Funny thing about the MPC Renaissance (4K related)

Well maybe or maybe not the ren will be a sort after classic like the you guys considered the 4k to be. Only time will tell. It's just tickle me how you use one machine present short coming, to boost the proudness of you owning another machine. If the 4k features favor you as a tool of choice. Why the comparision to another model/

You say the mpc4k is king of all mpc, but yet you reference or compare it to the ren and question why will anyone use the ren. Is the 4k feature so great, that you feel no other mpc should be use?

I'm not trying start anything or be a ren fanboy. I just was curious why a mpc ren was compare to the classic legend 4k, that hold it's own against all mpc.

An 11 year old MPC is pound for pound better than the current model they are calling flagship. Simple as that.

Personally I have never wanted or ever will want an MPC that requires a computer to operate. And for that reason I think no, years down the road Renaissances will not be sought after. Because you'll be having to source an archaic computer at that point too.

I'm not saying people won't use their Rens after Akai has moved on to a newer model (or become extinct altogether). But given the computer tethering aspect, there's no way these things are as sought after as hardware MPC's years in the future.

Heavie wrote:
You say the mpc4k is king of all mpc, but yet you reference or compare it to the ren and question why will anyone use the ren.

Read the OP again. It's not a comparison thread. I'm saying it is ironic that people who have the Ren, are asking for a lot of features that are already in the 4K, and they may not even know it. This is why, they are being "compared". I'm not comparing it to anything. By posting feature requests for a lot of the functionality already in the 4K, Ren users are comparing the Ren to the 4K themselves, and again, they probably don't even know it. Ironic.

At the end of the day, I couldn't care less which MPC anyone uses or if they even use an MPC at all. As long as it's working for them, who am I to judge? The whole purpose of this thread is to point out that 10 years ago, the 4K was maligned because of it's vast and "unnecessary" feature set. 10 years later, the newest MPC is being maligned because it lacks the, once deemed "unnecessary", features that are found in a 10 year old machine. Also, as far a "bigging up" what I own, I've owned the 2000XL and I currently own the 2500, 3000, 4000, and an s6000. I don't need to big anything that I own up, because I basically own everything that I need. Like I said in the OP, I owned a Ren as well and if it stacked up to any of the machines that I just mentioned, I'd still own it right now. Although, I don't think the Ren will ever read the 4Ks structure of Multis/Programs/Parts/Keygroups/Drum groups, and that's a shame.

MaZe wrote:

Heavie wrote:
You say the mpc4k is king of all mpc, but yet you reference or compare it to the ren and question why will anyone use the ren.

Read the OP again. It's not a comparison thread. I'm saying it is ironic that people who have the Ren, are asking for a lot of features that are already in the 4K, and they may not even know it. This is why, they are being "compared". I'm not comparing it to anything. By posting feature requests for a lot of the functionality already in the 4K, Ren users are comparing the Ren to the 4K themselves, and again, they probably don't even know it. Ironic.

At the end of the day, I couldn't care less which MPC anyone uses or if they even use an MPC at all. As long as it's working for them, who am I to judge? The whole purpose of this thread is to point out that 10 years ago, the 4K was maligned because of it's vast and "unnecessary" feature set. 10 years later, the newest MPC is being maligned because it lacks the, once deemed "unnecessary", features that are found in a 10 year old machine. Also, as far a "bigging up" what I own, I've owned the 2000XL and I currently own the 2500, 3000, 4000, and an s6000. I don't need to big anything that I own up, because I basically own everything that I need. Like I said in the OP, I owned a Ren as well and if it stacked up to any of the machines that I just mentioned, I'd still own it right now. Although, I don't think the Ren will ever read the 4Ks structure of Multis/Programs/Parts/Keygroups/Drum groups, and that's a shame.

That's how the 4k became what it is, by people asking for features.

Just like you I own at least 4 mpc models. All brand new and short of features that was added latter in time. There nothing ironic in asking for features.

What I find ironic, is a person can own at least 3 mpc and not understand why someone else want to see there latest product to the full potential, because he bailed after owning it for a few seconds.

Also if the 4k is so great. Why is it so important that ren reads the 4k Multis/Programs/Parts/Keygroups/Drum groups structure. You say the ren will never be the beast that the 4k is, so why bother with it. There is not one modeled mpc that can read the other modeled files completely.

Heavie wrote:That's how the 4k became what it is, by people asking for features.

And you told people that *they* need to check their history? Ok.

The 4K flopped (and I think you even said it flopped) because it had too many unnecessary features and was too radical when compared to the classic MPC workflow. People actually asked FOR LESS features and that's why the 4K approach was dropped and Akai /Numark went back to the more classic MPC approach found in the 2500 and 5000 and even the Ren.

Heavie wrote:What I find ironic, is a person can own at least 3 mpc and not understand why someone else want to see there latest product to the full potential, because he bailed after owning it for a few seconds.

You are missing the point of this thread. Completely. One more time, it IS IRONIC THAT NO ONE WANTED THESE FEATURES 10 YEARS AGO AND THESE SAME FEATURES THAT PEOPLE WANT NOW, 10 YEARS LATER, CAUSED THE MPC 4000 TO FLOP. NOW, WITHOUT THESE FEATURES, THE REN IS FLOPPING. IRONIC.

Heavie wrote:Also if the 4k is so great. Why is it so important that ren reads the 4k Multis/Programs/Parts/Keygroups/Drum groups structure. You say the ren will never be the beast that the 4k is, so why bother with it. There is not one modeled mpc that can read the other modeled files completely.

As far as why would I want to open the 4K's files in the Ren, actually I don't even know why you'd ask that. That has to be a troll.

Again, You are missing the point. And that's cool. I'm not going to go back and forth with you. For some reason, you want to steer this into a 4K vs Ren thread when it's not. Again, if the Ren was better and or equal to the MPC that I have sitting right next to me, I'd own it. If it gets to that point, I'll buy it. This isn't a Ren bashing thread.

Why can't you mention the Ren at all on this forum without at least one person feeling some type of way about it?

Metatron72 wrote:Personally I have never wanted or ever will want an MPC that requires a computer to operate. And for that reason I think no, years down the road Renaissances will not be sought after. Because you'll be having to source an archaic computer at that point too.

Ok, that's understandable. But, you gotta feel good for the fact that, if you change your mind and decide to use a computer to make music. There are 2 controllers and software with a mpc feel, to sought after as your option when you decide to.

It's not about changing my mind as far as software. I actually have a couple powerful computers and countless software licenses.

Choice of tools is always a personal thing and hopefully reflects your needs. Truth be told there isn't one thing the Ren does that I haven't been doing in another form for years anyway. I have multiple MPC's, various methods to automap or manually map any MIDI controls and numerous plug in hosts both DAWS and VST/AU's with hosting capabilities.

So for me personally it doesn't mean anything to try to cram all that stuff I mentioned into an MPC style OS on a GUI on a computer screen. Especially considering the extremely long list of thing that it's taken 3 updates to address, when what I currently use does essentially all the same things better and with less or zero issues.

Again I personally never wanted a hybrid MPC, many others do. Again I think it depends on what you're looking for and what you already have. As far as this thread's premise, my 4k is another part of my setup that I mentioned earlier that just makes a Ren of no use to me. Again I can already do everything the Ren/Studio do and a lot more reliably without convoluted workarounds.

But for those who are using the Ren I hope the updates keep addressing your feature requests. But I'm just looking at it all as a curious observer and wishing those who bought into the platform as smooth a ride as possible.

And you told people that *they* need to check their history? Ok.

The 4K flopped (and I think you even said it flopped) because it had too many unnecessary features and was too radical when compared to the classic MPC workflow. People actually asked FOR LESS features and that's why the 4K approach was dropped and Akai /Numark went back to the more classic MPC approach found in the 2500 and 5000 and even the Ren.

Just like you I own at least 4 mpc models. All brand new and short of features that was added latter in time. There nothing ironic in asking for features.

Hold on now, there not a post of minds in this forum saying the 4k floppped, because it had to many features. I sad, it was unstable, buggy and lack of features and for $3000 before tax. There was a lot of others saying the same.

Now the method of setting up 4k with the structure of Multis/Programs/Parts was a bit of workflow kill, but that's not a feature. On the 4k some of the simple tasks of the classic mpc's was bury inside the os. 16 pad tuning feature and other classic feature was added years later. The concept of 4k on paper was ahead of it's time in 2002. It was a flop because it was expensive, unstable/bugging and akai took years to give updates.

Like I said before. If you follow to the beginng of the 4k time line. You see the same beginning the as the ren. You got rid of the ren after seconds with it, at the price of $1300. Imagine paying $3000 + tax and see how long you hold on to it. I sold my 4k in 2010. I paid $2500 + taxes for my 5k new and it got 2 updates. Another flop, but I still have it and I got the ren.

Akai made the right move with the 4000.
They were trying to get in to a market of users who were used to having multitimbral samplers. The design team obviously thought it was time to drag the MPC in to the 21st century - and imho they were absolutely right to do so.

Furthermore when the 4k along with the Z8/Z4 were released Akai were to late to the party. The software sampler thing had taken off. The company were also in trouble.
But I will bet a million gold bars if Akai had survived the MPC would have developed way better than it had done under nAkai.

I agree a lot of Hip Hop musos seemed to be against a full featured sampling/sequencing drum machine. Their loss imo.

labcoats wrote:Akai made the right move with the 4000.
They were trying to get in to a market of users who were used to having multitimbral samplers. The design team obviously thought it was time to drag the MPC in to the 21st century - and imho they were absolutely right to do so.

Furthermore when the 4k along with the Z8/Z4 were released Akai were to late to the party. The software sampler thing had taken off. The company were also in trouble.
But I will bet a million gold bars if Akai had survived the MPC would have developed way better than it had done under nAkai.

I agree a lot of Hip Hop musos seemed to be against a full featured sampling/sequencing drum machine. Their loss imo.

It really did release at the exact time Gigastudio reigned supreme and Kontakt was already getting set to murk Gigastudio within a few years time. I admit Just Blaze is the only hip hop producer I ever saw using this machine mainly. But it's bizarre that 11 years later the machine still has this stigma from people's initial inability to wrap their heads around what it actually was intended to be.

But people are fickle and easily confused like this guy for example,

"JAHROME a part-time user from USA writes:
I had a dream 3 years ago that Akai would make an MPC with the best features of the MPC 3000 and the 2000Xl....My dream came true months ago with the release of the MPC 4000. This machine is incredible. With the Akai Sys software, not only can you use your computers hard drive to store your samples, programs, seqences, etc., you can also use your favorite sample editor to edit your samples. Then you can dump the samples right into the MPC 4000's memory via USB! If you don't haver a sample editor, no problem. It has graphic wave form editing, re-sampling, normalize, time stretch, and a slice sample funtions. When Akai added these features to the 2000 XL, I felt that was a big joke. The 2000 Xl takes forever(I'm talking up to 30 minutes) to time stretch samples. The 4000 takes a few seconds! The memory capacty can be expanded to 512 MB memory so it can handle the most demanding chores. Go ahead and sell your other hardware samplers. This baby has a full fledge sampler in it. The first in an MPC. It has plenty of filters, two LFO's, and each sample has up to 4 zones. MIDI outs? This unit has four like the MPC 3000. This unit is at home in the most complicated MIDI set up. Track count? 128! I'll never need that many......Oh, I almost forgot a favorite of mine. The MPC can sample itself. Just prgram a drum pattern and layer that with some phrase samples in a sequence. Go to the sample record menu. Hit sequence play then hit sample record. That's all to it! I could go on for hours about the features....If you have a previous MPC, I would sell it while you can still get good money for it, get rid of any other hardware sampler you may have, and you just may be able to muster up enough to get one of these! Great deals on this unit are already in the classified section of Sonic State. Cop one now! "

"I would like to say this one more time. This site is for user reviews. USER REVIEWS! Why are there people out there giving reviews on this unit when they have obviously never used one? I'll continue to keep enlightening the MPC 4000 "Playa haters"

"The main reason why people are unhappy with the MPC 4000 is because of the price. They wanted this new MPC to cost around $1200 like the MPC 2000. Well, a brand new MPC 2000 xl maxed out with all options is around $2000. The 4000 is just a little more than that with plenty of additional features. I'm Sorry the average çhumps can't afford one."

http://www.sonicstate.com/synth_reviews ... pc4000/66/

Does this remind anyone of anything...perhaps more recent... ...

Yeah that would be the same guy in 2002 that spits more venom about the 4k than anyone here currently...

It's so nice to not have the forum village idiot posting here.


@ Heavie

A lot of what you say rings true. Nobody in here is claiming the 4K was an all singing and dancing bug-free machine the day it dropped. I read the early reviews and decided against getting one, especially as computers were getting powerful enough to handle audio well.

Where I think you're getting a bit overly optimistic is how you're making the spurious link with old Akai and the Numark era Akai. Two completely different companies. I think the Ren was doomed from the minute James Jeffery killed their carefully choreographed marketing roll out. It's just been pure spin ever since.

Like Metatron said, I've also got way better tools than the Ren that work more fluidly and without workarounds. Let's see how it all pans out...

Heavie was over on the '02 Sonic State page too. Same thing he said here, "MAN THAT THING COST ME!"

Metatron72 wrote:

labcoats wrote:Akai made the right move with the 4000.
They were trying to get in to a market of users who were used to having multitimbral samplers. The design team obviously thought it was time to drag the MPC in to the 21st century - and imho they were absolutely right to do so.

Furthermore when the 4k along with the Z8/Z4 were released Akai were to late to the party. The software sampler thing had taken off. The company were also in trouble.
But I will bet a million gold bars if Akai had survived the MPC would have developed way better than it had done under nAkai.

I agree a lot of Hip Hop musos seemed to be against a full featured sampling/sequencing drum machine. Their loss imo.

It really did release at the exact time Gigastudio reigned supreme and Kontakt was already getting set to murk Gigastudio within a few years time. I admit Just Blaze is the only hip hop producer I ever saw using this machine mainly. But it's bizarre that 11 years later the machine still has this stigma from people's initial inability to wrap their heads around what it actually was intended to be.

But people are fickle and easily confused like this guy for example,

"JAHROME a part-time user from USA writes:
I had a dream 3 years ago that Akai would make an MPC with the best features of the MPC 3000 and the 2000Xl....My dream came true months ago with the release of the MPC 4000. This machine is incredible. With the Akai Sys software, not only can you use your computers hard drive to store your samples, programs, seqences, etc., you can also use your favorite sample editor to edit your samples. Then you can dump the samples right into the MPC 4000's memory via USB! If you don't haver a sample editor, no problem. It has graphic wave form editing, re-sampling, normalize, time stretch, and a slice sample funtions. When Akai added these features to the 2000 XL, I felt that was a big joke. The 2000 Xl takes forever(I'm talking up to 30 minutes) to time stretch samples. The 4000 takes a few seconds! The memory capacty can be expanded to 512 MB memory so it can handle the most demanding chores. Go ahead and sell your other hardware samplers. This baby has a full fledge sampler in it. The first in an MPC. It has plenty of filters, two LFO's, and each sample has up to 4 zones. MIDI outs? This unit has four like the MPC 3000. This unit is at home in the most complicated MIDI set up. Track count? 128! I'll never need that many......Oh, I almost forgot a favorite of mine. The MPC can sample itself. Just prgram a drum pattern and layer that with some phrase samples in a sequence. Go to the sample record menu. Hit sequence play then hit sample record. That's all to it! I could go on for hours about the features....If you have a previous MPC, I would sell it while you can still get good money for it, get rid of any other hardware sampler you may have, and you just may be able to muster up enough to get one of these! Great deals on this unit are already in the classified section of Sonic State. Cop one now! "

"I would like to say this one more time. This site is for user reviews. USER REVIEWS! Why are there people out there giving reviews on this unit when they have obviously never used one? I'll continue to keep enlightening the MPC 4000 "Playa haters"

"The main reason why people are unhappy with the MPC 4000 is because of the price. They wanted this new MPC to cost around $1200 like the MPC 2000. Well, a brand new MPC 2000 xl maxed out with all options is around $2000. The 4000 is just a little more than that with plenty of additional features. I'm Sorry the average çhumps can't afford one."

http://www.sonicstate.com/synth_reviews ... pc4000/66/

Does this remind anyone of anything...perhaps more recent... ...

Yeah that would be the same guy in 2002 that spits more venom about the 4k than anyone here currently...

Amazing. Every time I mention the 4K in the Ren forum he basically calls it garbage. He even went as far as offering me his 4K for my Ren (when I had it) and he also said he would never trade a 2500 for a 4K...

And what's crazy about all of this and the "review" he posted above is that he clearly has NO CLUE how to use the 4K or what it actually offers...

I can't believe anyone actually listens to him or even wastes their time arguing with him. Dude is clueless.

Tutor deleted the post but he stated that the "Ren is the best MPC of all time and that it was the best MPC of all time already before it even dropped even though it lacks some classic MPC features."

Chew on that one.