By afalley
Wed Oct 25, 2017 11:14 pm
Hi - I'm new to using MPCs, however, I've been using Logic for years. I do have a Korg Kronos, and thought this was the time to get into the MPC game now that they have a unit with a touchscreen that acts as a stand-alone workstation. I like Logic, but hate all the mousing around one has to do with it. I wanted something to streamline my workflow.
My first impressions leave so much to be desired. The UI library that they used to design the interface is total shite. It's so big, clunky and half-assed. By comparison, my Korg, with a smaller screen can fit so many details for it's synth models on one screen and everything is there that you expect to be there, and I've had that Korg for years already, one would think a new product in 2016 would be all that and more. Basic things on the MPC like a sensible cut and paste are missing from the grid view. For me, that is one of the most essential parts of midi editing. The huge fonts they use borders and a button that says "Do It" borders on condescending. Do you really need half-inch icons with half-inch borders? Sure, you can do some cool things with it as one can with any other MPC, but it's like they just added a toy screen and charged that much more. It's certainly not a game changer.
It's almost as if nobody at Akai actually is a musician or uses the products, like it was done by committee, or maybe they just didn't really give a shit because of their perception of the "urban" target audience not really mattering that much to them. Every person of color that I've known that has traveled to Japan has told me that they are viewed, even politely, with almost over the top stereotypes that the Japanese honestly believe (largely due to the Japanese monoculture). Maybe it's going too far to suggest this, but it makes me think that somewhere in some Japanese boardroom somebody said, "we need to keep this very simple for 'those' people". It just doesn't seem like it was designed with any respect to it's audience.
Or maybe the idiot product director thought it would be a smart idea to use a simplistic off-the-shelf UI library and couldn't fit too many basic and conceptually related functions on one screen, so instead they sacrificed user workflow. Even the 2.0.5 grid cut-paste "fix" is completely asinine. WTF?
Whatever the reason, I really hope that MPC 3.0, if it ever happens, will be a total re-write from the ground up, because this is such an embarrassment. It's a shame, because it does have the potential to be a game changer, but I'm still wondering why I paid $2300 to buy a work in progress. In the mean time, Native Instruments just got a 64 million dollar infusion for R&D! Last Akai product I'll ever buy.
My first impressions leave so much to be desired. The UI library that they used to design the interface is total shite. It's so big, clunky and half-assed. By comparison, my Korg, with a smaller screen can fit so many details for it's synth models on one screen and everything is there that you expect to be there, and I've had that Korg for years already, one would think a new product in 2016 would be all that and more. Basic things on the MPC like a sensible cut and paste are missing from the grid view. For me, that is one of the most essential parts of midi editing. The huge fonts they use borders and a button that says "Do It" borders on condescending. Do you really need half-inch icons with half-inch borders? Sure, you can do some cool things with it as one can with any other MPC, but it's like they just added a toy screen and charged that much more. It's certainly not a game changer.
It's almost as if nobody at Akai actually is a musician or uses the products, like it was done by committee, or maybe they just didn't really give a shit because of their perception of the "urban" target audience not really mattering that much to them. Every person of color that I've known that has traveled to Japan has told me that they are viewed, even politely, with almost over the top stereotypes that the Japanese honestly believe (largely due to the Japanese monoculture). Maybe it's going too far to suggest this, but it makes me think that somewhere in some Japanese boardroom somebody said, "we need to keep this very simple for 'those' people". It just doesn't seem like it was designed with any respect to it's audience.
Or maybe the idiot product director thought it would be a smart idea to use a simplistic off-the-shelf UI library and couldn't fit too many basic and conceptually related functions on one screen, so instead they sacrificed user workflow. Even the 2.0.5 grid cut-paste "fix" is completely asinine. WTF?
Whatever the reason, I really hope that MPC 3.0, if it ever happens, will be a total re-write from the ground up, because this is such an embarrassment. It's a shame, because it does have the potential to be a game changer, but I'm still wondering why I paid $2300 to buy a work in progress. In the mean time, Native Instruments just got a 64 million dollar infusion for R&D! Last Akai product I'll ever buy.
Last edited by afalley on Thu Oct 26, 2017 12:06 am, edited 2 times in total.
