What to do with the extra 6G on the Live?

Hello, all.

I am preparing to purchase an MPC Live and I am curious how people are using the 6G of free space that comes stock? With the use of an SSD and/or SD card, is there any use for it, especially if you can’t see it in controller mode?

Also, and this may be off topic, 10G of the Vault 2.0 seems pretty high. I own the Vault among other expansions and the folder only contains 4.75G. What else have they added?

It seems to me that giving you 16G total but only allowing you to use 6 is a bit odd.

Thanks!

There's more than the Vault on there. I think its the Factory Content, the Legacy MPC content, and Im pretty sure there's a bunch of the expansions on it too. Thats where the Drum and Bass, Trap, EDM, etc demos come from. They added a shit ton of extra stuff to my account that I didn't get with the MPC Studio, Im guessing most of that is there?

Haven't used the internal storage at all, but I was already aware of the limits of it long before I got it so I just planned on never using it. I had a hard drive waiting for the Live when I got it so always been saving stuff there. The one thing I do sometimes save to it are fx presets. I make presets so moving tracks/programs around is easier (since you cant drag/drop effects like you can in the software), and you only get the cool directory structure on the internal storage. I hate having to try and keep track of what presets go with what patches, file management isn't exactly fun with the MPC. Plus they just show up in the menu that way too.

I don't use the internal storage since it is only addressable in standalone mode. I prefer to use an internal drive, usb, or SD card so I can actually access it from the computer when I want to.

Presbycusis wrote:Hello, all.

I am preparing to purchase an MPC Live and I am curious how people are using the 6G of free space that comes stock? With the use of an SSD and/or SD card, is there any use for it, especially if you can’t see it in controller mode?

Also, and this may be off topic, 10G of the Vault 2.0 seems pretty high. I own the Vault among other expansions and the folder only contains 4.75G. What else have they added?

It seems to me that giving you 16G total but only allowing you to use 6 is a bit odd.

Thanks!

Personally, as a new Live owner, I wouldn't touch that free space on the integrated storage. I'd use SD-Cards or add a good SSD internally and install all of your new content on those. As the MPC's are updated, who knows how much more room Akai will want on the internal drive for the OS and any other updates - keeping a few GB free can only be a good thing (especially if it needs any of that space as a page file).

DO NOT USE THE INTERNAL SPACE... install an SSD or use your SD cards/usb sticks. If you delete the wrong file from the built in storage it can cause boot issues down the road. Second you can't access the internal storage to organize your folders. You'll have to load your saved project from the internal storage and save it to removable media any way if you ever wanted to "back them up".

Pretend your internal space doesn't exist. I've petitioned Tutor to put this a a sticky topic. If you somehow do mess up your internal space Akai customer service can provide you with a backup iso image though.

I can tell you from personal knowledge, as I've spent the last couple of months on and off with Akai Pro support trying to get my MPC X to be more stable so I wouldn't have to ship it back for warranty repairs/replacement. It seems to be more stable since I deleted everything of the internal storage and reinstalled it using the restore zipfile that you can get from Akai support. The restore zipfile contains the following content that is installed to a blank internal memory of the MPC X/Live: MPC Demos (13 demo styles/sequences), MPC Clips content, The Vault 2.0 content, and Essential Instruments 2.0 content. 11.39 GB of data across 14,796 files/directories. After finally getting it to reinstall to the internal memory successfully last weekend (by using an external USB HD instead of an SD Card or USB flash drive), 11.4 GB of the internal memory is used with 3.1 GB free space left over. When I originally deleted everything the free space/used space pointed out that there was about 800 MB of space used for the hidden firmware files. There isn't a full 16 GB to start with since, as you all probably know, formatting a storage device usually takes up 5-10 % of the storage space for formatting (in this case about 1.5 GB).

I will agree with the others here: use an internal installed SSD/HDD or SD card or USB flash drive or external USB HD for storing your samples, sequences, etc. I have all the other extra downloadable content from Akai Pro's website installed in my internal SSD, along with my complete sample library I've gathered over 25 years. And I'm still only using about 31-32 GB of a 250 GB SSD. 512 GB or 1 TB would be overkill for my needs.

Has anyone here deleted the factory content and had problems?? If so, what were the problems like?

I ask because numerous people have posted that they deleted the content and had NO problems at all, and these posts far outnumber any reports of problems.

Tabletop wrote:I ask because numerous people have posted that they deleted the content and had NO problems at all, and these posts far outnumber any reports of problems.

Then you're not reading enough of the posts heh. Pretty sure the first thing anyone here will tell you is to not touch it. Akai themselves say DONT TOUCH IT. It doesn't matter what the problems are, you're not supposed to mess with it regardless. Whether 'those people' are actually problem free or not, nobody knows but them. Fact is, you will eventually end up calling Akai crying because you decided to free up a few hundred megabytes on your internal storage and broke your $1000 toy.

Tabletop wrote:Has anyone here deleted the factory content and had problems?? If so, what were the problems like?

I ask because numerous people have posted that they deleted the content and had NO problems at all, and these posts far outnumber any reports of problems.

The problems do not show immediately, it’s over time boot errors show, long startup times happen and the software gets glitchy.

I think mine was refurbed/traded back in to Guitar Center before I bought it, because it had what appeared to be some user sequences stored on the internal memory. It was buggy and would crash while just trying to play back the demo sequences. I hadn't even gotten into creating my own yet. Just trying to test the stability of my MPC X by loading up and playing all of the demo sequences one after another. After finally getting everything deleted and reinstalled properly (by using a USB external HD with the restore content instead of a USB flash drive or SD Card to try and restore it), it appears to be much more stable, only crashing when I load a demo sequence that takes up almost all the memory or CPU.

Thankfully when I bought it last April 2019 I got a couple of hundred dollars off it (like $1950 + 6% sales tax instead of $2199 + tax) since I called Guitar Center and ordered it online before picking it up in the store.

I'm glad MPC Tutor just released the 2.7.2 firmware version of the MPC Bible yesterday, since I'm finally ready to start reading the bible and working through all the tutorial examples. Nice to have the latest version of the book match the latest version of the firmware, when I'm first starting out trying to learn the MPC way of sequencing (coming from a Yamaha SU700, RM1x, RS7000 background 20 years ago, different concepts).

As an aside, coming from Eliza from Akai Support regarding my case (direct quotes): "I'm glad to hear that the autorun folder successfully restored all your content. It will help to stabilize the OS because the internal file structure actually has allocated space for certain functions. When you remove the internal content, it can cause the system to glitch."

So in an Akai Support tech's paraphrased words: don't mess with it or you'll get issues you won't like.

Thanks for some detailed accounts of the glitching. Most of the pro-deleting posts were very brief: "I deleted the vault, no problems at all"

I wont delete the content, but it would be nice if it was optional

Tabletop: In case you haven't seen my latest reply in another thread: I'm shipping back my MPC X under warranty and getting it replaced by a new unit due to the stability issues. I'm hoping the new unit doesn't have any issues at all.

Hi there. I had the same problem after deleting the demo content (I'm dumb, I know), I contacted Akai and they gave me the autorun, but I'm supposed to put the USB in when the Demo selection screen pops up, according to the instructions they gave me.

The problem is the demo selection screen never pops up, that was my issue from the beginning, and whenever I plug the usb stick the MPC doesn't react, according to the instructions a popup will appear asking if I want to download the contents.

Any clues on how to make the MPC read the files?

gonaa21123 wrote:Hi there. I had the same problem after deleting the demo content (I'm dumb, I know), I contacted Akai and they gave me the autorun, but I'm supposed to put the USB in when the Demo selection screen pops up, according to the instructions they gave me.

The problem is the demo selection screen never pops up, that was my issue from the beginning, and whenever I plug the usb stick the MPC doesn't react, according to the instructions a popup will appear asking if I want to download the contents.

Any clues on how to make the MPC read the files?

Yes. Contact Akai support (using the case file you opened to get the file in the first place). They’ll get you sorted.

As others have already said in multitude, treat the internal drive as if it is a reserved drive.

I have not seen this being mentioned officially by Akai (does not mean they haven't), but it seems as if they assume various things about the system from various aspects. This apparently being the case, I would leave the space on it alone. They could assume the space being available and expand the usage of the drive. If you use the space up, the system may find itself not being able to perform certain functions, etc.

With closed systems, resources are often more utilized and various customer freedom (read: inventive nature) is not accounted for, in the sense of the device itself. Meaning, the device is often though of as being a swiss army tool, and it being used as such a tool. Customizing the tool itself is often a forgotten element, that is later an additional boon.

I have lots of modular synthesizer components and systems of which many have 'after market' mods and alternative software and so on. With a multi-core computer and running the kernel that the MPC X/Live does, I would see Akai as needing to be able to change direction anytime, in order to satisfy customer demand and make the best device possible. Anything else would be a waste otherwise, IMHO.