The Official MPC Element Thread

Jah what kind of stress test have you done?

Have you loaded up 16 instances of element running a 2 bar loop each? Plugs or no plugs?

Nice to see their programmers have been working on the Ren/Studio software....ahem...

Eyalc wrote:

peteblues wrote:if you're used to mixing with virtual outs, essentials might not be for you, we have Ren or Studio for that.

Can't do it with Ren/Studio either, unless your song is drums and sample. Any full production will use more than 8 tracks.

And no, using panning to turn that into 16 virtual outs isn't realistic. Even so, most of my work is 24 tracks or more - maybe that's just me. And although a viable workaround, exporting audio isn't what I want to do either.

Bottom line, Ren / Studio isn't optimal for mixing with virtual outs either. It needs at least 32 STEREO virtual outs to be useful, and to support being the center piece of a production environment.

Totally agree with you.

I guess all those companies selling 4 and 8 buss mixers are going out of business.

The workflow in a daw would be this for me with essentials.

1. Load the 1st program and 1st instance of the essentials plugin - say a drum kit
2. Record the midi data with controller - NO DRAG N DROP, So save midi sequence.
3. Import midi data
4. Dissolve/explode the midi contained in sequence.
5. Now bounce these parts to audio.

Anyone notice the PITA workflow yet?

Rinse and repeat// I think it's obvious MPC software needs drag n drop.. both midi and audio by now!

JAH wrote:I guess all those companies selling 4 and 8 buss mixers are going out of business.

Avid, Steinberg, etc etc have all decided that Akais 25 year old MIDI mixer model is the wave of the future. Their abandoning their traditonal one track per mixer channel style in favour of each audio clip has to have its own volume control/plugin inserts etc. Post film production guys are over the moon at the thought of dealing with 9,355 seperate mixer channels, and their delighted that any plugin FX edit on one audio clip will not be replicated on the same audio clip across the mix (whcih happens 97 times.) Now a film which would take six weeks to post prod will now take 6 months...

Akai has answered the call and implemented a MIDI Mode....coming soon in 1.5. It is pointless to discuss why it wasn't done sooner as there are more interesting conversations to be had.

I mentioned Maschine as it is inevitable...if not by you or me...someone else will. You know things will never change. As soon as abc is implemented, someone will write "well it still needs xyz, and then I will take it out the box."

It's one thing to discuss why feature xyz hasn't been implemented..and many of these requests may, in fact, be rather unreasonable. But we are talking about a feature that has been removed...

You've got to hand it to Nukai. They designed and built a controller for a niche market, got cold feet at the 11th hour and repackaged it into something with no market... and pissed off all their loyal customers in the process. Good going.

JAH wrote: the is the conversation you need to have with the developers of this product.

i sincerely think you care much more than they do JAH.

This entire new MPC line covers every budget. I think $149 is a good price for the Element.

pspsounds wrote:This entire new MPC line covers every budget. I think $149 is a good price for the Element.

It covers every budget, yes...But what are you really buying with the element? The Element should be sold as a pad controller...as a newer sexier MPD that works with any DAW with relative ease.

But it couldn't be anything further from that. It's a dongle for what is essentially a demo of the MPC software LOL!

Did you get that?

A demo with a dongle! You cannot make this stuff up.

Hobbs wrote:It's a dongle for what is essentially a demo of the MPC software LOL!

Sad but true.