Akai's FCC submission for the MPC Live Mk II

Tabletop wrote:Fingers crossed!! What could the mkII do that live can't... (Besides CV [enoch ])? Doesnt seem like much...

Not much! A few buttons, a speaker and CV. If l was kepping my live l would not go out my way to get the MKII! Again another missed opportunity by Akai and could of made a great machine. Smh

I’m gonna wait for the Live 3. I need a built in microphone to really get the most out of my MPC and that’s definitely coming next!

40Beatz wrote:Theoretically....if 3.0 came with Disk Streaming....the 2gb of RAM wouldn't mean anything.

Not necessarily directed to you 408, but theoretically wouldnt it have been cheap/fairly easy to put 4gb (or of RAM in these MPCs in the first place?

* (or 8 GB)

^^^^^^^How about 8Gigs of ram with the option to up grade to 256?

Danoc wrote:^^^^^^^How about 8Gigs of ram with the option to up grade to 256?

...hopefully in mkiiii danoc

Tabletop wrote:Fingers crossed!! What could the mkII do that live can't... (Besides CV [enoch ])? Doesnt seem like much...

You're right, it's not much. Just more buttons, CV, and the speaker. Certainly not enough to warrant current Live owners to get the Live II in my humble opinion. After mulling over it, I've decided to keep my Live.

But this is just a simple hardware refresh for a clearly successful product. For first time MPC buyers that want more than what the One offers, the Live MK2 is going to be their only choice without jumping on an X.

Assorted musings: If the X was as successful as the Live, maybe we'd be seeing an X MK2 as well? Any X owners out there hoping for an X MK2?

Right now...My X is Very Close to Perfection. It just needs Firmware adjustments. Maybe Better Q-Link Touch Responsive Knobs.
Not too much to improve upon on the X.

Maybe HDMI Support, to hook up a 75" TV on the Wall

I won't be upgrading until I hit a brick wall that only the Live MKII can alleviate.

A great condition Live MKI should hold its value on the secondary market for quite a while...

Tabletop wrote:Not necessarily directed to you 408, but theoretically wouldnt it have been cheap/fairly easy to put 4gb (or of RAM in these MPCs in the first place?

If they never intended to host third party virtual instruments then it's not needed. Seems that's the reason why they created the Auto Sampler. So the user can make their own sound sets.

The problem with adding 4gb of memory is that their architecture is entirely on one chip, so cpu, memory, etc... is all on one chip. So this will depend on whether the manufacturer makes 4gb versions of the chip, but then it may change the socket and require a redesign. Further, adding memory splits the market in a way that is not likely to be helpful for sellers. Sellers now need to decide to make their packs only work on the 2gb platform, only work on the 4gb platform, or work on both... which can add substantial testing to both Akai as well as to expansion set creators. Worse (for sellers, and often buyers) is that this fractures the market into the haves and have nots... and for much of the life of the "new hardware revision" will still be stuck leveraging to the lowest common denominator in order to keep things simpler.

Now is any of this the reason why? *Maybe*... but I'm just trying to point out a few (of the multitude) of the things that go into considering moving hardware to a new platform. It seems Akai is still (more or less) trying to keep their ecosystem at the software level in parity, so I suspect anything that disrupts this (for now) is going to be avoided until they are ready to launch their successor to this platform. The MPC One has been an interesting viewpoint into how they appear to be seeing their platform... and what the Live mkii launches as will further improve that understanding.

NearTao wrote:The problem with adding 4gb of memory is that their architecture is entirely on one chip, so cpu, memory, etc... is all on one chip. So this will depend on whether the manufacturer makes 4gb versions of the chip, but then it may change the socket and require a redesign. Further, adding memory splits the market in a way that is not likely to be helpful for sellers. Sellers now need to decide to make their packs only work on the 2gb platform, only work on the 4gb platform, or work on both... which can add substantial testing to both Akai as well as to expansion set creators. Worse (for sellers, and often buyers) is that this fractures the market into the haves and have nots... and for much of the life of the "new hardware revision" will still be stuck leveraging to the lowest common denominator in order to keep things simpler.

Now is any of this the reason why? *Maybe*... but I'm just trying to point out a few (of the multitude) of the things that go into considering moving hardware to a new platform. It seems Akai is still (more or less) trying to keep their ecosystem at the software level in parity, so I suspect anything that disrupts this (for now) is going to be avoided until they are ready to launch their successor to this platform. The MPC One has been an interesting viewpoint into how they appear to be seeing their platform... and what the Live mkii launches as will further improve that understanding.

Apparently the soc used on Live and X is a 2gb version and there is an identical one with 4gb.
So they could improve it easily.

Lumi wrote:Apparently the soc used on Live and X is a 2gb version and there is an identical one with 4gb.
So they could improve it easily.

Well, aside from fracturing their user base and Expansion market, sure - it would be easy.

Lumi wrote:Apparently the soc used on Live and X is a 2gb version and there is an identical one with 4gb.
So they could improve it easily.

For various definitions of easily... sure.

I work in the hardware and software business... and my perspective is different.

Either perspective may be valid... without being inside Akai to know how and why they make business decisions we'll never have the objective and subjective information that drives how they operate.

Regardless, I am still happy with my MPC X, and it'll still be the center of my studio for quite some time to come.

NearTao wrote:

Lumi wrote:Apparently the soc used on Live and X is a 2gb version and there is an identical one with 4gb.
So they could improve it easily.

For various definitions of easily... sure.

I work in the hardware and software business... and my perspective is different.

Either perspective may be valid... without being inside Akai to know how and why they make business decisions we'll never have the objective and subjective information that drives how they operate.

Regardless, I am still happy with my MPC X, and it'll still be the center of my studio for quite some time to come.

If the soc is identical, one with 2gb and the other with 4gb of Ram, what could be the problem?
Same cpu, same soc.
So it should work exactly in the same way. Am I wrong?