NAMM 2018 What To Expect..??

When I watched that video that kaydigi posted, I came away with a different interpretation than I am reading here. Since this X is my first MPC product, maybe I have not yet developed the cynicism from past experience with the product line.

Anyway, I heard the Akai guy saying that Akai intends to continue to support the MPC X/Live with many software releases, each making the system more stable while adding a few features.

Personally, I would prefer a focus on making what they have already released, as stable as possible, rather than dumping in a bunch of new features on top of something that is not yet as stable as it could be.

I have long thought that if there were ever a class action suit against Microsoft (back around the time of XP), it should demand that Microsoft stop adding features and fix what they already have, and not release any new features until that was achieved. So my comments are not aimed directly at Akai, but at any products that depend on solid software or firmware instead.

What I heard from that guy in the video made more sense to me as a conservative long term approach to developing these products, than trying to achieve a big splash by dumping in a bunch of features that don't really work as they should. However, if Akai does not support this product for the long term, then it really doesn't matter anyway, because nothing would happen with these products, good or bad. I sure hope that won't be the case.

Tony

It's good to understand that NAMM is largely about products that'll come out in 4–9 months time.
It' s OK to market products that will take time; people understand it.
Akai not showing anything big tells you one story and you know what it is.
I mean, they could be showing new proto features; they showed the new GUI 2 years ago if I'm not mistaken.
If new dope features were being worked on, you'd probably hear about them…as NAMM is for exactly that.
That's THE place for saying "It'll come but it'll take 6+ months".

So far for 2.1:

Standalone now 'supports'/recognises third party expansions and displays the artwork. However I don't see how this is the massive end user improvement that Andy is claiming. Program Previews already work in standalone (just put the preview wav/mp3 in a [Previews] sub folder), there still appears to be no grouping or tagging in standalone. And unless I'm mistaken the 'search' filter remains limited to the current directory. Maybe there's more to this update, we'll have to see.

Multiple plugin windows - good addition.

Progression Import - makes sense.

Increase 'speed' of Amp envelope - I reckon this is referring to a post on Gearslutz where Dan confirmed a fix was on the way to address the issue that the MPC skips the first few ms of attack on samples (so some samples sound a bit soft), so a negative offset is required to counter this. Sounds like they've addressed this via amp env. If this is what is being referred to it's a bit disingenuous to suggest this is a new feature that 'makes your drums pop even harder', it's really just a bug fix to address an error in the MPC sampler engine that was causing already popping samples to sound less popping.



Pitch Quantise - interesting, but does he mean 'change the pitch' rather 'change the key' of the notes you don't like?

Damn! I never knew that about the attack. So if you offset the pad by -120 it removes the slow attack? Not near my Live right now so can't test. Anybody else do this?

A few new other features..

Control velocity with the Qlinks..

Save your own progressions in performance mode?^^^That’s what i’m talking about!I wonder why anyone didn’t mentioned this..Many people where asking about it..

So it looks like quite a nice update, not really Namm worthy, but quite nice.
Let's hope it's not the final number and they keep on working on it.

JeanPS71 wrote:So it looks like quite a nice update, not really Namm worthy, but quite nice.
Let's hope it's not the final number and they keep on working on it.

Yes, it's a shame they started NAMM on a downer with those two chaps who knew **** all about the latest update.

It seems like a decent incremental update but clearly doesn't really address any of the burning omissions that everyone has been screaming out for. The Expansion update has done nothing to improve the browser itself - grouping and tagging still not supported, search seems to still be limited to current directory, etc. Pretty pics and pack export is more about boosting Expansion pack sales, not improving end user experience.

I doubt this is the last update, they will continue to come every couple of months. But they'll no doubt save some of the 'big' requested features for a 'big' update - 2.5 I suspect will have a couple of biggies, and I suspect 3.0 will most likely to tie in with the release of new hardware (like they did with audio tracks and 2.0).

To be fair, Akai have been good with update frequency on the MPC Software, but their inability (or pure stubboness) to implement certain highly requested features is infuriating but possibly a reflection of the size and make up of the team (person...?) working on this.

When is the export audio feature going to be fixed..?? when exporting your VST track it still renders to 16 bit even tough your project is set to 24 bit. And while they are at it also bring in a freeze button so you won't necesarly have to unload the vst program..

zangetsu01 wrote:When is the export audio feature going to be fixed..?? when exporting your VST track it still renders to 16 bit even tough your project is set to 24 bit.

The project bit depth setting doesn't control that. You need to set the following, 'Preferences > Drag and Drop > Bit Depth'. I believe it defaults to 16 so set that to 24 bit and you should be good.

I just tested it (2.0.8 ) and the resulting file is 24 bit.

MPC-Tutor wrote:

zangetsu01 wrote:When is the export audio feature going to be fixed..?? when exporting your VST track it still renders to 16 bit even tough your project is set to 24 bit.

The project bit depth setting doesn't control that. You need to set the following, 'Preferences > Drag and Drop > Bit Depth'. I believe it defaults to 16 so set that to 24 bit and you should be good.

I just tested it (2.0.8 ) and the resulting file is 24 bit.

Thanks for this.. Because it will save me a lot of CPU power..!! Ever since they've anounced this feature I've been wanting to use it..!!

MPC-Tutor wrote:

zangetsu01 wrote:When is the export audio feature going to be fixed..?? when exporting your VST track it still renders to 16 bit even tough your project is set to 24 bit.

The project bit depth setting doesn't control that. You need to set the following, 'Preferences > Drag and Drop > Bit Depth'. I believe it defaults to 16 so set that to 24 bit and you should be good.

I just tested it (2.0.8 ) and the resulting file is 24 bit.

That’s a dope tip, you should write a manual or something

Masada just dropped some heat