A letter of improvements to Akai

matt underwood wrote:here's a video where u see what I mean with crossfade loop:
and this is also that what I saw in an video from hellfire which he made with the live.

Yes, the 4000 has proper crossfade looping, where the sample itself is additionally processed/altered to produce a smoother transition. The MPC Software has never had this and I can't see anything in Prog edit or Sample edit that has changed in that respect.

Is Hellfire referring to ALT looping? I've seen some people incorrectly call this crossfade looping. ALT looping is where the sample loops backwards from the end point and forwards from the loop start point. It does often produce a smoother loop (although as it uses backward audio it rarely sounds natural), but this is definitely not proper crossfade looping. Crossfade looping is a sample 'process', the audio is permanently changed to alter sample amplitude across two loop points.

Proper crossfade looping would be a great addition to the MPC, I've been asking for this for a long time, although I feel Akai have plenty of work to do with more basic core features before they get caught up in these more specialist requests.

Alternating loop aka pingpong loop does already exist. I made them implement it by kicking their butt about it for a while.
Crossfade looping, where audio fades from end point to start point, does not exist in the MPC 2.0.

matt underwood wrote:here's the video from hellfire.. sry, this whole video was made on an mpc touch in the 1.9.2 mpc software. I was pretty shure it was on an mpc live first, but as it look like i was wrong.. sry bout that!!!

he call's it alternate loop.. go to 5:20 and check if u can find it on the live. would be great to see it there!!

Yes as I thought, this is not crossfade looping, just ALT looping, very different thing unfortunately, and yes it's on the Live, it's a standard feature of the MPC Software both in PROG EDIT and in SAMPLE EDIT, has been for a while now.

MPC-Tutor wrote:

matt underwood wrote:here's the video from hellfire.. sry, this whole video was made on an mpc touch in the 1.9.2 mpc software. I was pretty shure it was on an mpc live first, but as it look like i was wrong.. sry bout that!!!

he call's it alternate loop.. go to 5:20 and check if u can find it on the live. would be great to see it there!!

Yes as I thought, this is not crossfade looping, just ALT looping, very different thing unfortunately, and yes it's on the Live, it's a standard feature of the MPC Software both in PROG EDIT and in SAMPLE EDIT, has been for a while now.

ok, sry dudes my bad.. thought it's the same!!!

I'm not sure if someone hasn't already noted this one, but it'd be nice, on the track mute page, if there was a small row of 8 buttons to mute / unmute the audio tracks.

And some more graphically appealing control screens for effects would be appreciated.

Fanu wrote:Alternating loop aka pingpong loop does already exist. I made them implement it by kicking their butt about it for a while.
Crossfade looping, where audio fades from end point to start point, does not exist in the MPC 2.0.

thats what im talkin about.
its a pretty usefull feature that should be added in the future.

Here's my list:

1. LFO and ENV output to CV ports (MPC X). This could be done with midi plug-ins or features built into CV Tracks.

2. Port AIR FX to MPC

3. Ability to create either Stereo or Mono audio tracks individually so that you could have up to 16 Mono audio tracks.

Feature Addition:- Current sample playback options are only ONE SHOT & NOTE ON. Add a 3rd option: PLAY/RE-TRIGGER = tap pad once and the sample plays; tap pad again and the sample stops, etc. Akai invented this playback option many years ago. They know what it is.

Bug Fix: Each pad has a midi note number assigned to it. Example: PAD1A = C-2. PAD 2A = C#-2, etc. Assign samples to these pads via drum programs, connect a midi keyboard to the Live to trigger these pads and the midi note numbers will NOT align up. This is a big Oops by Akai. Example: PAD 1A should be triggered by C-2 on a midi controller keyboard but it doesn't. PAD 1A is actually triggered by C#1. That's a 2 octave plus 1/2 step error.

First post after 2 years reading...

Thanks Fanu for collecting suggestions...

Here are mine :
- add a option to use the +/- button as Locate button on the touch/live.
- 1 envelope per sample layer in program edit

CMacPlayDrums wrote:Bug Fix: Each pad has a midi note number assigned to it. Example: PAD1A = C-2. PAD 2A = C#-2, etc. Assign samples to these pads via drum programs, connect a midi keyboard to the Live to trigger these pads and the midi note numbers will NOT align up. This is a big Oops by Akai. Example: PAD 1A should be triggered by C-2 on a midi controller keyboard but it doesn't. PAD 1A is actually triggered by C#1. That's a 2 octave plus 1/2 step error.

Drum programs in the MPC Software use the same MIDI note layout found in legacy MPCs, it's not chromatic, it's a modified GM layout. A1 = 37, A2 = 36 etc. All MPCs use this layout, it's not a bug although it's definitely a feature I think most people wouldn't be sad to miss.

Anyway, you can change this in the computer GUI at least. 'Edit > Program > Note Mapping' - set it up as you prefer. Save the entire project as a template if you wish, or (as individual program templates do not exist) save the program without any assignments and reload it as required.

This is big, thanks for this!


1-Option to switch from 8 stereo tracks to 16 mono tracks per project.

2-Song Mode should be a multitrack recorder also with 8 stereo/16 mono tracks option. There, not only you can lay the sequences, but you can add stuff on top hitting pads with samples. Like an 8 track tape recorder.

3-MPC should loop samples from the pads. It just got Note On and One Shot. Why not an Auto-Loop where you hit the pad once and it endlessy plays the sample over and over. Its drudgery holding a pad to loop samples when my hands can do other things. A good example is, I like little ambient sounds going on in the background of my beats, be nice to loop that pad while I bang out some drums or drum along to a guitar loop.

Nice one on the proactive Fanu

I'm looking to pick up a Live as soon as they iron it out. Been keeping an eye on forum and from what I can make out you guys have covered the main issues/ommisions. I'll list anyway tho (all standalone requests) -

1 - timestrech options available in all program/sample types. (including in 16 levels chromatic pitch and Keygroup etc, if not there already).

2 - editable automation lanes/curves.

3 - more lfo destinations available (including fx parameters etc)

4 - multiple parameters (fx/pitch etc) assignable to one knob simultaneously for multiple parameter macros.

5 - simple USB drag and drop sample import/export.

6 - per step automation (like Elektron p-locks... Hold the pad for the corresponding step then tweak parameters on the touchscreen to lock that setting to that step)

7 - the same higher quality timestrech option from daw software to be available in standalone. I heard it's a much reduced quality option for standalone? Could we not have a cpu meter and some higher quality timestrech/fx etc? Down to user to decide how they allocate the available cpu across a project. Can always 'freeze/bounce' in standalone too if need to chill on the cpu for that stuff..

8 - onboard synth. More a longterm wishlist thing. But shame to see the touchscreen there and no interesting synths like Animoog etc onboard. Or even Op1 style synths.

9 - record/sample directly in to clip launch pads.

10 - In looper is it possible to use the pads for separate overdub layers? Then options to combine selected pads in to bounced audio?

11 - realtime swing

12 - midi LFOs

13 - arpeggio (on audio tracks and midi tracks)

not meaning to shit on anyones bonfire here.....but are people actually optimistic that Akai are going to pay attention to any of this?

Possibly, of course there's plenty of stuff on this list that has been requested many times in the past which has so far been ignored, but if we keep shouting hopefully at least some of this will appear at some point. After all, audio tracks is probably only here due to people kicking up a fuss for the past 5 years. In the end I suspect Akai are at a point where they will only include features that are either quick and easy to implement or features that are being aggressively requested by a large portion of the customer base (or potential customer base).