Xpand as a Standalone Plugin

Until we run out of CPU and drive bandwidth... why they put the internal drive connection onto USB... while I get that it was probably simpler to do... makes it an ultimately slower connection.

My guess is that if Akai doesn't have control over the drive (like the internal storage) or doesn't provide a minimum specs where they know to some extent the performance characteristics... they might not add disk streaming in. It's too dependent on user provided storage that could have many different performance characteristics, and is another area for things to go wrong. In many ways disk streaming is a simple problem to solve, but there are enough factors outside of Akai's control that it feels risky.

Given the system, I'm also curious why Akai hasn't allowed for internal storage to be used as swap space so that you make caching samples into/out of memory and back to a cache a problem for the operating system. But... again... USB bus... *sigh*. I know I had mentioned trying out enabling swap to Ultros, but I'm not sure if Ultros had ever tried to enable it in custom firmware.

Straker wrote:

NearTao wrote:The only issue for me is with keygroups because high quality ones can be 100mb and that's a good portion of available memory.
For the rest, it's more then enough for me.
And if they really make disk streaming, the problem is solved.

This and the plugins are the answer. The plugins solved the issue of having to use too many large keygroups, which is why we need Xpand and the AIR Virtual Instruments in standalone mode. And even without disk streaming, a fast SD card and SSD should be fine for most users. I've been using a slow old SD card and an HDD and I have no issues or complaints about sample time, RAM, or CPU Speed. I just don't want to have to use so many large keygroups that take up so much RAM then I have to use all 4 FX slots just to get them to sound halfway decent.

Straker wrote:I wonder why they write 600mb when some serious testers put the available memory at 800mb or even 1130mb (Mpc tutor).

I believe I'm the only person to test with 32 bit samples, so my test should reflect the actual available memory (considering all audio in the MPC is handled as 32 bit float). If someone is loading 16 bit samples in then I can see how they are going to only manage around 600MB, as those files will effectively double in size once loaded. Plus as I state in that article, once you start approaching maximum memory usage the size of the loaded files makes a big difference, i.e. you can load two 50MB files, but not one 100MB file.

Advertising that it only has '600MB for sampling' seems to be related to the above, and seems like they are just covering their backs with this claim, just trying to avoid confusion. I do think it might be better to advertise available sampling time (@ 44.1) like they did on older MPCs.

Yeah I also think that Akai tries to solve the keygroups memory limitation with plugins, which is a good idea.
But this makes me think that it's not 100% sure disk streaming is coming soon.
I don't have the knowledge to go into techincal details, but I have the feeling that Mpc internal architecture was built on an age where there were no daws or computers as today, and so it might be quite different and cumbersome as for foundations. Then maybe it's been coded into linux with new mpc, but still it has some challenges because of its old foundations and maybe disk streaming is difficult to make because of that.
Correct me if I am wrong, I don't have any knowledge about coding.

NearTao wrote:Until we run out of CPU and drive bandwidth... why they put the internal drive connection onto USB... while I get that it was probably simpler to do... makes it an ultimately slower connection.

My guess is that if Akai doesn't have control over the drive (like the internal storage) or doesn't provide a minimum specs where they know to some extent the performance characteristics... they might not add disk streaming in. It's too dependent on user provided storage that could have many different performance characteristics, and is another area for things to go wrong. In many ways disk streaming is a simple problem to solve, but there are enough factors outside of Akai's control that it feels risky.

Given the system, I'm also curious why Akai hasn't allowed for internal storage to be used as swap space so that you make caching samples into/out of memory and back to a cache a problem for the operating system. But... again... USB bus... *sigh*. I know I had mentioned trying out enabling swap to Ultros, but I'm not sure if Ultros had ever tried to enable it in custom firmware.

Yes that makes a lot of sense.
I always have one question about disk streaming. Is it 100% safe for the ssd? I mean, using the ssd all time to play samples or keygroups or whatever, could not this put a lot of stress on ssd itself, so maybe it will last less time or even break?
And could disk streaming lead to hiccups or some latency or some malfunctions?

KaoticShock wrote: I think if Akai were to add some more internal synths (and that's a very big if IMO) you are more likely to see Hybrid 3, as that's a pure synth. I think it's only around 20MB, plus it's there in the software already, so it just makes sense to have the same internal plugins in both environments.

it always amazed me that the sound sets of old sound better then these modern multi gig vst workstations like hype or nexus.

how is it that the triton vst sounds are better then hype or nexus or any other vst workstation

I always wondered why the big gb vsts dont sound good as the old soundsets; but i hope akai allows us uninstall the factory sounds and the vst that people dont need

jpeg wrote:I always imagined why the big gb vsts dont sound good as the old soundsets but i hope akai allows us uninstall the factory sounds and the vst that people dont need

The old sound sets were made by very skilled sound designers who had to learn how to create high quality instruments with the tiniest of memory and CPU allocation. I used to work with one of the guys who made Emu sound libraires, including the big CDROM collections and the Mo Phat sound module, the whole process for creating a library could take many months (over a year for the last one he did). Many of the expansions made today employ precisely none of those skills and most are thrown together in a few days with little or no quality control (IMHO). And I'm not just talking about third party expansions.

Anyone can call themselves a sound designer these days.

Manufacturers have always sold things as numbers. Bigger numbers = more sales. IIRC, back in the day, ROM cartridge sizes were reported in megaBITS, so they got a bigger number to sell. TWO MEGS OF CONTENT ... ahem, that's 256 kilobytes. Nowadays, it's easier than ever to fill big numbers with crap. Looking at the ads that manufacturers have been sending me for the past 15 years or so, their main product is GIGABYTES. Buy our new product, so many gigabytes! Terabytes even.

What comes to the usage of the 2 GB RAM, I can't help thinking, what on earth is all the stuff that they put in there, if they managed to use over a gigabyte of RAM for it. It's just a sequencer. What IS that stuff. Do they preload all plugins with all their data, just in case I happen to use some of it? No on-demand loading from disk possible?

Straker wrote:I always have one question about disk streaming. Is it 100% safe for the ssd?

Yes, it is 100% completely safe. Modern SSD's have plenty of read/writes available in MTBF, far more than you'd every go through on your Akai device. That said, MPC doesn't support disc-streaming.

Yet.

EnochLight wrote:

Straker wrote:I always have one question about disk streaming. Is it 100% safe for the ssd?

Yes, it is 100% completely safe. Modern SSD's have plenty of read/writes available in MTBF, far more than you'd every go through on your Akai device. That said, MPC doesn't support disc-streaming.

Yet.

Great to know.
Sooner or later is gonna come so.

On that note, I'd be more concerned about data longevity now that most high-end storage is shifting to NAND-based SSD that are not single-layer anymore. Not good for long-term data storage when powered down for extended periods of time. The JEDEC standard is that data written to a consumer SSD must be readable after 1 year at 30C. For enterprise SSD, the required data retention period is just 3 months at 40C.

While all SSDs can do far better than those minimums, it is a warning that SSDs data storage is not that durable. SSDs work by injecting electrons into a NAND gate. In SLC, the value of 0 or 1 is determined by the number of electrons in the gate by their voltage. The issue is that the electrons leak out over time due to quantum tunneling.

Once data is corrupted due to this disk rot, it is usually unrecoverable. And for the record, SD Cards use NAND flash memory as well.

Source:

https://www.quora.com/How-long-can-SSD- ... d-from-SSD

EnochLight wrote:On that note, I'd be more concerned about data longevity now that most high-end storage is shifting to NAND-based SSD that are not single-layer anymore. Not good for long-term data storage when powered down for extended periods of time. The JEDEC standard is that data written to a consumer SSD must be readable after 1 year at 30C. For enterprise SSD, the required data retention period is just 3 months at 40C.

While all SSDs can do far better than those minimums, it is a warning that SSDs data storage is not that durable. SSDs work by injecting electrons into a NAND gate. In SLC, the value of 0 or 1 is determined by the number of electrons in the gate by their voltage. The issue is that the electrons leak out over time due to quantum tunneling.

Once data is corrupted due to this disk rot, it is usually unrecoverable.

Source:

https://www.quora.com/How-long-can-SSD- ... d-from-SSD

I always make a copy of all ssd into computer hd once a month.
Easy solution.

Straker wrote:I always make a copy of all ssd into computer hd once a month.
Easy solution.

Make a copy of anything on your SD Cards and USB Sticks as well, as most modern SD Cards/USB sticks use NAND flash chips.

Bolo is calling it. He's saying exactly what I've been wanting for years. 10:56.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK1pE8sQ7_U