sfw wrote:Fanu wrote:Icepulse wrote:Why would Akai spend all the time and energy to create standalones, and then not beef them up w/ a gang of varied effects, and at least one enormous synth?
I think they have at least expressed that they are working with several companies to bring out more stuff.
I forgot where I read this and I dont know whether it applies to both standalone and software, though, sorry.
Computer scientist here.
Pete said this in a tweet to me. Because the chipset isn't an intel architecture, VST manufacturers will need to recompile (and probably modify) their products to work on the new platform. Even so, they don't have a ton of power under the hood so running something like U-he's Diva would still be near impossible without crippling the system. Older stuff like Xpand and Korg plugs should work fine.
This was a questionable call to not use the x86 architecture because vendors will only spend the time and effort to refactor, debug, recompile, release, and maintain a second version of their plug if the market is large enough. Therefore, we will only get a load of existing plugs for the standalone MPC if and only if they are a wild success. Look at the Reason rack extension store to see how poorly this has worked out for them and Reason is like one of the top 8 DAWs.
If Akai went with an x86 architecture, you would have been faced with 2 situations:
-The systems using an underpowered platform would still need 3rd party to debug, recompile, etc to have a scaled down version
-Using better hardware would have increase the cost of production, which would be added to what the customer has to pay. Just think; you have people complaining about the prices now.
Compromises will be made in getting standalone systems and most of us who were looking for this totally understood this.
