A little disappointed

Smackdee wrote:For me it's the little things like if you select an effect you then have to hit the edit button to open it and not being able to move tracks around easily.. Most of these little issues seem like they should be an easy fix. We already have an track edit icon put a track mover in there,two simple arrows would do the trick, select an effect and it pops right open!!!!! All these little things would definitely increase workflow, other than that I enjoy the workflow of these new MPCs

Seedylee wrote:I so want to love my relatively new MPC One, but there's so much that seems half-baked on this thing.

Like, song mode - how can it seriously need all tracks to be aligned between sequences to work properly, whilst simultaneously not providing a means of re-ordering tracks?

Or the way track mutes are recorded - if your track loops within your sequence, there's no way to mute and unmute that track across the sequence.

Or the half-heated clips mode, that doesn't even properly integrate with the looper.

Or the fact you can't change tempo within a sequence - something basically every MIDI sequencer has been able to do since the 80s.

Or the fact you can't reorder insert effects, because it's not like the order of insert effects is at all important or nuffin.

It's so close to being awesome it hurts.

The track mute issue is just work flow. You can jest extend the sequence use the note on/off.

The tempo changes within a sequence is a new one for me. Seems simple enough to just create a new sequence change.

Seedylee wrote:

The track mute issue is just work flow. You can jest extend the sequence use the note on/off.

The problem is that extending the sequence doesn’t work for this purpose if you have tracks that loop within a sequence - you have to go through each track with loops and manually copy the events to make them the same length as the sequence, then extend the sequence. Still, it can be worked around.

The tempo changes within a sequence is a new one for me. Seems simple enough to just create a new sequence change.

Well, this is much harder to work around. Firstly, it means it’s impossible to have Accelerando Or Ritardando in your music. Even if you do use the approach of having different sequences per part, inevitably you will need to use song mode for something, and converting back to a sequence ignores tempo changes. For example, if you want to have an audio track the length of the song, you can’t have any tempo changes.

Look, I get workflow limitations can be inspiring. I’ve mainly used a Korg Kronos as my main sequencer/workstation and that has lots of limitations - but it gets the basics right. The MPC has lots of things to love about it, but it misses musical basics like being able to change tempo, or easily change time signatures. Or re-order insert effects, which is just such a basic and necessary thing to do it’s a bit laughable.

I did do plenty of research on the MPC, but you know what? Most of the popular reviews don’t mention any if these things. It was only when I searched for the specific issues I was having that I found people talking about. And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that a) the latest, greatest MPC should do all the stuff the older MPCs did and b) as a renowned sequencer, it should do all the stuff that pretty much every sequencer since the 1980s can do. I have never, ever come across a sequencer that couldn’t handle tempo changes…

It is so close to being a really well put-together piece of kit, but maybe it’s just not economically viable? I mean, let’s assume the margin for inMusic on an MPC is $100 - it’s probably much higher than that, but let’s assume. If they employed an extra software engineer for a six months to implement some of these things, at $100k a year, they’d only need to sell 500 additional units to cover the cost. They’d have a much more marketable machine. Also, that cost is amortised. I can see they’re building a platform to see them through the future, so you’d think it would be worth the investment. But evidently not.

pase wrote:

Seedylee wrote:The tempo changes within a sequence is a new one for me. Seems simple enough to just create a new sequence change.