MPC Ren...Where have you been all my life!

I just purchased the Renaissance the day after XMAS. I have been an MPC user since the 2000xl was released.A year ago I bought a Maschine Mikro wanting to get back into the old school simplistic way of programing sounds. Being that for the past 5 years I was recording ITB with Ableton and a midi controller. There were some cool features with the Maschine but I would always run into roadblocks which would stump my creative flow. I.E. copying bars and sequences. Simple commands that had me clicking the mouse too many times.

I've only had my REN for 3 days and I can honestly say it is 10X easier to use than the Maschine. At least for me! Akai really nailed it when it came to the hardware design and functionality. I love how they kept a similar screen layout of the 2000 and the fact that I barley have to use my mouse or keyboard is huge plus!

Have a happy new year everyone!

If everyone had bought their Rens around the same time you did the response would be similar. You didn't have to put up with the hard times

The Mikro maschines have a lot of menu diving, the mk2 and maschine studio can be used just as effective as the mpc ren without a mouse.

kaydigi wrote:The Mikro maschines have a lot of menu diving, the mk2 and maschine studio can be used just as effective as the mpc ren without a mouse.

If you disallow the awkwardness of certain Maschine functions it can but even after all this time Maschine still has a somewhat strange way of doing things.

We have just accepted that it's the NI way of doing things.

THE ADVERSARY wrote:

We have just accepted that it's the NI way of doing things.

What you said just like a motto,I am totally with the same idea.

if you have mpc background ren will feel right at home without touching the manual...I do not like maschines interface as well

AGREED.

There are definitely pros and cons to both ways of working.. many of which depend on just that... YOUR way of working.

But I do agree that the MPC just feels easier and more intuitive. I also started on a 2000 Classic, so there's that. lol.

kaydigi wrote:The Mikro maschines have a lot of menu diving, the mk2 and maschine studio can be used just as effective as the mpc ren without a mouse.

There's some truth to that but esthetically I think the Ren is much better. Flip screen makes all the difference. Pads to. To each is own.

Yeeeaaah, I’m still trying to decide if I should give the Studio a go, expect I’m coming from the MPC3000 (first and only MPC model I have ever used)

Another, unexpected plus for the Ren is that, on my setup at least, it has a noticeably punchier sound. I am not sure if this is due to the inbuilt soundcard interface or the MPC software. Has anyone else noticed this?

id have to say your hearing things my man.

mpc audio interface is not very high quality. of course it does not have crazy AD/DA's
but its not needed either.

you might here a difference if you loaded same snare and kik in a 3000 a 60 maybe even a o.g. 2k and compared it to the same kik/snr from maschine or ren. but from ren to maschine not going to be a difference.

id say you have your monitors eq'd to "punch"

Well, that does not explain that when I listen to the stereo file in Reason through a NI interface its sounds 'thinner' through the same monitors.

I've never done any comparisons, but I must say I've always thought audio comes pretty strong out of the Ren.

it was the mixer in Maschine that snapped my mind in the end (on the orig full size controller).

huh? wrote:Yeeeaaah, I’m still trying to decide if I should give the Studio a go, expect I’m coming from the MPC3000 (first and only MPC model I have ever used)

If you use a 3000 you will love the REN. The record,play,and stop buttons are identical.