Support and discussion for all of Akai’s modern standalone MPCs including the MPC X / X SE, MPC Live 1, 2 & 3, MPC One / One+, MPC Key 37/61.
By CharlesRandolph Fri Oct 26, 2018 3:55 am
soundsafoolmusic wrote:
Having more than two key groups in one project is not tow truck stuff. Memory maxes out on third keygroup load.


Sounds like you have a memory leak or your doing something off. Max'ed out after 2 keygroups? I've had 6 keygroups loaded and never had that issue. :lol:
By soundsafoolmusic Fri Oct 26, 2018 7:02 am
Some of the purchased key groups I load have 4 samples per key accoss 88 notes. (Especially pianos). They sound fantastic and latency is a none issue so the box does have grunt. Certainly no hater on this box (apart from how it looks but that was easily changed).

But then again I could take those key groups hack them into smaller keygroups and then create new expansions. Hence using the creativity others mention. Just a lazy ass really.

Pretty sure that will one day be a way of removing some aspects of a keygroup ( or filtered loading of keygroups) and associated samples. Purge is too all or nothing. That will allow me to do more.

This box has taken me to realms of I have never been before as was always a synth man for over 30 years. Loving hacking samples and twisting them to something new. The workflow took some time to get my head around. But fine with it now.
By soundsafoolmusic Fri Oct 26, 2018 7:09 am
Danoc wrote:
dryad-66 wrote:Daamn i just ordered one :|


Dam are you serious?


Yep I have the rise 25 All the midi data sends the screen into madness as the different modes and screen flip around. Needs some sort of midi filter. The Bluetooth on the rise drops out after 10 seconds. If you use the mini seaboard it’s Bluetooth is newer so connects fine. However same problems with screens all over.

Would love to map the slide and glide to cutoff and lfo modulation per note.

Tbh I think expecting mpe on the live is a bit much. But midi filters would be good so it is at least useable
By CharlesRandolph Fri Oct 26, 2018 7:46 am
soundsafoolmusic wrote:Some of the purchased key groups I load have 4 samples per key accoss 88 notes. (Especially pianos). They sound fantastic and latency is a none issue so the box does have grunt. Certainly no hater on this box (apart from how it looks but that was easily changed).

But then again I could take those key groups hack them into smaller keygroups and then create new expansions. Hence using the creativity others mention. Just a lazy ass really.


I see you're loading up sample pack expansion, which are more like drum programs with 4 layers sounds not keygroups.
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By Bezo Fri Oct 26, 2018 1:26 pm
The last few posts are not what I needed to see. I now wonder how much I'll be able to use stand alone mode as I'd be relying on mostly multi-samples.

So multi-velocity layered instruments kick the Live's ass or no?
By soundsafoolmusic Sat Oct 27, 2018 11:35 am
CharlesRandolph wrote:
soundsafoolmusic wrote:Some of the purchased key groups I load have 4 samples per key accoss 88 notes. (Especially pianos). They sound fantastic and latency is a none issue so the box does have grunt. Certainly no hater on this box (apart from how it looks but that was easily changed).

But then again I could take those key groups hack them into smaller keygroups and then create new expansions. Hence using the creativity others mention. Just a lazy ass really.


I see you're loading up sample pack expansion, which are more like drum programs with 4 layers sounds not keygroups.


key groups across various notes with multi layer - not drum programs. Works great and can do a really great piano with expression on a weighted keyboard. However cannot have more than 2 of the deeper keygroup programs set up in a project at a time. Simple ones - yes fine and can have a few.

Maybe I should play them/record and then when happy resample the output and then delete the key group programs which would not allow easy edits going forward.

There are workarounds.
By CharlesRandolph Sat Oct 27, 2018 12:21 pm
Now it makes sense, why your running out memory. Working like that requires much more ram than the machine has. Sounds like you need a tow truck. :lol: controller mode and a laptop or desktop.

Who made that key group? It sounds like they did not optimize it for standalone.
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By MPC-Tutor Thu Nov 01, 2018 2:38 pm
soundsafoolmusic wrote:Some of the purchased key groups I load have 4 samples per key accoss 88 notes. (Especially pianos).


I see you have the Concert Grand from me, that one was a big one if you used the fully chromatic version, the 'compact' xpm program provided uses significantly less memory. I've since created a new piano pack for the Live/X, The Piano Suite, these acoustic pianos are around 100MB each (still 4 velocity layers).

All my latest keygroup expansions are highly optimised, even the acoustic ones, so you should be able to load many keygroups into memory.

https://www.mpc-samples.com/section.php ... struments/

I know some other developers are putting out some ridiculously memory intensive packs, with synth bass programs running at over 200MB each which is completely unnecessary and overkill for a mono synth instrument. If you multisample correctly, employ sustain looping, use built in filters and lfo, synth bass programs shouldn't be more than a few MB each and still sound amazing. That however takes a lot of effort for the developer so most of them don't bother.

I downloaded the demo instrument for a certain unnamed company's latest 'vintage instrument' expansion release, every single sample in the demo instrument is the exact same length, 12 seconds, regardless of whether or not there is actual audio data taking up that whole 12 seconds. The higher notes have less than 1 second of actual audio, 11 seconds of dead space.

Obviously completely automated chopping, I suspect they even used my VST2MPC workflow template to do the multisampling in the first instance as that employs equal region chopping. However if you are going to use that template in a commercial kit, you need to do the extra work and at least top and tail the samples where required.

The problem is, I wonder how many people these days actually give a shit about this kind of stuff. Personally I think if you are going to specifically claim your expansions are 'designed for standalone' you should be doing everything possible to reduce their memory footprint for a memory limited standalone machine. Otherwise, WTF does 'designed for standalone' actually mean?
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By Bezo Thu Nov 01, 2018 3:21 pm
So it's a balance of quality vs efficiency? You get one, the other, or a bit of both. But you can't have it all.

Yeah, this thing needs more RAM.
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By MPC-Tutor Thu Nov 01, 2018 3:40 pm
Bezo wrote:So it's a balance of quality vs efficiency? You get one, the other, or a bit of both. But you can't have it all..


Not always, most multisampled synth sounds really don't need much memory at all, the guys managing to make excessive sized synth keygroup programs are very wasteful, for example sampling over 4 velocities in an attempt to capture the original synth's velocity sensitive filtering when you can just sample a single velocity and use the MPC's built in velocity sensitive filtering instead, and the results will always be better as that method doesn't have 4 obvious switching steps.

Or sampling chromatic, which is mostly not needed for synthesised sounds. Or stereo when mono is fine (e.g. bass sounds) - and regardless, a lot of stereo can be added afterwards with effects or lfo etc.

The MPC doesn't need a lot of memory for that kind of stuff. I have a synth expansion coming soon that has many programs under 3MB and the programs sound identical to the original analog synths they were sampled from.

Things get tricky with acoustic instruments, you do have to make compromises, I try to keep acoustic programs under 120MB but you have to reduce keygroups, use mono, maybe truncate some natural decays, use looping, reduce some layers etc. But if you are careful it should still sound excellent, just not 'Kontakt instrument excellent'.

So yes, more memory would be great, as would better keygroup features. But lazy sound developers don't help matters. It's only going to get worse though, lots of sites now accepting third party sampepacks with zero quality control, and more tools coming to make it easier to pump out 'by the numbers expansions'.
By CharlesRandolph Thu Nov 01, 2018 4:33 pm
Bezo wrote:So it's a balance of quality vs efficiency? You get one, the other, or a bit of both. But you can't have it all.

Yeah, this thing needs more RAM.


You can have both, but you're going to have to use the larger sound sets with laptop/desktop. The MPC X and Live were not designed, to handle multiple large sample sets. That can change if Akai Pro adds streaming from disk.

Nevertheless, there are companies who are not optimizing their sounds. All they have to do is truncating the sounds and stop re-recording or upconverting 16 bit sound to 24 bit. All it does is add file size, but does nothing for the quality.
By CharlesRandolph Thu Nov 01, 2018 4:45 pm
MPC-Tutor wrote:So yes, more memory would be great, as would better keygroup features. But lazy sound developers don't help matters. It's only going to get worse though, lots of sites now accepting third party sampepacks with zero quality control, and more tools coming to make it easier to pump out 'by the numbers expansions'.


As you know it's a cash grab for them. Some do not care about producing high quality sample set, that inspire musicians. Just like some of these publisher, who re release vinyl records from 16bit CD masters, instead of the master recordings. (When they have them.)

There is just to much fast food sample packs, instead of well crafted sound sets. When I buy a piano sound set. I want a Piano I don't own, played by a world re-known musician, and captured in a studio or location I don't have instant access to.