadebliss wrote:
I can tell you what I believe it to be

...

I'm sure that's actually where Roland got their Idea for it, as Akai basiclly gave them the idea....

possibly, tho to be fair to roland you have been able to plug some kind of monitor into their samplers since the earliest s-series machines, s50/s330, these are dated 1986/1987!

jim