A Review, My Experience of JJ's Free vs. XL

Just wanted to share my recent experience with upgrading to JJ OS XL.

Got my first MPC last week, a 2500 with the free JJ OS already installed. Read all about how crappy the Akai OS is and how necessary JJ OS is. Well, I had a few issues with the Akai manual and the JJ OS not lining up. But still managed to navigate the machine, make a few beats, chop a few samples.

Last night I put JJ's OS XL on my machine, because I kept reading that it made the MPC into more of an instrument, more of a multi-use sampler, better for music production as a whole. I'm an Ableton Live guy, and the reason for dropping nearly a grand on an MPC was to get away from needing software to produce electronic music.

Loaded up a few samples from a sample disc that came with the MPC. I'm still learning how to do such things, and I haven't put any of my own samples on the MPC yet. Thought I'd just poke around and see how the nicer OS works.

I have to say, WOW! JJ OS XL was incredibly easy to navigate. Many things just make *sense*. Menus and windows are very intuitive. I created an instrument patch out of a guitar sample with absolutely no stress. I chopped up a sample and assigned it to pads with incredible ease. Where the free JJ OS still made me look things up or post on this forum, the JJ OS XL spelled it right out for me on my LCD window. Using Grid Edit to delete and move notes is SO MUCH EASIER! Recording with 16 levels is SO EASY!

I'd set out to "poke around the OS", and ended up making a sick beat with instrument patches, hip hop drums, pitch control on my Q-link slider #1, all with little effort. In fact it was FUN to poke around and figure out the OS because it's so dang intuitive. There are still some things I'm trying to figure out - like how to easily create an instrument program out of a sample, and then create another instrument out of the same sample only reversed - but I can say without a doubt that this upgrade was well worth it. My prior experience with DAWs certainly helped, but again, the comparison from free JJ OS to JJ OS XL really isn't a comparison. Free JJ OS, while reportedly "better" than the Akai OS, was still archaic and non-sensical at times during my first week of MPC learning. JJ OS XL seems to "unlock" the MPC's potential, and in turn the user's potential.

In fact after about 1.5 hours of playing around in XL, I knew I had to go ahead and purchase a password. I'd lost track of time, simply enjoying how badass and smooth the music-making experience was in XL, as well as appreciating how close to a real DAW that XL is!

I am writing this the next day, recalling what sticks out about the experience. It really was a "oh, THIS is why I dropped so much money on a hardware recorder/sampler" moment. I'd sort of had that experience when I first got the MPC (w/ the free JJ OS), because of the MPC workflow, but the OS upgrade blew all of that out of the water.

Needless to say, I am very excited to continue working with my MPC with JJ's help.

I hope this helps anyone researching MPCs, or considering the upgrade. Can't say its right for everyone, but I can say that I'm blown away by how much the upgrades improves workflow and accessibility. And how much more like a DAW it is - without the "unlimited options" issue that many DAWs have!



Note - I am talking about the XL version for the 2500. On the 1000 it would be the 2XL, I believe. Additionally I almost bought a password for the 1000 version.... it was a bit tricky on the website to make sure that I was buying the correct version for my machine.

alex1fly wrote:In fact after about 1.5 hours of playing around in XL, I knew I had to go ahead and purchase a password. I'd lost track of time, simply enjoying how badass and smooth the music-making experience was in XL, as well as appreciating how close to a real DAW that XL is!

I think I made it to about 1.2 hours a couple years ago when I bought mine.
And I think when I brought a 2500 home I paid for OSXL before even taking off my jacket.

Yeah I think I saw your posts saying in effect "oh free trial? yeah I'll peep..." Not surprised you got hooked immediately.

Don't forget to look at the MIDI CC stuff JJOS2XL can do. Could come in handy if you're using the MPC with Ableton and can also save some wear on your MPC's tact switches which inevitably will die.