Thoughts on 1.4 so far

DJ Hellfire wrote:
Wow! I have to look into Mach Five. How's it sound?

Mach Five sounds great! One of the main reasons why I picked it up because it is a universal sampler...it can load just about any of the major sample formats without complicated conversions such as Kontakt, Giga, EXS24, HALion, Kurzweil, Akai, Roland, Ensoniq, Sample Cell, etc. I bought Giga Studio right before Tascam discontinued it. My Giga Studio library loads into the Mach Five just as easy as Mach Five's own library.

On a side note.....I decided to go with the new Mac Pro when it's available instead of the iMac.

The new Mac Pro looks to be a monster. Plus it the a real looker as well. For my humble needs, there is no way to justify the cost though. Plus, I'm more a MacBook Pro kinda guy. Like to be portable.

I'm running win 8 off a cheap lap I got for black Friday. the soft seems stable on it

cool everything runs a bit smoother....emulatot x3 runs now stable in 64 bit...

good update so far...

BremenCole wrote:The new Mac Pro looks to be a monster. Plus it the a real looker as well. For my humble needs, there is no way to justify the cost though. Plus, I'm more a MacBook Pro kinda guy. Like to be portable.

It is suppose to be in the same price range as the current models. Plus it is 9.9" tall with 6.6" diameter. This is small.

I am currently running the MPC Ren/MPC software on a Mac Mini with 27" Thunderbolt display.

my thoughts so far .. well since downloading and running the update about 4 hours ago iv been using the studio intensely and i have to say im very happy with it the new features that iv used so far are great , iv had the wheel of death spin a few times where before it was gonna be a guarantee crash but i just leave it a sec and it works its self out n carries on working ,the new plugin window for effects is so much better than the long list it was before and the new filter is quality akai thank you!

Im loving the hell out of this 1.4 update. It kicks the Sheezniss out of my 2500le! I just wish that all of the dizam scroll x1000 moved about 40% faster. Twisting the small knobs for ever to get to the end of a long sample is not coo. I hope in next update we will have audio tracks or something close to it. Im sick of using wack thin vsti. need my external sound moudles in the Ren a.s.a.p.

so far so good wit 1.4, probably my favorite update so far, workflow is becoming as fast an mpc should be now, software seems a lot more solid and things just seem to work more like they should have, and I can get creative now finally. About one more update and I'll call this thing a beast. Still a few minor bugs I am coming across but nothing serious. Right now 1.4 has satisfied my needs.

Loving it. Big ups to Pete!
If we get effects automation, many of us will be even happier.

Chocolate going out to Pete if we ever get to see alternating loop mode

SampleTank 2 is finally working for me

My thoughts so far
1) love how the envelope changes when engaging one shot that is literally brilliant. New envelopes are exactly what should be there! perfect for making hard hitting drums.

2) hardware zoom actually works well this is great!
3) 64 bit will have to test that over a period to see what works
4) rescanning plugins worked well
5) sample folders is working nicely for me.


1) sad there is still no non destructive chop, still don't like this and have reservations about the sense of building something from the wrong foundations. I.e. everything u do with samples sits on top of the implementation. For example in the non destructive world when adding realtime timestretching, or offline effects etc to an audio file the chop points act as markers allowing u to change the whole file quickly and globally while the markers remain the same. I.e. u only have to process one file keeps everything simple neat and easy to manage. I really don't like having all these copies of the same audio file everytime I want to chop something up. I understand the backwards compatibility problem but I would rather Akai moved forward and left the old model. The way this is done at the moment makes so many things unnecessary hassle. If I drag in three 2 bar breaks based around 16th notes and chop them up I am gonna end up with something like 99 audio files. in the non destructive world I would still have three. I still wish this would change.

2) Would like more seq development, so simple things like : note length quantise, simple transposition box a la 4k. Note length quantise is an essential electronic music production feature.

3) There are many play modes in the sample editor it would be nice to have one pad to hit that plays the sample from start to end without having to hold it down.

4) I am always pitching samples up and down the semi tune adjust from the hardware knob is so sensitive it makes it a swing to set the pitch using the controller.

5) Non destructive reverse akai MPCs are the only samplers I know of where playing a sample backwards is an offline operation .

6) 16 levels for tuning go beyond the 16 pads ala Maschine allowing you to play a sample across a larger range of pitches.

Don't know if we got automation or mixer linking yet need to spend more time with it.


Very encouraging.

Geoff

Today the ren just crashed multiple times just while navigating, eg Pressing the WINDOW button , boom instant :



Rocksolid? .......................................... : nope
Will use it in my upcoming gigs ............. : nope
great toy, until it crash ........................ : yes!
reliable ............................................... : nope
Main Potis are now also broken.............. : yes!
Takes desk space................................. : yes!
collects dust ........................................ : yes!

JAH wrote:

DJ Hellfire wrote:

JAH wrote:If I had to choose between 64 bit and multicore....I would choose 64 bit first. Why? Because I have been running out of Ram even before I maxed out 1 core while using the 32 bit MPC software.

What are you running (real world) that you run out of ram?

I use the Mach Five. Some of the instruments uses thousands of samples. I would run out of memory before having any issues with my CPU.

Big up to Mach Five!

foge1 wrote:My thoughts so far

1) sad there is still no non destructive chop, still don't like this and have reservations about the sense of building something from the wrong foundations. I.e. everything u do with samples sits on top of the implementation. For example in the non destructive world when adding realtime timestretching, or offline effects etc to an audio file the chop points act as markers allowing u to change the whole file quickly and globally while the markers remain the same. I.e. u only have to process one file keeps everything simple neat and easy to manage. I really don't like having all these copies of the same audio file everytime I want to chop something up. I understand the backwards compatibility problem but I would rather Akai moved forward and left the old model. The way this is done at the moment makes so many things unnecessary hassle. If I drag in three 2 bar breaks based around 16th notes and chop them up I am gonna end up with something like 99 audio files. in the non destructive world I would still have three. I still wish this would change.

Agreed. Looks like a good candidate for 1.5.

GedaBlaq wrote:
Thanks for the education and advice Metatron. I really appreciate it. What I want to do is to make Logic the master and REN the slave. I just want to be able to, via MIDI, open REN as a VST/ AU inside of Logic, assign internal REN sounds to REN pads inside of REN VST, start record on Logic's sequencer, hit the REN's pads, have the REN's MIDI out data recorded into Logic's sequencer, stop Logic's sequencer, Return to beginning of sequence via Logic's sequencer, hit play on Logic's sequencer and have Logic play back the sequence I just recorded with REN's internal sounds.

I hope that I don't come off as a smart a$$, and I truly love my REN period. It's just that this functionality seems so second nature with today's technologically advanced DAW's, plugins and their respective architectures, that I'm just absolutely and utterly baffled as to why this either can't be figured out with the REN or the functionality was intentionally left out of the REN. If the REN was never designed to be a DAW as some here believe, then why cripple it's ability (it has MIDI ins & outs) to be fully MIDI integrated into a DAW? I understand that REN integrates better via MIDI into PT than Logic but so ******* what? I prefer Logic.
(whew) End of rant.

Pete, if you ever read this, I want to personally thank you for all of the dedication and hard work you've put into 1.4 and making the REN my most beloved piece of gear, seriously. I know you are hard at work making it even better. At some point, would you please address the REN's MIDI implementation into Logic? Again, thanks Pete and be Blessed!

Yesssss.......
+1