MPC Studio performance

Hey Everybody,

I'm pretty much set on getting the MPC Studio, I just wanted to try and get a sense of how well it will run on my setup. My laptop's a few years old (Toshiba Satellite A305-S6843) though I'm going to upgrade to Windows 7 and clean install the whole system. The specs will be:

- Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 / 2.1 GHz ( Dual-Core )
- Memory 4.0 GB / 4.0 GB (max)
- Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition

Should I expect much latency or drag in performance or should everything more or less work as intended?

that would depend on your buffer settings and how many plugins you use.

The T series CPU's are pretty long in the tooth now. But you should be able to still rock a 128 buffer with a few FX and a reasonable track count still, on Studio or any other DAW software.

I'm sure some Studio users with an older CPU like that can give their actual numbers. You can always lower CPU VST FX and synths that are not too CPU heavy and still sound great too, all the more the with the legal freeware plugs that are out there.

And a clean install without all those Norton/Symantec bloated apps and LE versions of DVD/Photo software you 'll never use helps too. Most of the shelf PC laptops are more capable than it seems at first, and it's generally all that bundles bloatware crap that slows you down.

For year I've taken PC laptops and just gutted all that crap and put in free Microsoft security essentials and in about 20 minutes you have 25-30 less background services that are resource hogs.

Download this if you want an easy way to see where you're at now even before a clean 7 install.

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml





Let it run for a minute and will tell you if you're up to solid Audio/Video tasks right away. It measure the procedure calls that spike the CPU and would interfere with a solid ASIO audio stream. Even if it spikes over the 1000 line, it's easy to disable non-critical stuff you determine you don't use or need running all the time. Again just getting rid of factory bundled useless apps will take care of a lot common DPC spike offenders.

philgotbeats wrote:Hey Everybody,

I'm pretty much set on getting the MPC Studio, I just wanted to try and get a sense of how well it will run on my setup. My laptop's a few years old (Toshiba Satellite A305-S6843) though I'm going to upgrade to Windows 7 and clean install the whole system. The specs will be:

- Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 / 2.1 GHz ( Dual-Core )
- Memory 4.0 GB / 4.0 GB (max)
- Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition

Should I expect much latency or drag in performance or should everything more or less work as intended?

Welcome in advance to the MPC Studio family.

Low latency is heavily dependant on your computer's CPU, Memory, and your audio interface driver.

Your computer meets the minimal recommended specs to run the MPC Studio/MPC Software. If you are creating projects that mainly consist of sample programs, external MIDI sound modules, and minimal amount of effects...your set-up will run as well as any hardware MPC creating similar compositions.

However, if you plan to use GBs of samples and numerous plugin instruments/effects, you can quickly exhaust your computer's resources. In this case, you may need a more powerful computer with more memory.

Last but not least is selecting the right audio interface you will use with the MPC Studio. Your audio interface will have a huge impact on sound quality (such as sampling) and working with low buffer settings to minimize latency. Akai, Apogee, Motu, RME, etc all have reasonably priced, portable audio interfaces that have received decent reviews by Sound On Sound Magazine.

Thanks for all the replies. I ended up ordering it, should be arriving today. Had a question about Audio Interfaces. Will I really notice a difference running the MPC Studio through one compared to plugging it in directly to the computer via USB? Is latency and performance significantly improved? I'll probably only be running the MPC with the software, no other external devices.

philgotbeats wrote:Thanks for all the replies. I ended up ordering it, should be arriving today. Had a question about Audio Interfaces. Will I really notice a difference running the MPC Studio through one compared to plugging it in directly to the computer via USB? Is latency and performance significantly improved? I'll probably only be running the MPC with the software, no other external devices.

You must connect your audio interface to your computer via USB, Firewire, etc. When launching the MPC Software, enter the Preferences/Audio Menu to select your audio interface. Additionally, if your audio interface has MIDI, you can choose to use its MIDI interface, the Studio's MIDI interface or a combination of the two. This is set-up in Preferences/MIDI.

But is this necessary? What's the difference in performance compared to just plugging the MPC Studio in directly to the PC?

philgotbeats wrote:But is this necessary? What's the difference in performance compared to just plugging the MPC Studio in directly to the PC?

You should connect your MPC Studio directly to a USB port on your PC. Likewise, you connect your audio interface to a USB port on your PC. Then you select your audio interface in the Preferences/Audio menu inside the MPC Software.

Without an audio interface (the studio doesn't have one built in) You can expect really bad latency with standard windows audio. You will hit a pad and then a moment later you'll hear the sound. You either need to purchase an audio interface with ASIO drivers or you can try something like ASIO4ALL which is a universal ASIO driver to help give you low latency on your laptop built in audio.

What kind of pricing am I looking at? Is there anything under $100 or in the $100-200 range that will work well?