MPC FLY WITH BEATMAKER 2?

I feel your point inflict3. I had posted a few weeks ago in one of these threads that I had in effect actually acted as an enabler to Akai by buying iMPC at launch. Enough of us did the same to put in the top ten apps for a long time I believed it occupied the top spot for a bit and was top 5 for a while.

Couple that with the 4 and 5 star reviews from the "MIDI headphone" crowd...and well...y'all already know.

I fear that for every knowledgeable user they lose they get some new kid who is largely clueless. But even if diverting our support doesn't make them change at least we aren't body-ing ourselves or poking a fork in our own eye, pick any analogy you like...

But it's a sad day when the best I can say about a MIDI controller that looked promising is -

Metatron72 wrote:

coolderb wrote:

JazzyDrewProductions wrote:I guess I can only speak for myself but I've done that many times only to be given very political corporate answers from akai and retronyms. Akai is purposely holding back. And due to the fact that they left it very disabled leads me to believe that it won't gain ground on bm2 ever. Just my opinion. When I first got it I was a big advocat for it but now. I'm not holding my breath

Their "strategy" is really baffling.I can see them not being enthusiastic about having the Fly work with BM2,but the iMPC app. which works well with the Fly standalone is crippled within their own Tabletop environment.Retronyms says they are working to fix it,but what were they doing for the last 15 months since they announced the Fly and demoed the iMPC app?You would think that they would have had it all working by now.It seems as if the Akai/Retronyms partnership is shakey.They keep pointing the finger at each other and the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing:)

Baffling, exactly. I had mentioned in another thread how I saw a Retronyms rep on their Facebook page answering questions this past summer. As soon as I asked them to elaborate on how iMPC was going to handle Core MIDI and by extension what could they tell me about the Fly as far as Core MIDI. No answer, straight crickets. I knew then this would play out like it has.

Fair enough that the two firms primary focus is their own apps but "most" apps in the spec sheet referencing Core MIDI turned out to be the catch. From the posted video you can see that the Fly's default MIDI doesn't follow any accepted MIDI mapping. At first I thought it was a standard MIDI GM Drum mapping, which is somewhat random numbers and not in chromatic order. but it's not, it's just totally random. Almost looks like it was done on purpose to ruin your day if you want to actually utilize the advertised Core MIDI support, and again that whole "most apps" thing.

So little needed to happen to avoid all this. First why did they make a MIDI controller that can only send 16 out of 127 note values? Bank switches or octave transpose buttons would have helped.(although it would have been 4banks at most and only covered 64 MIDI note values).

The solution to that could have been so simple. They could have made a free app that let's you map the Fly and have that app capable of writing the mappings to the Fly. Even if it was still just the one bank of 16 pads you could quickly switch over to the map app and load a different one and go back to your music app. We're all used to swapping between apps at this point anyway. This would be a way around how Apple has made the devices so closed and that a desktop app for mapping isn't as feasible. Plus obviously you'd prefer to handle mappings on the device itself.

They are defintely shooting themselves in the foot. Akai just released a link on their Facebook page stating that with the iMPC app. they "..Hit it out of the park!". Retronyms, instead of providing details on an update posted some crap about funding a Kickstarter fashion project. Intua,by contrast, posted another Beatmaker2 update that they just submitted to Apple which will be available shortly.

What's extra ironic was how for like a year Intua talked to no one on their own forum. People really thought there's no way BM2 is actually coming out. They showed up a little late but obviously followed through.

In retrospect I don't even mind how they ignored everyone during that time. Clearly a small team decided "We gotta code and then deliver, we'll talk to y'all when we finish..."

Since then, steady updates, intelligent tweaks and feature additions have been the norm. They received flack for essentially using the same style controls on the sequencer as Nanostudio, coloring the sequencing in the Maschine color scheme...but they aren't the first to "borrow" inspiration so I overlooked it and focused on the functionality which is there in spades.

If I were Akai/Retronyms I would have followed the BM2 blueprint, changed the few things to the classic MPC style and used the the same GUI/Art elements they have now, as it is a nice looking app. Charge the same $20 as their competitors and we all would have given them gleaming reviews.

Despite all the iMPC's lack of features it is still not that bad and a lot better than NI's iMaschine.They have totally abandoned it. No core midi,no Audiobus, they don't even support copy and paste!Despite having an iMaschine forum NI never bothers to post any information regarding updates or anything else. The only time they seem to even acknowledge it is when they want you to buy an expansion pack.

has anyone tried using their classic mpc to sequence impc?
via some sort of actual midi in to the ipad?

tapedeck wrote:has anyone tried using their classic mpc to sequence impc?
via some sort of actual midi in to the ipad?

Im trying so hard not to be cynical, but consider that the fly sends out midi note numbers to switch banks/tracks. the pad note numbers themselves do not change, neither des the midi channel. I'm afraid iMPC would be limited to just one bank at a time if sequenced externally.

Harmoncj wrote:

tapedeck wrote:has anyone tried using their classic mpc to sequence impc?
via some sort of actual midi in to the ipad?

Im trying so hard not to be cynical, but consider that the fly sends out midi note numbers to switch banks/tracks. the pad note numbers themselves do not change, neither des the midi channel. I'm afraid iMPC would be limited to just one bank at a time if sequenced externally.

right - but the fact that all the buttons seem to be midi-accessible could really make for some interesting sequencing tricks.
in jjos this is a power-feature.

however the impc usage of this seems more like a copout than a feature.
still, i fully support hacking the hell out of it.

edit...reading more into what you said - that is pretty whack if it literally just swaps the sounds assignment but keeps the same note number.
the rose-tinted glasses though tell me that each pad can act as a mute-group by switching 'banks' - if the way you describe it is really how it works.

and again, this is only theoretical and using an external seq.

I gave it a brief test, MPC--->iRig midi port---> iMPC

note 67 = record
note 73 = overdub

note 09 : erase
note 14: moves the track up twice
note 15: moves the track down twice

check out the latest update from Midi bridge

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/midibri ... 60859?mt=8

Note Mapper; factory preset for MPC Fly to BeatMaker 2 pads

This all sounds like entirely too much work. Too much trying to get it to work and not enough making music. I'm just using beatmaker2 until they make iMPC and tabletop really competitive.

JazzyDrewProductions wrote:This all sounds like entirely too much work. Too much trying to get it to work and not enough making music. I'm just using beatmaker2 until they make iMPC and tabletop really competitive.

This update actually makes it much less work getting the Fly to work with Beatmaker2. Now the new users won't have to go through all of the manual steps that were required before.

I agree that it will be nice to use iMPC when they add a few more features such as Audiobus which BTW Nanostudio just added.

As it is, I'm enjoying iMPC because of the recent updates and the export capabilities. I was able to created some kits, sequences and export them to my Dropbox. I then pulled them up seamlessly in the MPC Studio software and began working on them some more using VST's,etc.

WELL IT'S STILL ONLY ONE PAD BANK FOR THE FLY IN BM2, SO THAT'S TOTALLY WEAK.

funkycoldmedina wrote:WELL IT'S STILL ONLY ONE PAD BANK FOR THE FLY IN BM2, SO THAT'S TOTALLY WEAK.

Yeah, that sucks. Maybe since BM2 has Audiobus it could routed to tracks in another Audiobus app. such as Auria,Cubasis,FLStudio or even Garageband one bank at a time but to multiple tracks.

I couldn't resist a brandnew MPC Fly 30 mpc on sale for just 100 euros so i tried it.
Always had the option to return it so no harm no foul.

Well, i don't understand the issue of using it with BM2, it works like a charm like with ANY midi device like for instance the MPC4000 (through midi).

You just turn it on, start BM2, then your favorite preset.
You select 'OMNI' and 'Learn' and you simply press the screen pad and then the according MPCFLY pad, repeat that for all pads and your done.
Then save the Midi settings, name it and your good to go.

No need for that Midibridge app and save $$$ as it costs like $9 or so which i think is fairly expensive for such an app.

All the 16 pads work accordingly and when you start it up another time you only need to load the saved midi settings.

Ofcourse, the other buttons don't work (play, note repeat, etc) but you can acces them from the screen.

For the money it's well spend IMO as you don't need a seperate MPD unit with a cable or similar device. It's portable, selfpowered and protects the Ipad at the same time.

Build quality is okay, not great but okay. Pad sensitivity isn't like Maschine but good enough and sure beats the screenpads.

Ofcourse with IMPC it's fully functional but that App sucks balls next to BM2 and we all know they will never catch up.
For those who do enjoy Impc for quickbeats the MPCFLY at this price is a no brainer imo.

So in all, at the full retail price it's not a great deal, BUT at $100 (they are out there) it's a good alternative for the Mpc 500 if you need something to be mobile, selfpowered and you enjoy using BM2.
Also you still have the chance that if Retronym wakes someday up and actually makes IMPC usuable you could enjoy the full hardware experience with all the buttons.


Just my 2 cents worth.

Bomber4000, I believe when those posts were made the method you used was not an option. BM2 has been updated and had feature tweaks at least 3 times since those posts were made.

But anyway glad to hear the Fly 30 is working well for you, although as often often happens I think the USD/Euro prices are the same. I hate to see you guys get screwed on stuff like that. Not all manufacturers do it, but it should always be an adjusted Euro price from US vendors considering the strength of the Euro over USD.

But at least it was dropped from the frankly ridiculous initial pricing.