The Official MPC Element Thread

peteblues wrote:actually, what you are asking for, you can already get with the studio or ren. The essentials is a trimmed down version of the MPC, offering you one track (for reference, the 3000 only had one track too)

cmon pete do your homework that's blatant misinformation..

MPC60/3000:

• 99 sequences may be held in memory at once. Each sequence contains 99 individual tracks, each of which can be output to any one or two MIDI channels.
• 4 independent MIDI output ports permit 64 simultaneous MIDI output channels.

those are 1988 specs... elements could offer at the very least 8/16 tracks in 2013.. even $5 iMPC has 4 tracks..

m:t:c wrote:

JAH wrote:Sounds like there needs to be an MPC Element/Essentials feature request thread...

Don't buy into "we'll add/fix that in the future". That's the road to a certain disappointment.

^^
I would agree. But on the flip side....hasn't it been that way with buying MPCs since 2002?

bobbybland wrote:Says " Hosts VST plugins and automatically maps controls "

1. how many tracks do you get? How would you say run Kontakt,and Mpc at the same time if it only has 1 track? Perhaps their not meaning Vsti?


This is pretty damn confusing Akai, can Akai reps please do a better job at explaining what's really going on?

thanks

MPC Essentials:
1. Hosts plugin effects; 4 Inserts on 128 pads. Plugin params are mapped to knobs in the software GUI.

2. Hosts plugin instruments; but only has 1 track. Plugin params (where supported0 and mapped to knobs in the software GUI.

3. Host DAW can run multiple instances (each instance can have either a drum, keyrgoup, plugin, or MIDI instrument)

4. Each instance can be accessed via MPC controller as easy as changing tracks on a typical MPC (press +/- track buttons).

daftmunk wrote:

peteblues wrote:actually, what you are asking for, you can already get with the studio or ren. The essentials is a trimmed down version of the MPC, offering you one track (for reference, the 3000 only had one track too)

cmon pete do your homework that's blatant misinformation..

MPC60/3000:

• 99 sequences may be held in memory at once. Each sequence contains 99 individual tracks, each of which can be output to any one or two MIDI channels.
• 4 independent MIDI output ports permit 64 simultaneous MIDI output channels.

^ the MIDI out specs even smoke Ren/Studio

I believe he meant 1 program. The MPC 3000 has plenty of tracks but when sequencing internally, you have only one program.

When multiple instances of the MPC Essentials plugin is inserted into your DAW, you will essentially have 1 active program per track/instance.

As far as the MIDI out specs smoking the Ren/Studio...this is not completely accurate. This is 2013. Plugin use far exceed the number of hardware synths being used many times over. Very few, if any, people use 64 MIDI channels to sequence external gear. The Ren/Studio can sequence 64 plugins and have their params mapped to knobs. Plugin instrument params are easily automated.

As an MPC 3000 owner/user, I can certainly say the Ren/Studio is light years ahead of the MPC 3000.

JAH wrote:

daftmunk wrote:

peteblues wrote:actually, what you are asking for, you can already get with the studio or ren. The essentials is a trimmed down version of the MPC, offering you one track (for reference, the 3000 only had one track too)

cmon pete do your homework that's blatant misinformation..

MPC60/3000:

• 99 sequences may be held in memory at once. Each sequence contains 99 individual tracks, each of which can be output to any one or two MIDI channels.
• 4 independent MIDI output ports permit 64 simultaneous MIDI output channels.

^ the MIDI out specs even smoke Ren/Studio

I believe he meant 1 program. The MPC 3000 has plenty of tracks but when sequencing internally, you have only one program.

When multiple instances of the MPC Essentials plugin is inserted into your DAW, you will essentially have 1 program per track/instance.

As far as the MIDI out specs smoking the Ren/Studio...this is not completely accurate. This is 2013. Plugin use far exceed the number of hardware synths being used many times over. Very few, if any, people use 64 MIDI channels to sequence external gear. The Ren/Studio can sequence 64 plugins and have their params mapped to knobs. Plugin instrument params are easily automated.

As an MPC 3000 owner/user, I can certainly say the Ren/Studio is light years ahead of the MPC 3000.

But that is hardly limiting...just means all your samples have to.go in that program. Having 1 track vs 1 program are two totally different balls of wax.

One is an inconvenience and I wouldn't even go that far...the other is just downright crippling.

I'm with hobbs... tracks/programs are 2 very distinct things.. please don't muddy the water.. pete was talking about tracks and so were others..

as for it being 2013 and plugins far exceeding synths.. that opinion only reflects your ITB setup, don't make it a general case.. plenty of producers such as myself have a hybrid setup and still have tons of midi outboard/rack/synth equipment and can make use of more then 16 midi channels. this is especially valid for edm producers that often use complex automations & a lot of hardware.. in light of this i don't really see why/how you would argue for midi channel limitations on the flagship product.. MPC's used to stand for MIDI Production Center.. again plenty of people still use them for that purpose..

just as an example, this hit-making edm artist below recently "upgraded" his 5000 to Ren but is having major issues with those limitations and so are couple others over on GS..

Hobbs wrote:But that is hardly limiting...just means all your samples have to.go in that program. Having 1 track vs 1 program are two totally different balls of wax.

One is an inconvenience and I wouldn't even go that far...the other is just downright crippling.

You are limiting yourself by the way you look at the product.

The Essentials is a plugin instrument similar to many others on the market. How many plugins out there do you get active 1 program/patch per instance? That is what the Essentials is. It is no more crippling than any other plugin that gives you only one instrument at a time.

While Essentials can be used in standalone modem it shines as a plugin. Do you use plugins on multiple tracks in your DAW? Are they the same plugin or different ones? How do you navigate all the different plugins? When Essentials is used in your DAW on multiple tracks, with a push of a button, you switch to a different Essentials instance:

Example - Turn on your MPC. Load up a few programs and insert them on different tracks. Record into Track 1. Now what do you do when you want to record into Track 2? You have to press +1 Track button or turn the data wheel.

With the Essentials software, you are doing the exact same thing above..except press the +1 Track button take you to a new instance. The Essentials Software is like taking the Tracks in a traditional MPC sequence and exploding them so they are separate entities.

It is only crippling when you are trying to box it in and work a specific way when it is designed with a different workflow in mind...but really pretty much the same.

Nukai are certainly challenging the definition of what does an MPC which feels more like branding and less like the original concept with every new iteration.. this does raise concern over the future of the franchise.. is the objective to innovate/surpass it's hardware predecessors or simply to follow the footsteps of what other plugin companies are doing and limit certain core functionalities in the process... the Fly fiasco & questionable Ren user satisfaction seems to indicate Nukai are slow to adapt in this sector .. Elements/Essentials sounds like a ditch effort to scramble a product at a competitive price but I think Ren/Studio are in dire need of attention if they really want to make the upgrade path tempting..

daftmunk wrote:

peteblues wrote:actually, what you are asking for, you can already get with the studio or ren. The essentials is a trimmed down version of the MPC, offering you one track (for reference, the 3000 only had one track too)

cmon pete do your homework that's blatant misinformation..

MPC60/3000:

• 99 sequences may be held in memory at once. Each sequence contains 99 individual tracks, each of which can be output to any one or two MIDI channels.
• 4 independent MIDI output ports permit 64 simultaneous MIDI output channels.

glad i wasnt the only one who caught that.....


an "honest" mistake, or uninformed and inexperienced about/with exactly what they are working towards EMULATING?!?!??!

JAH wrote:

Hobbs wrote:But that is hardly limiting...just means all your samples have to.go in that program. Having 1 track vs 1 program are two totally different balls of wax.

One is an inconvenience and I wouldn't even go that far...the other is just downright crippling.

You are limiting yourself by the way you look at the product.

The Essentials is a plugin instrument similar to many others on the market. How many plugins out there do you get active 1 program/patch per instance? That is what the Essentials is. It is no more crippling than any other plugin that gives you only one instrument at a time.

While Essentials can be used in standalone modem it shines as a plugin. Do you use plugins on multiple tracks in your DAW? Are they the same plugin or different ones? How do you navigate all the different plugins? When Essentials is used in your DAW on multiple tracks, with a push of a button, you switch to a different Essentials instance:

Example - Turn on your MPC. Load up a few programs and insert them on different tracks. Record into Track 1. Now what do you do when you want to record into Track 2? You have to press +1 Track button or turn the data wheel.

With the Essentials software, you are doing the exact same thing above..except press the +1 Track button take you to a new instance. The Essentials Software is like taking the Tracks in a traditional MPC sequence and exploding them so they are separate entities.

It is only crippling when you are trying to box it in and work a specific way when it is designed with a different workflow in mind...but really pretty much the same.

That's fine...and I agree that is how it should be looked at..but when you stack it up against it's peers, it has some fatal flaws. Virtual outs being the biggest one. Look at the other programs that do what it does.

Battery
Geist/Guru
Poise
FL Studio's FPC
Phatmatik (which is discontinued)
Liveslice

All have virtual outs..and Poise, Battery and Guru/Geist all do 16-level pitch. Batterys effects are applied in a much more intuitive way as well. And every other example has kits/programs that can be loaded and already routed to the mixer by default once opened.


Again, not trying to have a piss fest but if you are going to make suggestions for this streamlined software being on equal footing with other samplers...you must go into features in detail.

The virtual outs are a very huge thing for DAW composers...what if you have 10 drum parts? Do you know how frustrating that will be scrolling through 10 channels of an identical GUI? It's also doubly important for me because not only do depend on my drum kits being routed once I open them, I also have my default template in my DAW setup to route a group of tracks to a drum buss. Which will always be another step to remember when manually routing each individual instrument channel.

And lastly, AKAI isn't really trying to give a workflow boon to DAW users with this incarnation, they are really trying to convert DAW users...lol. And that's fine, but they would probably be more successful offering a fully functional demo of the software that is unlocked for all controllers as opposed to trying to dupe them into a proprietary controller with a gimped proprietary software and hoping the virtual bag of heroin will get the unsuspecting user hooked..lol

At least a pusher will give you the bag of dope for free.

I'm suspecting AKAI is passing the burden of "piracy protection" onto it's consumer base.

And (really this time) lastly, the above is a major issue with the flagship consumers. It all ties back into "why try to corral a whole new demographic into software that isn't working" and then say "don't worry, trust it will be fixed in 1.5"...couldn't the Element wait? Why put the cart before the horse?

All the products you mentioned don't have an integrated controller. That kills them for me.

If all that was important to me was virtual outs, smaller dongle, etc I would use Logic, Cubase, Live, Pro Tools, etc and be done with it. All these products pretty much have sampling, slicing, sequencing, and extensive mixers which = boring.

Once the Ren/Studio are made multi-timbral and given the capability to operate as true MIDI controllers, there will be no need for the Essentials bundle...

Wait... was that the plan all along??? AKAI, PLEASE DO NOT SCREW US LIKE THIS!
Why would I spend $150, even $50 on another (stripped down) hardware and software bundle when I spent $1,300 less than a year ago for the flagship product?

Bottom line:

MPC Renaissance + Multi-Timbral + Controller Mode = I'm Good!

Addendum; I'll even forego controller mode for now. Just give me multi-timbral and a better mixer section, i.e., the ability to group faders and I'm good.

I LOVE my Ren and have no intentions on jumping ship. I'm just really frustrated at how many resources were thrown at this "BOOBY PRIZE" when the flagship product still has some serious issues. I truly hope that my faith and the faith of others like me in the Ren/ Studio is rewarded. Thank you for the updates thus far. As JAH has said, no other MPC in the history of Akai has been updated more often and in such a short amount of time as the Ren and I for one, appreciate it. I'm a MIDI and sample based music producer. I need the Ren to be multi-timbral. I do not want to drastically change a workflow which I'm very comfortable with and have used for almost 10 years. C'mon Akai. I know you guys can do this.

Hobbs makes some really valid points.

JAH wrote:All the products you mentioned don't have an integrated controller. That kills them for me.

Why couldn't you have any old midi/usb controller and spend 5 min mapping it to be your liking and then be done with it?

m:t:c wrote:Hobbs makes some really valid points.

JAH wrote:All the products you mentioned don't have an integrated controller. That kills them for me.

Why couldn't you have any old midi/usb controller and spend 5 min mapping it to be your liking and then be done with it?

most controllers come with presets for all the big daws anyways

m:t:c wrote:Hobbs makes some really valid points.

JAH wrote:All the products you mentioned don't have an integrated controller. That kills them for me.

Why couldn't you have any old midi/usb controller and spend 5 min mapping it to be your liking and then be done with it?

Because it is not the same...not even close.

Geist for example...it has 9 different views that would be similar to Modes on an MPC. You can't access them via MIDI. So you would have to use your computer keyboard as a typical controller won't help you. Sample Editing and Processing? You have to use a mouse. You can't edit sample start/end points from a MIDI controller.

Battery 4? Same issue. Many parameters can't be mapped. If you try to map ADSR to an external controller...you have to do this separately for each cell and you quickly run out of knobs on your generic controller.

These can in no way duplicate an MPC workflow. Geist has dedicated outputs for each pad. But you can't set them with a controller....click, click, click.

Now the mouse clicking may not be a problem with some. Some people love it and don't mind it. I just can't bring myself to do that. And again, I would just use a DAW and never look over my shoulder as they can do everything you guys are asking for minus the MPC workflow of course. *I am sure someone will chime in and say you can't control 100% of the MPC Software from the Ren. And that would be correct. It will probably be less than 5%. But the majority of those are the least used functions......